I Thought I Was Schizophrenic

Please bare with me as this is long.

Lately I have been fearing I am suffering from Schizophrenia. So I posted a few of the thing you'll read in this on YAnswers in the mental health section. But after the replies I got I don't think that's the case. Maybe something else is going on?!

So let's start with just the basics. I am currently a 23 year old female. Full time job, own my house, have 2 kids with a man I've been with for almost six years. My zodiac is Cancer. I have glasses (had them since I started 1st grade) and an astigmatism in both eyes.

Now from the beginning:

Ever since I was a child I have suffered from paranoia (I think). Many times I thought people didn't like me and only pretended to like me, that people usually had ulterior motives. I no longer suffer from this particular paranoia. It has dissipated in the passed oh, 3 years or so. When I was about 6 I started to see things out of the corner of my eyes. I talked to my mother about it after a period of time. She was pretty disinterested but asked what they looked like. I said they were angels. I would see soft white lights glowing and I was never able to look straight at them. I imagined them as God or his Angels. I asked my mother if she knew of anyone else who sees it too. She said my Granny saw angels before she died. So naturally I thought I was going to die soon! But that hasn't happened yet. Whew!

The images of angels went away within a couple years. (it was a regular daily occurrence). But layered on top of that I also started to have what I now know is called "Intrusive Thoughts". Starting since my 7th year of life I would randomly imagine horrible things happening to me when I am at my most vulnerable state. Such as being in the bath tub with the curtain closed and something snatching the curtain down and grabbing me. I imagined them as demons, horrible looking creatures. Or just randomly in the shower but mainly while my eyes are closed when rinsing out my hair. (with the shampoo running over my eyes it's not like I could just flick my eyes open to react to creatures ripping my body apart) Or I while lying in my bed at night I would imagine something reaching up and grabbing my sheets off to attack me. Actually this got so severe that I refused to bathe by myself. I always had to have my mother in the bathroom with me or I wouldn't take a bath. All the way until I was about 12 or 13. My mother would even offer me money to shower without her being in there. Like I said. I would have started these horrible intrusive thoughts at a very young age. I had never seen any scary movies until I was about 11 and I've seen literally 5 in my entire life as it only aides the wildness of my thoughts.

I have since learned to dim the effect that these intrusive thoughts give me. When I have them (as I still do) I just quickly flip the page in my mind book onto something else.

When I was 16 I was diagnosed with bi polar and borderline personality disorder after a bout in the ER following an attempted suicide using Tylenol PM (well, the equate version). Now that was something truly astonishing to me still. I cannot believe I had done that but what was done was done. It was an erratic decision made without any real thought. I fell into a long deep depression. I would cycle through eating 1 day every two weeks for a couple months. To sum it up, it was just a bad decision. Now with the mental disorder I was diagnosed with. I do not believe for even a second I have it. I have not had any symptoms of depression or anything since I was about 16 1/2 so... I think it was a misdiagnosis.

Moving on to more recent times.

I have been experiencing for the passed 6 years or so what most know as "paranormal experiences". Which I am well aware they could possibly not be paranormal, could be I'm just crazy. To name some particular instances; when I was pregnant with my 1st child I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I was not even slightly scared, I was pregnant and just trying to get to the bathroom! I finished my business in the bathroom and headed back to the bedroom. While strolling along in the hallway I hear it. Over my shoulder just behind me I hear a deeply crazed very guttural growl right in my ear. And it was loud. I immediately ran down the hallway, busted open the door, took a flying leap in the air (while flipping on the light switch in mid-air) and landed on the bed and screamed to my partner "THERE IS SOMEBODY IN THE HOUSE!" I had literally thought someone had broken in and was right behind me and wanted to do god only knows. My partner flies out of bed and grabbed the closest form of self defense, our bat. He goes through the house and nothing is there.

Every place I have moved to I have had paranormal experiences. My son and I both had an experience together about a year ago. He was 3 at the time. We were in our house in my bedroom with the door closed. I was folding laundry while he was watching TV in there with me. I hear footsteps coming all the way down the hallway. They were slow but steady footsteps, sounded just like my partners. My son say's "OOOH daddy's home!" I said, "Yeah I know let's be real quiet and when he comes in we'll say BOO!" So my son peaks under the door and whispers "I see daddy's feet!" And I had seen his shadow under door as well. So we sat real still and hear the footsteps walk back down the hallway. I said "Dangit! He's not going to come in!" So I walked out of the room and started shouting for him and he didn't answer. I was getting kind of annoyed because of that. Then I finally went outside and saw his car wasn't there so I called him and said "Why did you leave and not say hi?!" He was perplexed. He hadn't even been home! I thought he was lying but I thought about it and his car is very loud. I hear it coming from 2 blocks away, and I never heard it coming or leaving. This frightened me.

