A little something that helped me with delusions

[flybottle]

I can recognize some things that you mention from my own psychoses, perhaps indeed common to reflective and analytical minds. I described it here:

Skepticism and schizophrenia

@maxwelldunn89, I think to practice a moderate skepticism is good an healthy, but I am not sure whether in schizophrenia, and delusions specifically, a lack of skepsis is always the culprit. This may differ from person to person, but my experience with psychosis actually featured a lot of unhealthy skepticism, I take it. For while it is true that the delusions that troubled me were pretty much fixed and sure for me, I did not stop reflecting on my beliefs at the time. And doing so took the form of a thorough skepsis, aimed not so much at my delusions, though these were not entirely exempt from doubt, but all the more at everything else. For me it was not the case that I was simply not aware …

this exercise in skepticism, proving/disproving, or reality-checking was pretty much what I was doing all day in psychoses. For me, being delusional isn’t something that happens behind my back. I would rather find myself believing or experiencing something rather profound, in the sense it has a large impact on me, and would be aware that something has changed (though me being deluded would be the last thing to think about). It is only then that the real trouble starts, it seems to me. As described in the post I referenced, I would rip common sense reality apart by skepticism/analyzing my own delusions in contrast to that. This is a large part of what was troubling me at those times, it was indeed compulsive, Peace of mind would amount to me being able to stop this compulsion. The urge to be right was its fuel.