Mental Health What exactly are delusions?

[iridescentblack]

I read through a book on meditation recently where the author mentioned delusions a few times, and though he's not a doctor, he seemed to have what I'll call a fair understanding of delusions.

He gave a somewhat anecdotal example of "hearing a noise and then following it up with creating a persistent monologue that either seeks to explain or reason the cause of the noise, where it came from, and what it has to do with anything". I guess the point of some of his writings on the particular topic was - to paint another example - that monks who meditate in public places can seemingly ignore everything going on around them. I guess in a way this begs the question: is the latter example similar to ignoring your problems and therefore not addressing them, or are this question and it's contrast mutually exclusive?

I think I may even have a discussion with my doctor about delusions and what they are. I'm hoping to hear it from him, rather than well-rehearsed rehashing of college material.

When I was first told about delusions by doctors, in the past, they said I was grandiose. I honestly still don't get this one. How is it that I'm forced to pay a doctor and sit in an office with him while he bullies me like this? What the hell are delusions? Delusions of grandeur seems to suggest that I either profess that I'm some kind of magical saint that has incarnated and has a specific duty or that I possess a magical skill that other people can't perform. Neither of these things had I ever claimed to doctors and yet somehow they felt the need to bully me nonetheless.

I've gone over a few sites in order to try and understand what the hell they're talking about and how it pertains to something that was never mentioned or brought up, let alone discussed in great detail.

Are delusions a trait that only doctors can pick up and somehow my body language is a factor in what they're determining? I mean, I've read extensively about the mind power of bullying. I even have stockholm syndrome from it. If anything, I think I can draw a direct correlation between Doctor X telling me I was grandiose, fast forward to about 1-2 years of treatment following release from a hospital and under treatment of doctor Y: he starts to convince me that I have delusions of grandeur and what they look like and then about 2-3 years into treatment - doctor Z is confirming this as well.

How the fuck is this a science?!

 

[deficiT]

Damn, well I'm sorry you're feeling bullied by the doctors. I've found many doctors lacking as far as being good, caring listeners.

What are the symptoms of your so called delusions or grandiosity? Is it just a matter of how you act, or is there some identifiable hallucination?

 

[darvocet21]

You put your finger on the reason why doctors "practice" ... although once they receive letters after their name many of them forget this, while some are dismissive of other doctors who disagree with their diagnoses. But one of the worst traits is a doctor who fails to adequately listen to their patients.

 

[Shady's Fox]

And that's why Swedish/Norway are the best at offering a tool box of health care.

 

[iridescentblack]

Damn, well I'm sorry you're feeling bullied by the doctors. I've found many doctors lacking as far as being good, caring listeners.

What are the symptoms of your so called delusions or grandiosity? Is it just a matter of how you act, or is there some identifiable hallucination?

There were a lot of interlopers who intervened in my treatment. My delusions according to the first psych who diagnosed me as paranoid schizophrenic were "visual and audio hallucinations". I wasn't suffering from either of those. I think a lot of the basis that went into my treatment was surmised and made up. It wasn't until I was about 29 that doctors actually started to have full conversations with me about what was going on in my mind. This began when I was 17

As far as grandiosity, I don't really know. My parents used to kinda just throw that word out there on occasion until eventually I absorbed what they were saying.

 

[iridescentblack]

I'll lay out some more details that people can draw their own conclusions from:

Hindsight's 20:20 but I certainly wasn't received by doctors following the onset of psychosis with much care.
At first there were no visual or audio hallucinations. I think if anything, psychosis had deconstructed certain barriers that were initially in place to "protect my thoughts" or at least regulate them. By the time I was 19 years old, living in a trailer, I was pretty freaking crazy, but functioning way better and getting in less trouble than I had the years prior on medications. Whether or not gaslighting and brainwashing by doctors was the issue or not, at 19 years old I was almost convinced I was "hearing voices". They weren't however audio hallucinations. I actually heard my first audio hallucination at the age of 25 and that was while preparing for sleep (which some doctors say is completely normal anyway), when the voice of a girl - who seemed to "say" something in response to a noise I was focusing on at the time - said "What's that?"