Another time about 2 years ago I was working at my old job at the mall. It's an outdoor mall and once the doors are locked nobody can go in or out unless I let them. It was closing time and I was by myself and counting the drawer down with the music off. Then I hear "Hello?" a mans voice. It sounded like it came from about 10 feet away from me. I looked up startled and thinking I locked a customer in. I didn't see anyone there or hear anything else. I said, "Hello? I'm sorry I locked you in!" And nothing... I looked around and couldn't find anybody! I was frightened and hurried up and finished closing and left. The security alarm system never went off that night after I left so...

I also had a dream several years ago that I will remember always. Every single detail is still in my head and I am just as emotional about the dream as I was the morning I woke up from it. I wrote it down on a personal blog online. Here it is as follows:

"I woke up this morning.

Finally, I could breathe.

I had a dream last night that scared me. It was so real.

I was visiting my old home with 22 acres. It was mostly wooded. But in this dream, it was all cleared off and desolate. There was dust instead of grass. It was dawn, the sky was orange and endless but no sun. I feel like I can't breathe.

I walk into my house, it was only slightly different. So many people were there I didn't know, but I saw my mom there, and my aunt.

No one had any emotion. Barely any words were exchanged by anyone, including between me and my mother. Then I noticed, no one was breathing, I noticed I wasn't breathing. I felt like I was deprived of oxygen but still alive, and moving normally.

Then I realized that this was death. I knew my mom already knew, so did my aunt. But we didn't talk about it. We just wandered through the house.

How did I die? How did my mom die? Well I don't really care. It doesn't matter now.

Since knowing that this was death, I started to feel upset. But, was at such a deep state of hopelessness I couldn't cry. It didn't matter if I did or didn't, this is how it was and how it would always be.

And since this was death, I walked outside and started crying out for my grandpa. He died several years ago. I was so helpless in this new place that I hoped he would give me comfort. That's when my mother told me it's too late, he's surely moved on.

I sit in the dust, motionless, emotionless.

Moved on? To where? Where will I be moving on to? It's too late to start praying. I wish I could breathe. I want out of here. I hate this place, but it doesn't matter, nothing matters now.

I wake up. Still in my hopelessness/emotionless state of mind. I can breathe now. It's so amazing. I start to have feelings. I appreciate them so much.

I take a deep breath, trying to feel every oxygen molecule enter into my lungs, and love every single one of them.

This dream impacted my entire day. I still can't stop thinking of it. How I felt. How much I hated being there. It was horrible. I don't know if I could ever portray how extremely terrible this dream was. It must have some type of meaning, to impact me so much..."

But recently I have mainly just been seeing shadows move from the corner of my eye and it's getting more frequent. I have recently for the passed few weeks been feeling the sensation of someone touching my back in different spots. This sometimes happens to my legs as well but generally the middle, lower center of my back. It really feels like someone is softly putting pressure with their hands (or elbow or whatever) on my back! It is driving me nuts. It happens anywhere I go, any time of day. Any maybe I am suffering from tactile hallucinations. What really got me going is the other day I was at work ringing out somebody (I'm a retail store manager) and I felt this on my back. And I really kind of freaked out. I turned to look (like I always do) and saw it was one of my employees right behind me. I started panting and said "oh thank god. It was only you!" and she looked at me strangely.

So in conclusion: I still have some occurrence of intrusive thoughts, have recently had "paranormal experiences", and am constantly seeing things in the corner of my eyes. I am also feeling things touching my back daily. I just recently had an optical appointment for my eyes. I took the opportunity to ask my Dr. If he noticed anything strange about my eyes. He said they looked healthy and asked me if I was having any symptoms of anything. I cautiously told him I was seeing things move that weren't really there. He gave me a strange look and I quickly backed out of my statement. I thought I was schizophrenic but now I'm not so sure after reading things about it online. What could be going on with me? I have to tell you this is the shortened version of my personal tale. There's so much more I could say but I gave you the just of things.