Delusions

@FearofUnknown Yes my friend as someone who suffers from psychoses i have had many of those throughout my life.

In reality i could talk about all that for years! So much to it all.

However in a nutshell, it takes BIG guts to face yourself made up of the lies of your delusion - for this means you freely let yourself become the person you fear you must be, even while fearing yourself to be like that!

Big deal!

Yet i found that then the truth of yourself can explain why you experienced yourself your delusional self, and so true you can show you who you really are. After you see this for yourself it is not hard any more to reject the psychotic images your confused mind spins at you, and so can get you away safely from the power of the psychotic delusion. (which i know to be VERY powerful mentally)

Honestly this is the only way i found to be successful breaking away from psychotic delusions pestering. The trick is to know your delusion is a lie but YOU ARE REAL, so the truth of who you really are, will get you away from who you are not, but fear you have to be, because of the psychosis.

(The process only stuffs up, when you try to be someone you are not. The answer lays in honesty, love and care, and NOT being JUDGEMENTAL towards yourself.)

It takes real courage and resilience to find yourself underneath the lies you do not want to be my friend, and more often than not i had the loving support of my wife doing it, as well as my faith in the love of God, but as a psychotic person i have found this to be really helpful recovering from the power of a psychotic episode.

Thanks for sharing. I find the lies persist because they appear better than the truth. Like if the delusions were real, I would be a better person than I am now probably because I am too judgemental of myself. I wish some of my delusions were real, like having a son. That's why I can't let go of it. Hope you can be better @DownMoreThanUp

@RiverSeal @Dimity , not sure if you can share your insights to the original post here? I'm interested to learn more and understand, as I have very limited knowledge about delusions and psychosis.

Hello @FearofUnknown are these ongoing beliefs or episodic?

I've been delusional a few times. The worst have been fairly elaborate stories coupled with imagery I took to be memories when more likely dreams or just imaginary. They've been of limited duration as I've responded well to my antipsychotics. I hadn't had an episode for many years but had one a few months ago. The stories were pretty detailed but one fragment was some sort of global catastrophe with nuclear threats and outbreaks of plant diseases and another fragment was I was living next door to a drug lab and a cartel was trashing my home while I was in hospital, and there was an organ harvesting gang at work somewhere. But I didn't experience these as hallucinations or voices, more the quality of remembered nightmares after a bad night. The fear stayed with me though.

Years ago when I was experiencing episodes more often some of the themes recurred and there were some odd beliefs - not really core beliefs but ideas - that I couldn't quite shake off. They resolved with psychotherapy and better meds, and may have arisen from early trauma I'd been repressing.

I have patchy memory of my past psychoses and can recognise them as aberrations that I re-emerged from.

I guess I must have been reasonably high functioning as I held down various jobs with varying levels of success but in retrospect it was a tough gig.

@FearofUnknown hello yes i have had many similar thoughts

TW: Delusions

i have had lost of very scary and strange experiences you are certainly not alone.

@FearofUnknown Yes i understand that perfectly well my friend. It has been like that for me as well.

At times i raged my true self because i wanted to be the lie to be me. For we choose to remain delusional because we prefer it that way, even though it hurts us badly in our true self, but love the lie more than who we ourselves truly are. No wonder this is hurting you though or not?

For true you is hurting your decision to hold onto the lie as your image, but reality tells you it is not so. It remains for you to decide who you will support to be - hold onto your identity a lie, where you are not true and hurting that in your true you to be like that, or choose the truth you really are even though you do not like yourself to be like that, holding onto the truth, and seeing where this will take you.

Greetings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpEwm63k1_w&list=RDMMY4tHEwWLMJM&index=18

Can you see how can a lie be true? How can true you escape suffering the lie in your true you, if you love the lie to be true though it isn't true, and maybe never will be? And if you would want the lie to be true then you first have to make it true not live in your delusion untrue not getting anywhere but the agony of 't heart.

Such are the issues for you may want to ponder on a bit more. For rather than blindly backing the lie that has you captive with an image of you that is untrue.

Hey @FearofUnknown, thanks for sharing your experiences with the community!

Sounds like a great question and something I have experienced myself as I am diagnosed with schizophrenia and had delusions in psychotic episodes and in recovery that I have learned to overcome. I first had delusions in 2007 and believed them for 9 years until I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2016. This was a turning point in my life and my last pscyhotic episode was in 2017 and I have grown and developed in so many ways since then.

I have experienced delusions about different things since 2017 and have learned to overcome them with CBT. I can sometimes get grandiose delusions about myself in the sense that they don't feel realistic though could potentially be possible but unlikely. I wind things back a few knoches into something that is more plusable and actually within reach.

I don't have the same delusions as I did in my psychotic episodes as they were more like something that would be in a fantastical movie. I learned to lean into the facts that I know and not get too caught up with grandiose thoughts. I also have the benefit of time and history now as nothing that I thought in my psychotic episodes has come true and I have not been presented with any facts to support them.

I hope this helps with your question and please to continue to reach out to the communtiy to get an understanding of what you experience.

We also have a dedicated Hearing voices and psychosis thread if you would like to check it out too!

Take care

RiverSeal

Could you give some examples of how CBT can correct your delusions of grandiose thinking, or is it too personal to share @RiverSeal ? I would like to try your CBT strategy.

Hey @FearofUnknown, I use CBT to challenge my thoughts by finding alternate outcomes for whatever I have having delusions about. I work from my delusion back much closer to reality and settle on something that is much more within the realm of possibility while allowing myself to think positively about the future or outcome. I also use past experiences in CBT to create next steps in reality so my delusions don't feel like such a leap forward. RiverSeal

I have delusions that are both ongoing and episodic.

The delusion about my family being non-biological when they are is ongoing whereas the delusions about everyone at work being dangerous to be around is episodic. I basically had to quit work to get rid of those delusions. I'm also on new medication to treat the ongoing ones. It has been working well and now I'm overly attached to my family.

Does your delusions affect you on a daily basis @Dimity ?