While still living in my trailer, there were some pretty bizarre things going on and I think if I had understood more about "thought forms" I would have had a better understanding about what was going on. So, one night I was sleeping in my living room and had this delusion that there were vampires living under the floorboards. A while later visiting my mom, I guess we got into an argument and it was so fucked UP! She said the exact thing about vampires living under my trailer - despite that I had never said anything to her about that!
A similar thing happened around the same time. I was looking through my baby book and for some reason had this delusion that turned into a belief that I couldn't shake. I guess something in me lied to myself and insinuated that some of my family members sexually abused me. Later my mom did the same thing she did with the vampires, claiming that I believed my "uncle raped me".

My brother used to do it too. He was convinced that somehow I raped my cousin. I eventually noticed a trend to all those thought forms.

It was so bizarre, but most of all unfair. I wasn't in a position where I could defend myself because I couldn't prove that the thoughts were mine or hers or 'just a thought'.

Years later I started reading more and more books on the subjects surrounding what I had been dealing with all those years. These last 5 years have been some of the worst but I've also seen the most progressions in that time. I was able to use meditation along with other things that I learned from books, to not only reconstruct the metaphysical barriers that had been torn down due to acute psychosis, but I was also able to (eventually, with a lot of work and practice) protect myself from intrusive thoughts that were not my own. I effectively got my own life back, in other words.

Furthermore, I try to respect people's beliefs on things like schizophrenia as best I can so as not to seem like a turncoat getting in their way. Based on some of the material I've read lately, I'd say inorganic entities are to blame. The convenience of my mom having delusions that I was having and the fact we shared them... I mean, that right there seems like the bond between mother and child had somehow been warped. I hate to insinuate it was otherworldly because it sounds ludicrous, but something conveniently created the thought and made her say it. Mom's are supposed to be able to tell kind of what their kids are up to, right? Hence the phrase "I have eyes on the back of my head."

 

[finitelifeform]

Delusions are tricky.

One good example is elite athletes. Their self delusions are so extreme compared to the average person if you took away their profession you would think they were bordering on losing it. Conor McGregor for example was on welfare with a dream to become a world champion in the biggest combat organization. Technically all that existed within his mind was a delusion, a significantly extreme delusion at that.

If you put Conor homeless unwashed on a bench and give him a half empty can of beer, missing teeth and scruffy clothes you would write him off. But the same isnt said when the stars align and the environment supports the powerful beliefs. In fact, they may even materialize given the right fertile soil.

So what seperates them? Thats where it is difficult. We are all delusional to a certain extent. Self delusion, like mentioned above, is the most persistent delusion we have. But we consider it healthy because we envision falling part and detaching from society if we dont have a self delusion to believe in. When you want to do something highly unrealistic where the odds of attaining whatever it is you want are stacked as near impossibility, are you delusional? Again, reference to Conor and all the otherwise average people who utilized the power of belief, and even delusion and perhaps even madness to some degree, and transformed their life and now they are considered superior members of the society we live in.

If you talked to a hunter gatherer several thousand years ago, you would have been considered bonkers if you said in 2021 we would have things in our hand that allow us to communicate with people at the other end of the planet and we would be able to access the entire available knowledge of our species by visiting an address and absorbing the information. Would you have been delusional back then?

When you put it like that, its not black and white. Delusions are entirely culturally agreed upon. Our mental health system is based on cultural beliefs and assumptions about what is considered normal. In some cultures if you say you are God its no big deal. In the Western world if you say you are God you are considered psychotic. Cultural paradigms have a huge part to play. This is reflected in the entire history of mental illness in Western society by the constantly changing ideas of what normal is. Normal not even 200 years ago would be weird and backward to us today, and vise versa. In terms of psychiatry, we were sick back then, or are we sick now?

You could be having a pivotal transformation in your life that fields contrary to the current medical paradigm around psychiatry would consider a spiritual crisis. Which ones are the charlatans? How can you actually distinguish between a "proper" spiritual crisis and all-out psychotic breakdown? Within the confides of possibility, the most extreme cases could be simply reflections of a monumental transition towards a spiritual awakening. To most psychiatrists though, you are to be hospitalized and your experience enveloped by pathology and medical/biological models that reduce your experience down to a faulty brain.

