Question: I have been suffering with terrible, involuntary intrusive flashing mental images throughout my head for the past 2 weeks. They are relentless and refuse to go away. With everything my eyes see, it becomes a flashing image of something terrible and horrible envisioned in my head. For example, when I see a blanket, my mind envisions me suffocating my baby with it. If I see a knife, my mind envisions me hurting the baby with it. It is no longer just stemming from my baby, but will jump to other people in my home, even onto my dog. There is no reason for why this is happening -- I absolutely love and adore my child and dog! I have suffered from anxiety disorder my whole life but have never experienced this before. I also am experiencing depersonalization and derealization very very badly in its chronic form.. I am so dissociated that everything in my house looks unfamiliar, as do my family members.

I really need some help. I am scared that it is the psychosis, even though such a lovely gentleman from this site confirmed that he does not believe it to be the psychosis at all. He is a psychiatrist as well.

thank you so much for your help and support!!!

thank you so much for your reply! I appreciate it. Can you please clarify something for me as I want to make certain of something please. Thank you kind sir for getting back to me.

thank you kind sir for your reply. It is greatly appreciated.

I apologize for sounding repetitive. However I have never experienced this sort of thing and I am quite scared. I have never suffered from any mental illness and I am afraid that I may have something wrong with my brain.
you.

I understand your explanation and as I've stated before, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. But my question is : what is behind these intrusive images and impulses (is it anxiety, depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disease)? For whatever reason, I feel like my mind is in some higher form and I also feel like my body is unable to relax. I have an extreme amount of dissociation-- let me explain this to you further. I feel as if my house and my family members are all strange and unfamiliar. I feel like I am trapped inside of my head and not living apart of the real world. I KNOW THAT this feeling is not normal. I haven't created my own reality but I live like I am outside of my body, as an observer watching myself, if that makes any sense to you. I feel like my head is constantly spinning and can't just stop and remain quiet. I am extremely confused and disoriented. And on top of it, I have the extreme suicidal obsessions or fear of suicide which is an intense incredible fear that is making me afraid of being alone. I get flashing mental images in my head of me killing myself -- they can be of seeing myself in a coffin, my wrists slit, or being hung. The amount of fear these images are causing is very distressing as I am sure you can understand and I would like to have some help understanding and processing all of this.

At this point I am not sure if this is what is defined as depression? I have never had it before so I don't know if it is that.

Thank you kind sir for all of your help. It is most appreciated and I would really like to know if what I am experiencing are suicidal thoughts because I am terrified that it is what I am having.

hope to hear from you soon. Thank

so do you think that I am describing is indeed 'suicidal thoughts ' that people must seek emergency help for? oh I hope not! I am so scared.

thank you for your help. By health setvices, what exactly do you mean? I donot understand.

thank you for your clarification on this.

not at all! you have been extremely helpful. There was one more question/experience that I would like your expert opinion on, if permissable. Please let me know if this is OK and I will send to you.

thank you as always.

Thank you so much!

For example, since having my baby, if I see a blanket, it triggers a mental image in my head of me suffocating my baby with it. If I see anything that could potentially be dangerous, I see myself hurting her with it. I love my baby more than anything in the world and I would NEVER want to see her get hurt, especially by me.

I also get the flashing mental images of seeing myself dead, which I don't know where that one is coming from. I see myself wrists being slit, myself in a coffin, or myself hanging by a rope. It is very scary and frightening and I hope it does not indicate that I wish to kill myself. If I see the word 'SUICIDE', it gets me all scared and worried. I start sweating.

would you call this severe (extreme) anxiety or something like that? another example of something that had recently happened was when I was at the hospital where I work. I saw a man at the cafe that was staring at me and looked very creepy. All of a sudden, I got a mental image of the guy putting his arms around me and choking me! I hadto shake my head I was so scared. I don't know why my brain is looking for something fearful EVERYWHERE now. it's not even focused on my baby anymore. everything seems so scary and causes these intrusive images.

What about the severe dissociation that I am experiencing as well? can you provide any insight on that at all?

Thank you so much for your help. it means so much to me. Hope to hear from you soon.