Ok, but I still was out of my mind. Perhaps with that story, plus the melting ear wax, the doctor felt confident in telling me what my fever had likely been.
Wet Willies are more reliable in this regard.
Kony 2012
Every once in a while, about once a year, I am overcome by a very strange and scary sensation. It’s this extremely intense sensation of “being in a hurry” (hard to describe), and it feels as though time is sped up. It is accompanied by a difficult-to-describe echo-like hallucination. Like each of my thoughts are accompanied by this echoing sped-up “hurry hurry hurry hurry.” It is very disturbing and surreal. It only lasts for a few minutes, but I am always worried by the prospect that it will return or that next time it will not go away. I’ve always been curious about it, and wished I would come across an account of a similar experience, but I never have. In some ways I feel it is similar to “deja vu”, and least in the sense that it is a surreal “brain fart” of short duration that possibly gives a small window into the world of psychotic experience.
Does depression/anxiety severe enough to drop out of school count?
Related South Park clip.
I do have one gripe about the clip. Our mayor isn’t that fat anymore.
I’m going mad right now.
Had a nervous breakdown during Christmas one year when I was in high school, when we were exchanging gifts-I recall getting a model of a sailing ship from my mom, and just falling to pieces (of course I love the sea and sailing ships, so it probably acted as a sort of trigger in a perverse way). I understand now it was just the realization that mere physical gifts weren’t what I needed, tho of course I didn’t know at the time what it was that I did need (that came more than a decade later).
Yup. I had a psychotic disorder as a teenager, however at the time it felt normal. One of the things you lose when severely mentally ill is the ability to comprehend that things aren’t right. I was able to grasp that my thoughts were ‘different’ than other people, but that didn’t invalidate them.
Also I had severe food poisoning a year ago which (I think) screwed up my blood sugar. I was having hallucinations for a day or so.
This isn’t easy to answer. People react so differently.
I think the biggest thing is how well you know the person, and if you know if they have PTSD.
The long term goal seems to be to get the rational part of the brain to override and eventually rewrite the faulty emotional circuits. There are a number of treatments, but that is long term strategy.
For a stranger, you have to keep not only your safety in mind if you attempt to intervene, but you don’t know what may cause another attack. Is the woman hysterical because of a flashback in which the rapist had the same color of shirt as you? Is the guy a Navy Seal and thinks anyone he doesn’t know is an enemy? If it looks bad enough, 911 is the best bet.
If you know the person, or can recognize a flashback, and things aren’t that severe somethings which help some people are getting them to a calmer location, as there may be something in the environment which is triggering the reaction.
Having them take slow breaths reduces the oxygen in the blood, which in turn signals the brain that there isn’t a saber-tooth tiger chasing them, and lowers the adrenaline.
Somethings that I do is to literally look around for tigers, not that I’m expecting to find one, but to reassure myself that there really isn’t danger. The nice thing is that if I do find a tiger, I’ll save the millisecond of reaction time since I’ll already be in panic mode.
When I was going through a phase of panic attacks, I worked with my wife on recognizing certain looks or behaviors as signs of impending attacks, and on steps to take. e.g. Leave the shopping mall NOW, shopping can always wait. Part of therapy is for individuals to learn what it takes their mind to accept that they aren’t back in the danger zone.
I have. When I was a teenager. I went to Mass one Passion Sunday (where they laboriously re-enact the Crucifixion). I browned out during the whole thing and for several weeks after kept thinking I could see and hear Roman Centurions marching to take me away to be crucified.
I remember when I snapped out of it, during that period of time apparently I couldn’t see colours properly because one day I could see the grass was green, they sky was blue and slowly I started to regain my perspective.
I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place - even your emotions have an echo in so much space. And when you’re out there, without a care? Yeah, I was out of touch. But it wasn’t because I didn’t know enough - I just knew too much.
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly.
Who do you…who do you who do you who do you think you are? 
That song gets pretty deep if you let it. I’ve mentioned to people that “I’m not all there sometimes.” Recently I was told by someone who’s known me for a long time, “Oh, you’re all there. You’re just also in a few other places nobody else goes.” I took it as a compliment, but I still try to remember that “crazy” = “not understandable by others.”