To me, and I am no expert, only a keen lurker trowling the known landscape around these subjects, it all depends on how these delusions affect you and whether they are harmful to you or to others. And I guess you have to put that last bit in as a disclaimer because when people are sick sometimes they can think and act in ways that are harmful to themselves and society. Being open minded and questioning modern psychiatry doesnt imply that mental illness is a benevolent experience that all people all of the time handle within themselves and do not affect those around them. They are people whose intentions at the time of recognizing their illnesses, are going to endanger themselves and/or others, and some will act on the constructs within their mind.

If your delusions are persistent and cannot be verified as happening with another, and/or have no basis in reality whatsoever ie the government have put a chip in my brain or, my dog is talking to me and telling me he is the devil or, people are conspiring to hurt you when you walk down the street etc you can say with a high degree of confidence what you believe is not healthy and not conducive with what could be considered normal behaviour in most people. The last part is a little difficult to process because we go back to what is "normal" and normal obviously is such a subjective thing. Sure, you can probably say there is a general pattern of potential behaviours exhibited in humans that has neutral or positive affect ie it is there for a reason and helps us or at least forms the basis for a large set of behaviours we exhibit usually and without illness. But we also dont live in a "normal" world and our environment is by no means "normal" and so we cant say we have the evidence to say we live in an environment that enhances the possibility of mental health as opposed to illness when you dont need to look too far into the daily functioning of our society to see a whole endless list of problems that act like cancer slowly degrading quality of life and overall health and wellbeing. The mental health system ironically is on that list! We dont have a panacea to test our theories knowing we have the optimal conditions, unless you are extremely priveleged and you hail from higher demographic brackets where the conduits for such development, and sustaining thereof, are more present.

Basically put, delusions would have to be detrimental to you and your life and for this to be persistent so to form patterns of behaviour that are stable over time, even if the behaviour within these patterns are not. Instability for example over time is, from my awareness, a repititive/stable pattern of behaviour, regardless of whether you are actually stable or not! Erratic behaviour over time although erratic within the context of it being experienced, is outside of the framing a repetitive pattern of behaviour. Someone might be erratic throughout the year and it flare up in sporadic episodes. On a timeline though however, those sporadic episodes make up an identifiable pattern to anyone impartial enough to see it. It also depends on context and that includes many things like social and cultural factors. A family that is extremely uptight and rigid may have shared delusions about acceptable normal behaviour that actually outside of the family are not representative of collectively agreed upon definitions of normal. You still wouldnt consider them delusional to the extent of being unwell and even if they were, its nuanced to that particular social and cultural context. As long as the family are not harming one another with such rigid belief systems, its probably not an issue a psychiatrist needs to look at. Likewise and with many cultural contexts, what is normal in one cultural may be bat sh*t crazy in another.

Remember we are defining mental illness using cultural cues mainly. For all the evidence of brain differences, we are still looking at brains within bodies within a person within a society. The latter is the biggest determining factor.

I guess its about drawing the line in the sand.

 

[iridescentblack]

We are all delusional to a certain extent.

^This

I had a long distance relationship for a while which ended rather badly. She kept insisting that my delusions were a problem because she couldn't address her own.

It honestly makes me fucking sick to my stomach, when people either don't recognize or outright misrepresent themselves claiming they either don't have delusions or just don't know that they are.

That same long distance partner was the same person who introduced me to Q-anon for fuck's sake.

If your delusions are persistent and cannot be verified as happening with another, and/or have no basis in reality whatsoever ie the government have put a chip in my brain or, my dog is talking to me and telling me he is the devil or, people are conspiring to hurt you when you walk down the street etc you can say with a high degree of confidence what you believe is not healthy and not conducive with what could be considered normal behaviour in most people.

I actually find it fun to make a point to people usually that a lot of the common delusions can be explained pretty easily. Actually, this one I bolded out there started with nanomachine technology. Nanomachines actually were in fact used in various ways. One of those ways to store nanomachines inside of car tires so that they would literally launch out of the tires as they roll, I presume. Nanomachines never actually did anything though. The book I read about this stuff was on apocalyptic and though it proposed the idea of flying helicopter sharks, nanomachines are very unlikely to do anything at all. Ever.

