Hallucinations are something which you might not recognise at the time, but from everything I've heard - and I've got
interesting friends !!
- you certainly know in retrospect. They tend not to make sense, so there's a severe "What the .... was
that !" feeling. in fact, given the associated altered thinking patterns and colour perception etc, you could think of them as waking dreams.
But that's visual hallucinations, and it might well vary from person to person, and according to illness. I don't know. I know that auditory hallucinations - hearing voices is the classic - are often incorporated into schizophrenic thinking, but that's a disorder where there is often an element of impaired cognition. If you think "they" are out to get you, maybe it makes just as much sense to "hear" God telling you how to defend yourself...?
Concerning the rest...well Havta_b, maybe what it boils down to is that your attitude has changed because you now perceive a different reality. You are taking your illness more seriously. Where before you ignored things, now you are being more pro-active, which implies feeling responsible....and if you've been spending time looking back at past events, traumas, etc, well who wouldn't be disheartened ? I know I had a very hard time with coming to terms with having a chronic illness - I felt like I was a broken-legged runner in the human race.
As for the doctors, I judge the tree by its fruit. They don't talk about "practising" medicine for nothing...the option of a second opinion is always worth thinking about, until you find one you feel secure with.