OCD or onset of psychosis?

[lukejaegerra]

BACKGROUND INFO: I was previously diagnosed with OCD, and I've had bouts of it all my life but nothing this intense. I saw my psychiatrist recently and he thinks that this is OCD, but mentioned offhandedly that it could be the onset of psychosis but that its VERY unlikely.

Alright, be prepared for an essay.

I spent this last summer living with my best friend in a different city. It was a blast for the most part. Near the end of the summer, I took an edible after not sleeping for two nights straight. I've done edibles before, but for some reason this one put me into a tailspin. I felt as if I were out of touch with reality even though I could perceive it normally, it was more just a feeling. I remember feeling as if my visual field was a picture in a coloring book. I panicked.

The next two days I felt pretty normal. Then, I wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I can't breathe. This lasts for a couple of days, and I end up going to the ER. They find nothing wrong, and as soon as they found nothing wrong with me physically the symptoms dissipated almost immediately.

Fast forward about a week, I have this sudden, super intense wave of anxiety out of the blue. My dad ends up having to drive over to the city I was staying in with my friend and take me home. My mind is a mess and every single thought I have scares me or feels abnormal, and I need constant reassurance that I'm normal.

I come home, and I am riddled with anxiety. I have really intense feelings of derealization/depersonalization and I start questioning, "Is this the life I've always lived?", or "Am I really here?", "what if my reality suddenly changes?", even though all my memories are intact, I just feel different and weird, and whenever I think these thoughts I just get this horrible feeling of dread. But at the same time I know that all these thoughts are bizarre and irrational, they scare me to death nonetheless and I can't shake the fear that maybe they will become true or that I will adopt them as legitimate beliefs. But they never do.

I'm suddenly super aware of the present moment, though I never have been before. I kind of used to be an airhead. But now its like I'm just super conscious of every moment. I wake up every day and am genuinely overwhelmed that I am human and alive. It just seems to improbable. I enter into this super intense existential crisis where I'm just questioning the meaning of life, why we are here, and how. I'm bewildered and perplexed by every moment. Reality just seems overwhelming and its almost like I just have this new level of awareness that I never had before. This continues for over two months, which is where I am now.

I see my psychiatrist, and he offhandedly says that its possible this could be the onset of psychosis but that its HIGHLY unlikely. This sends me into another tailspin where I'm scared to death that I'm becoming psychotic! I see my psychiatrist again and he assures me that he really doesn't believe that I am, and that he thinks this is maybe a spiritual awakening and that he believes this will end up being a positive thing. I see another therapist (has her masters, not a PhD) and she also assures me that I am not psychotic and that if I were, I wouldn't be afraid of these things being true but I would whole-heartedly believe them. Also, I've read that people who are psychotic are not aware of their unusual thoughts, but its like I can't escape the awareness of them. I take two online psychosis screening quizzes, both say that I am not psychotic. But I just feel so different than I used to and am perplexed that this is just OCD! I feel like my OCD is trying to make me believe that I am psychotic.

So I guess I'm looking for reassurance. What does anyone make of this? Is this the onset of psychosis, or extreme OCD? Is this just a major mental transition?