I have an ongoing delusion. One that has affected me for about 17 years now. I believe I have telepathy. I've never actually verified that I do though, because there was never any need to. Sure, an open minded partner or friend could volunteer to help me out someday, but I'm not really sure that's the aim I need to effectively monitor or even quell the delusion. I spend numerous hours all day, telepathizing. It's actually how I cope with a lot of what I've been through. I primarily just meditate or play music when I'm not telepathizing, until "someone thinks of me" and I "telepathize" with them for a while. Quintessentially probably what's really happening when I am engaged in telepathy is the person's not hearing me at all. Their unconscious might. This is kind of a hard road, though, because if someone is thinking or concentrating on me, that means I have a moral obligation to no affect their unconscious in a negative way. This is especially difficult for people who loathe me. I try not meddle with them any longer than the duration of the telepathy lasts for.

Other than that, I legitimately can't explain it or even reason it well. Situations in life can be so unjustly unfair. For people who are sensitive this is no exception. But every once in a while, even after dispelling all the negative feelings from a situation that was troubling, at random times I feel like I'm being invaded. This is rather strange you see... there's absolutely no reason at all, why someone I barely bumped into should thinking about me for hours let alone a few minutes. Either way, telepathy barely affects my social life. I make time for family and friends to address their needs when I do. When I'm not, I think fondly of other people I've known.

 

[finitelifeform]

^This

I had a long distance relationship for a while which ended rather badly. She kept insisting that my delusions were a problem because she couldn't address her own.

It honestly makes me fucking sick to my stomach, when people either don't recognize or outright misrepresent themselves claiming they either don't have delusions or just don't know that they are.

That same long distance partner was the same person who introduced me to Q-anon for fuck's sake.


I actually find it fun to make a point to people usually that a lot of the common delusions can be explained pretty easily. Actually, this one I bolded out there started with nanomachine technology. Nanomachines actually were in fact used in various ways. One of those ways to store nanomachines inside of car tires so that they would literally launch out of the tires as they roll, I presume. Nanomachines never actually did anything though. The book I read about this stuff was on apocalyptic and though it proposed the idea of flying helicopter sharks, nanomachines are very unlikely to do anything at all. Ever.

I have an ongoing delusion. One that has affected me for about 17 years now. I believe I have telepathy. I've never actually verified that I do though, because there was never any need to. Sure, an open minded partner or friend could volunteer to help me out someday, but I'm not really sure that's the aim I need to effectively monitor or even quell the delusion. I spend numerous hours all day, telepathizing. It's actually how I cope with a lot of what I've been through. I primarily just meditate or play music when I'm not telepathizing, until "someone thinks of me" and I "telepathize" with them for a while. Quintessentially probably what's really happening when I am engaged in telepathy is the person's not hearing me at all. Their unconscious might. This is kind of a hard road, though, because if someone is thinking or concentrating on me, that means I have a moral obligation to no affect their unconscious in a negative way. This is especially difficult for people who loathe me. I try not meddle with them any longer than the duration of the telepathy lasts for.

Other than that, I legitimately can't explain it or even reason it well. Situations in life can be so unjustly unfair. For people who are sensitive this is no exception. But every once in a while, even after dispelling all the negative feelings from a situation that was troubling, at random times I feel like I'm being invaded. This is rather strange you see... there's absolutely no reason at all, why someone I barely bumped into should thinking about me for hours let alone a few minutes. Either way, telepathy barely affects my social life. I make time for family and friends to address their needs when I do. When I'm not, I think fondly of other people I've known.

The delusion might also have some grounding in reality. Telepathy could in some ways be better understood as theory of mind. You could then get someone who is highly sensitive and very emotionally intelligent and you have someone who is pretty close to being able to read into people a lot more and potentially have a better understanding of those they interact with then they do themselves.

You also get children who become extraordinarily gifted in observing their environment and those within them. Unfortunately its usually down to abuse but the positive in the long term is they often can sense deeply another persons presenting state. They may even be able to identify extremely nuanced behaviours and how they change before the person expressing them becomes aware. You find these people can access an extremely powerful and rich area of the psyche and unlock another level of human interaction and understanding of psychology.

 

[tubgirl.jpg]

And that's why Swedish/Norway are the best at offering a tool box of health care.

LOL, are you serious? Sweden's psychiatric health care is a fucking joke. And regular health care?
Puh-lease, don't make me laugh.

Norway is great though. They got it figured out.

 

[n3ophy7e]

@tubgirl.jpg What's wrong with Sweden's psych healthcare?

 

[tubgirl.jpg]

@tubgirl.jpg What's wrong with Sweden's psych healthcare?

