Social Insight

Elyn Saks talks about having social insight where she knew her delusions sounded crazy so she wouldn’t tell other people. I have this until I go too far down the rabbit hole. Do you have social insight with your illness? :sun_with_face:

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There are times when I know my thinking is off… so I try not to act on it. I try to just keep my mouth shut. I think I can do pretty well… I know there are some things if I discuss with others… it won’t help the situation.

Then there are times where I think I’m being perfectly logical. I need a little guidance to get back out of the sneaky brained thinking.

I’d like to think I’m better at this then I used to be.

I had a pretty silly and weird “odd logic glitch” hit me the other day… I could see it wasn’t making sense… but I had to fight my mind anyway.

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i just don’t share the madness.
take care :alien:

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Yes, I think this is one reason that paranoia is associated with better outcomes for people with sz. If you don’t trust people, you don’t share your delusions and halucinations and are perceived as more normal.

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Yeah. Started getting it around…hmm…3rd grade? I’ve been battling delusions since I was 5. When I was that young of course I went around telling everyone and they would just laugh and think it was cute if they were adults and if they were kids they’d think it was a game and want to play. By third grade I started deciding to only tell certain friends about what I believed I was/other delusional beliefs. As time went on the number of friends I chose to tell dwindled. By 6th grade I had only shared my beliefs with one friend, and wouldn’t share any more again until sophomore year of hs. THAT ruined the friendship, but also opened my eyes to the fact that I was delusional, and probably ill and in need of help, so I don’t regret it.

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Yes. I have insight enough to not tell people my delusions unless they are very close and even then usually only if they ask. My closest friends and my family know that I have schizophrenia.

I don’t go telling everyone that I have the Truman show delusion complex

I have enough philosophical insight to know a delusion is just to go against the general consensus of what your given society deems to be valid and invalid. Socially I know how to navigate it where I can find people who believe me and even people who believe me and experience it too.

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I had it before I was officially diagnosed. I would mention a few things to my mom, but I hid it from everyone else, including my therapist. The delusions were about some of the people I know, so that is probably why I never told them. I never told anyone at work and they weren’t a part of my delusions.

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I often have that kind of ‘social insight’. I mostly don’t mention things that would seem to be ‘paranoid delusions’ to other people if I still believe them.

And in the past I never mentioned anything at all really that might seem a bit paranoid to others, because one of the more consistent delusions I get is that people are trying to make me seem ‘crazy’ to everyone else

Yeah I get that one sometimes. I do occassionally say something like ‘imagine if that was happening to you right now’ if they’ve just watched that film (or some film that is similar to a delusion). Then I think afterwards about their expressions and words from when I mentioned it to see if there are any clue that someting like the Truman Show is going on with me and they know about it

I am a guy who is too eager to display his intelligence. The intellectual dandy is not liked where I live. I should be intelligent enough to know that it doesn’t pay to display your intelligence.

I just told everyone my family told me they murdered my brother. Now I’m across the country living in a homeless shelter

I was wondering about that social insight too. My therapist said everyone has different levels of insight.

I know that most people think someone is crazy if they talk about special powers or conspiracies and like things. As I don’t want to be thought of as crazy, I don’t talk about these things with people unless I know they accept these subjects. Same goes for my therapist and Dr., I tell them about some of my ‘delusions’ when they ask, but only really refer to them as delusions because I know that’s how they think of them. I also deny believing in these things at the time while talking to them, because saying yes feels like a bad idea. For instance, when my pdoc asked “You don’t believe that right now do you?”, I said “no” out of embarrassment, feeling like a kid that just got asked “You don’t still believe there’s a monster under your bed, do you?”

If I think someone’s in on a conspiracy, I won’t talk to them about it directly because it’s always better to “keep my cards to myself”. One time I tested the waters with a family member over the internet, telling them I had an alternative view on the philosophy of existentialism, where I am part of an experiment. My ‘idea’ was met with silence and was never talked about since.

Before I got diagnosed and knew what a delusion was, I had close to 0 insight with very occasional moments where I’d question things. It’s like I realized only ‘crazy people’ talk about being followed, spied on, or can predict the future but didn’t think I was crazy because I thought this stuff was ACTUALLY happening to me. However, I knew I couldn’t talk about it because I knew people wouldn’t believe me because they’d think I was crazy.

Ever so often, there are some exceptions to this, some things slip my filter. Fortunately its rare and they are sometimes believable. In other cases, people just think I’m high, which is funny since I don’t do drugs.

Google gang stalking & cause stalking…Some cities have LOTS of people who will treat some badly. Some cities seem to have more nut cases (part-time psychotics) than normals any longer. Is depressing. The 20s and 30-somethings in some cities are so messed up, businesses will only hire them for retail or restaurant because they are so borderline nuts. These will run a business into the ground, unless the management mistreats people then you will see a lot of office bickering, harassment, screwing coworkers and customers…Avoid these, owner usually mistreats people too. Be glad you were shown this early and take your business elsewhere.

If you are dealing with same group of people all the time, you very well may be dealing with a group of part-time psychotic abusers who will mistreat a few people in the group. If anyone in the group has been making threats, bragging about illegal activity, etc, you are in the wrong place. These kind are not your friends. You stop talking to them and do not return phone calls for a while, if you run into them in public just say you are busy right now due to a project…I met these, woman was bragging about driving friends crazy then giving them to the family sex abuser. I did have nervous breakdown and I did end up hearing the voices, with her sex abuser following me around the city, showing up at my home and trespassing when I refused. Cops here have allowed this to go on for 30 years now, harming lots of kids and females.

I don’t talk a lot about private stuff in public, if you run into some people who are crazies, don’t give them a lot of clues where to find you like where you live, socialize, shop or work. You shouldn’t answer any rude comments anyway or anyone who knows something private about you or tries to parrot your train of thought… Some of the church people will even go harass strangers out in public, I call it ‘preach stalking’. I pissed off wealthy guy who runs a church here, 5 years later their nutty people still harass me in public so badly I’m afraid to take a job at any of the good jobs on their side of town because church is so huge it has people everywhere & they are psychopathics. Some of these folks who got pastor counseling are left pretty nutty and set out on people in community…They are about as intelligent as a barking dog so I avoid having anything to do with these as they get their friends & relationships in trouble, especially when they act like a kook in front of your employer’s people.

Mental care really misses in helping with coping skills when they call everything delusional. But, this is the policy which results in some people who think they are being stalked & verbally harassed beginning to think they are God, President, Napoleon or cartoon character because mental care/therapy refuses to help…If you ever get angry with mental care, you will be forcibly hospitalized at your own expense for months if dr can justify it.

Send me PM if you wish, read up on the terms I gave you to google, live a minimal lifestyle so your stuff doesn’t own you as it will really reduce your stress. It is best to never discuss your worries (delusion or not) anyway. Never spend all your money so you can handle all the bad luck that can happen anyway. Silently dump and avoid the people who make you wonder. I used Facebook to reconnect with the people from earlier in my life who I knew were okay. It was been a huge relief for me to have the normals back. Some people who came into money are forever lost to ugliness and hatred, so avoid them if you find this situation of your old friends.