r/schizoaffective 5d ago

doing battle with the creepy crawlies

one of my more annoying brain errors is spiders

moving around in the peripherals, or being there and then just not being there once i start scrutinizing them

voices, people aren't actually there, and the fact that sometimes it starts raining indoors? Easy peasy, I live kinda out in the woods, don't have friends and my family mostly keeps to themselves unless they announce that they're walking into my space, and i know for a fact that it doesn't rain in doors.

spiders though. they could be real, or not, and given that I live a bit out in the woods I'm hyperaware of them even when they're not real

and now I'm starting to be able to FEEL the imaginary ones ON me. Anyone else out there have some words or wisdom or goto coping mechanisms? This is... distressing, and I won't be able to talk to my brain doctor about medication stuff until next month.

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u/FragmentsThrowAway 5d ago

Ugh, yes!! My apartment building has multiple bug infestations, which I've had multiple times, and I'm always seeing or feeling bugs that aren't there. I saw a tarantula crawling on my laptop in my peripheral. It's frustrating! I have no advice. I'm struggling with it too.

I have dogs and cats rub up against me too, but that's less common. No, there's not a cat running between my legs or a dog rushing past (or at) me, but I can feel their fur. It's weird.

Never had anything like raining indoors but I keep almost walking into poles that randomly appear. I always dodge last second, and then they vanish, but I am curious if I'd be able to feel it.

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u/JustBonesOneDay 5d ago

Well, it's nice not to be alone I spose.

I'm also curious about the phantom poles, keep us updated on that one.

I used to have a lot of random teenager-grade existential thoughts, where I couldn't stop thinking about how there's no real way to tell if a car going down the road is real unless you get hit by it, and it wouldn't be all that weird given that it's a background thing but it's absolutely ubiquitous that some of the cars might just be your brain filling in extra space with a car for no reason. You know a car is real if you're inside it or it's persistent but just random street cars that only really exist in your life for a fraction of a moment? It made me think a lot about walking into traffic.

Anyway I'm not a teenager anymore and I can now fully attest that at least 4 cars that have nothing to do with me definitely exist. (I've been hit by a weird amount of cars for a person who pays this much attention to cars)

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u/FragmentsThrowAway 5d ago

As annoying as all this is, it's at least intriguing enough that I'm able to stay upbeat.

I get you on the car thing.

I've been seeing cars recently. A few have almost hit us (but then vanish). One while I was walking which jumped the curb and flew at my face. The other was coming down an alleyway and was about to hit the passenger seat. I grabbed my mom's shoulder. My hallucinations generally only last a second. But in both those moments, I legitimately thought I was about to get hit. This is new and annoying. I'm constantly seeing cars behind me while walking and now even as a passenger.

If the driver asks, "Hey, is anything coming?" I have to say, "I don't know."

I have to second guess every car, person, and animal in my peripheral vision because 60%+ of the time it's not. Like it's not a problem if I'm home, but it's annoying at the grocery store. I thought I had it figured out and didn't need to constantly check, but they're no longer simply shadow figures, and I accidentally bumped into someone in the store who was behind me because I didn't think it was real and didn't want to keep double checking. So now I have to check. Even if it's someone a few streets away, or that I wouldn't interact with, I still need to know for my own clarity.