Goddamn, I can't write on a phone.
But over presrcipton, no tapering, you can't get psychiatric care unless you have tried to kill yourself.
My friend went there for help, and they refused. So he went home and tried to kill himself. And he did.
NA here is not anonymous. You have too go to the Social Services and sign up.

Every psychologist Ive met has been idiot. One left the room, and came bacj with a printed Wikipedia page to learn about oxazepam.

My th7mbs are to fat. I'll e back later, dudes and dudettes.

 

[n3ophy7e]

Goddamn, I can't write on a phone.
But over presrcipton, no tapering, you can't get psychiatric care unless you have tried to kill yourself.
My friend went there for help, and they refused. So he went home and tried to kill himself. And he did.
NA here is not anonymous. You have too go to the Social Services and sign up.

Every psychologist Ive met has been idiot. One left the room, and came bacj with a printed Wikipedia page to learn about oxazepam.

My th7mbs are to fat. I'll e back later, dudes and dudettes.

That is horrible. Outrageous

 

[tubgirl.jpg]

That is horrible. Outrageous

It is. They asked him, Have you tries killing yourself. And he said no, that's why I’m here. And the assholes tell him they cant help him unless he has tried to kill him self. So he went home, and things went like they did.

They gave me benzos and said I could mix with alcohol. The whole health care system is on the verge of collapse.

I can't believe Sweden has such good rep. regarding health care.

Norway, om the other hand, is amazing.

Fucking awful.

 

[tubgirl.jpg]

The health care in my county is fucked. And looking at the news and stuff, it doesn't look betters anywhere else.
I've seen so many prescriptions that makes no sense. Some doctor will give you clonazepam at 6mg/day, like my sister got for MENSTRUAL PAIN, or, if you break your foot and it swells and become black and blue and they put on the cast to tight, you get paracetamol.

I can't speak for the entire system in Sweden obviously, but one rotten branch can infect the whole tree.
And like I said, according to the news and forums, it's a disaster.

Swedish health care is not like the movies. It's shit.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

It's about having a point of view that someone without mental illness would say is far enough from reasonable to be true. I'd trust your caretakers on this one. Recovery is not easy, but it can take the edge off to completely confide in your treatment team of what you experience.

 

[Ketamania]

The health care in my county is fucked. And looking at the news and stuff, it doesn't look betters anywhere else.
I've seen so many prescriptions that makes no sense. Some doctor will give you clonazepam at 6mg/day, like my sister got for MENSTRUAL PAIN, or, if you break your foot and it swells and become black and blue and they put on the cast to tight, you get paracetamol.

I can't speak for the entire system in Sweden obviously, but one rotten branch can infect the whole tree.
And like I said, according to the news and forums, it's a disaster.

Swedish health care is not like the movies. It's shit.

Wow. Thank you for sharing some first hand experience. This is outrageous. Unfortunately, the US is pretty similar. I can’t go to a single hospital without them “scolding” me for having a benzodiazepine script.

 

[deficiT]

Wow. Thank you for sharing some first hand experience. This is outrageous. Unfortunately, the US is pretty similar. I can’t go to a single hospital without them “scolding” me for having a benzodiazepine script.

Yeah... I wasn't able to hang on to my benzo or Adderall script after I had to go through treatment. Seeing as how they're "addictive".. when as a matter of fact I only ever took those meds exactly as prescribed I didn't "abuse" them once

 

[Ketamania]

Yeah... I wasn't able to hang on to my benzo or Adderall script after I had to go through treatment. Seeing as how they're "addictive".. when as a matter of fact I only ever took those meds exactly as prescribed I didn't "abuse" them once

Similar experience here. I was in the middle of trying to find a new Dr., and every single bloomin’ one of em wouldn’t prescribe them. I don’t abuse them either, I hate this “blanket” stereotyping by doctors now days.

 

[finitelifeform]

I can kinda see the sense in medical professionals not rushing to prescribe addicting drugs and ones at that with known abuse potential and more than enough evidence pointing at the catastrophic harms they cause. It's painful though if you REALLY need those drugs and you are punished because of those that do abuse them, and lets be honest, for everyone waiting for a script for legitimate reasons, many will be waiting to abuse the drugs they get. If the current drug policies were not so f*cked up though, these issues wouldn't be as big as they are because abuse would go down when the correct conditions are in place.