Neurosis vs psychosis: A comparision

You see, one thing I have to admit is that, for the longest time, I had this grandious belief that it is worse to be psychotic than to be neurotic alone. Yet, after my recent revisit to depressive and anxiety-related symptoms, I eventually come up with the conclusion that when it comes to how bad the conditions could make me feel-- both psychotic and neurotic kinda dasein moments could be really annoying and make me feel really bad... just in different format.

For instance, both the symptoms of psychosis and neurosis could make you feel like you were about to die and, honestly, at points, unfortunately, make you feel that death might be the only solution. Yet, fortunately, I have been able to remind myself time and again that I have worked too hard through out my life to survive and giving it up is not an option....

Take neurosis kinda condition such as anxiety attack or panic attack for instance, which might have happened quite a few times in recent weeks-- following that night when it felt as if the esophagus spasm could have gotten me suffocated.... Although the experience of esophagus spasm did not happen again, for nights after nights, my mouth would turn so dry that it would feel as if the wall of the esophagus was sticking together and there was no saliva at all present.

During this phase, the anxiety level would rise up, the heart would start pounding. The extreme of both psychological and physical discomfort would make me feel so bad to the extent that I would start fearing for my life, and, it would feel as if I were to go into the state of a full-blown anxiety attack--- for a reason... (unconditioned response... sort of...)

After a few days, I started to find myself gradually developing this sense of fear about going to bed... This is because I was started to associate the concept or the act of going to bed with the torment mentioned above. In other words, going to bed is now associated with all the minor inconveniences and could now serve, on its own, as the trigger for the dasein moments which were very much like anxiety attacks. The experience was so annoying that, at point, I would find me thinking to myself.... This is no way to live.... This is no way to live... How could people live this way and I can't live this way?

Thank, God, I eventually live out of that phase and, believe or not, I do thank God for allowing me to fall asleep without da fear no more....

With psychosis, the delusions and hallucinations do amazing work in building delusional stories to scare myself. For instance, on the night before I shipped myself back to the psychiatric ward, I had this delusional belief in my mind that some patient in the psychiatric ward escaped and he is on his way to me-- on the mission to make me go adios....

Although some might believe that delusions are simply delusions and there might not be any meaning to them delusional beliefs. I do find some interesting questions related to the above delusional kinda story.....

Who could that patient be? Who was this cuckoo at large that intended to do me harm? And, regarding the danger I sensed.... what exactly does that sense of danger mean in reality?

Could that sense of danger have something to do the deteriorating mental state I was in? Could it have something to do with the fear of having to go back to the cuckoo's nest? Or, could it have something to do with the plausible guilt I sensed about not having upping the dosage of my meds earlier enough due to my foolish pride about wanting to take control of my mental states without having to use meds as the dominant means and wanting to test my own limits?

In any case, what I am trying to convey with the above scenarios is that... both neurotic and psychotic symptoms could cause high degree of annoyances even though the experiences might be substantially different.... In other words, having psychotic symptoms make you suffer neither more nor less than having symptoms associated with neurotic kinda condition.

Getting back to the topic of honesty.....

Ya, honest to God, for the longest time, I was... psychotic-centered (?). It was not until my recent encounter with the hit-by-a-truck grade of depression and them experiences like anxiety or panic attack did my memories about neurosis get refreshed. And, thereafter, I finally can come up with the, hopefully more impartial, conclusion that, when it comes to the dasein moments both psychotic and neurotic symptoms could afford, all symptoms are equally bad although their nature might be substantially different. 8-O