Psychasthenia

"Psychasthenia is a psychological disorder characterized by phobias, obsessions, compulsions, or excessive anxiety.

The MMPI subscale 7 describes psychasthenia as akin to obsessive-compulsive disorder, and as characterised by excessive doubts, compulsions, obsessions, and unreasonable fears. The psychasthenic have an inability to resist specific actions or thoughts, regardless of their maladaptive nature. In addition to obsessive-compulsive features, the scale taps abnormal fears, self-criticism, difficulties in concentration, and feelings of guilt. The scale assesses long-term anxiety, although it is somewhat responsive to situational stress as well.

The psychasthenic have insufficient control over their conscious thinking and memory, sometimes wandering aimlessly and/or forgetting what they were doing. Thoughts can be scattered and take significant effort to organize, sometimes resulting in sentences that don't come out as intended, therefore making little sense to others. The psychasthenic may be of extraordinarily high intelligence, but often do not perform at their peak as a result of mental interference by obsessions or phobias. The constant mental effort and characteristic insomnia induces fatigue, which worsens the condition. One may also suffer persistant muscle spasms or uncontrollable twitches when experiencing serious mental disruption."

So I'm extending to each and every one of you this question: do you know the line between your friend being a little down to being self-harming and suicidal? Would you even know if you yourself were suffering a phobia or a compulsion, or would you just accept yourself as being fine?

I know that my thoughts are irrational. Yet I cannot stop them. Or even slow their progress. And they are, more and more rapidly, eating away at me.

So what the hell is wrong with me? Will I ever know?

Somebody help me.