AdamR: I've been showing up to this thread everyday lately, and pretty much nowhere else... I'm going to challenge myself to
not delete this later today.
Someone asked me a simple yes or no question, and it just triggered a meltdown for me. I immediately developed a stomach ache and headache that didn't go away for two hours. I couldn't stop thinking and obsessing about this one stupid question that I'm sure didn't even have a trace of malice behind it. I started freaking out so bad that I just took something to help me go to sleep. I woke up, and I'm still pissed off about it. My whole day is fucked up now.
I have no idea what to do about this kind of thing. Mental counseling has not been helping - in fact, I think it has only made things worse. For now, I think all I can do is vent. So... Thanks for letting me do that.
I'm probably going to want to delete this post really badly in an hour or two. Be sure to downrep me if I do.
Saving this for the posterity (that is, so that it escapes the deletion). Btw, I read another post of yours recently (a week ago, I think) before you deleted it and I notice a thing in common between that other post and this one-the fact that you freaked out by a simple question/discussion.
I'm going to try and advise something, even though I don't have much experience in such mental breakdowns. I may be suspicious against psychologists and mental medication (I don't know why really, but I always got the impression they said bullshit in order to get themselves rich by prescribing expensive needless medication to their "patients"), but I think there is a possibility you have some serious self confidence issues. That is, a normal person entering a debate sustains considerable stress because this person has to defend the opinion he believes in against the naysayers-but he manages to do the best he can, with the knowledge he has on the subject, precisely because he has faith in his own opinion. Now, what I think might be bullshit, but I think you have such little faith in your own opinion that your brain subconsciously freaks out even at the very thought that you might have to defend your opinion against naysayers and exaggerates this freaking out even with simple yes/no question. An example of what might be happening:
Random dude:"Hey AdamR, do you think the earth is round, yes or no?"
Your brain:*Formulates a whole scenario*
-Thoughts:"If I say yes"
Random person's reaction
as imagined by the brain: "What? Are you an idiot? The quantum scientist Whatever said that everything we knew about the Earth is wrong and the Earth isn't round but is in fact a bowl of soup made by aliens!"
Another string of thoughts:"If I say no"
Random person's reaction
as imagined by the brain: "What? Are you an idiot? What brainfart is that? The thing about quantum scientist Whatever saying that everything we knew about the Earth is wrong and the Earth isn't round but is in fact a bowl of soup made by aliens was an April Fool joke I said jokingly!"
In both cases, the brain imagines a negative reaction from the part of the other person, and fearing this might happen for real, freaks out, not knowing what to answer.
In conclusion, the medication and mental counseling isn't going to work if you don't fight the main problem, which is (imo) a fear that others might react negatively to your opinions. As a remedy you could try taking up first a hobby safe enough to restore some faith in yourself (gardening or pottery making is a good example) and, as a second step, you could try to train your brain to withstand this whole "debate stress", by imagining various debate scenarios with your brain-starting off with easy ones, such as the example I mentioned, or other seemingly easy to answer and obvious yes/no questions, because you already have the knowledge necessary to defend you opinion against the imaginative naysayer. (I try that last thing a lot myself, because I have some opinions with which the current mainstream in my area would disagree with, and who knows when I might have to defend my opinions?).
Hope this advice helps you somewhat. :-)