Are you content of having insight into your illness, or would you rather not?

My psych told me that unlike many others on the schizophrenic spectrum, when not delusional I have an exceptional insight into my illness, that is that I am aware of it being such. I imagine that that is the case of the majority of people here also. On one hand I feel fortunate that I’m able to come back to reality, and that in hindsight I can discern what was not. On the other, being aware of how undesirable I and my disfunctional life are to my family and society brings a certain amount of pain to me, so much so that at times I think I’d be better off if I were completely unaware of being what I am. Then again, I have a recurrent nightmare where I lose even the slightest grip I have on reality, and the consequences of that are so terrifying that I go back to feeling grateful for my situation as opposed to that of others. What about you? Would you prefer unawareness to awareness, or the opposite? Maybe it is a question that has already been asked - in that case I apologise.

I think if you have insight, then what you’ve said above might not be as bad as you think.

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I prefer awareness. Like @jukebox said, the one that understands he’s mad is not mad at all.
My hallucinations are so severe that I hallucinate people saying things and things happening. I believe in my delusions and I’m stubborn so there’s no way talking me out of it.

When I wasn’t aware, there was a period when I didn’t want help because I thought I didn’t need it. Then I gave up, caved because I didn’t have the strenght to fight against the people who were trying to help me. In a way I think a part of me knew I needed help, so that little to none awareness I had there saved my life.

I’m a better person aware than when I have no awareness of what I’m saying, doing or thinking.
I actually like being on top of my symptoms, because I can understand they are symptoms and not reality. That helps me a lot.

But of course, everything has its other side. Being always aware comes with the price of always being on top of my thoughts, scrutinizing and analizing my behaviour…

You made a good question here.

I would also add that the fear of not getting a grip on reality comes also in the form of escapism, do you think that it’s maybe the case with you with this question?

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People ask me if I was mad when I was labeled my diagnosis I said no because it makes me know I need to take meds

Take care :alien:

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you should try believing in yourself even when you know you arent in reality or whathaveyou. so to speak so that when things are turbulent or normal you have some composure.

How so, if it prevents me from having or keeping a job, or managing to finish a degree or being still economically dependent from a family that can’t afford me being so at 27?

Thank you for replying. I’m not sure I understood what you meant with the last question you posed. I’m pretty sure that the majority of time I identify as real what manifests as a consequence of escapism, and I have a hard time believing that reality is what I’m supposed to identify as such. But in my waking life I can still tell in certain moments that other people expect me to react to what they identify as real - this is a sort of anchor to my ability to perceive it, though I lose it during delusions and hallucinations. But so far whenever I lost it, I’ve managed to find it again, whereas sometimes I dream of losing it completely and irreversibly, and the kind of loneliness that leads to is terrifying. You see, till both of us can agree that we are writing to each other on a forum for schizophrenics, and that we have a mutual understanding of that happening, as lonely as our lives can be, neither of us is truely alone, because we are still sharing something. What I dream of is of losing even that, the ability to get in touch with what can be shared, and becoming truely alone. To make an example, I dream of throwing food to some birds, when infact I’m throwing stones at children, or going through a door when infact I’m jumping out of a window. I dream this because I suppose I fear that one day reality and imagination will get mixed up to the point I will not be able to control either anymore.

This is the tragedy of psychosis to me. This loneliness. And of this, I am certainly aware in psychosis, even when ordinary insight, seeing it as a psychosis, is lost.

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If it is a topic that already exists, a red bubble will pop up with a link to that thread.

Having insight is so much better than not having insight. If you think it’s bad being dependent on your family, just imagine how hard it is for the people who get aggressive or have to live at a residential facility, because they honestly believe in everything happening to them. Go check out the family section. It is filled with stories of people so far gone that their families are giving up hope. Merely being dependent on others isn’t all that bad. Besides, you never know how far your recovery will progress. You might be able to work or live alone at some point in the future. And even if you don’t, that is totally okay. I bet your parents would rather have you living at home and not working than being homeless and getting arrested for attacking traffic lights.

guess i’m not mad then lol

I understandyou perfectly. I identify with those words. I have the same fear. My psychosis was marked by hallucinating what others said and things that happened. But again, even floridly psychotic I could sense it was a hallucination confirming my delusions. That is how I know they were hallucinations. Insight, little as it was, helped me there.

Those fears are valid ones, we share them. Bit as long as we stick with medication and with giving our symptoms some thought I think we’ll be alright.

Hold on to your insight like a treasure.

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Okay. I think psychologically knowing yourself is overrated, and if your not sharing it with anyone, your just looking at yourself and getting nowhere. And having insight into “schizophrenia” is self limiting in many ways. :confounded:

Insight has been a major component in gaining some limited degree of control of the worst of my psychotic bipolar. But that insight has had to be combined with effective techniques for dealing with the emotions that come up during the acquisition of that insight.

REBT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_therapy
Schematherapy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_Therapy
Learned Optimism – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism
Standard CBT – http://www.beckinstitute.org/what-is-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/About-CBT/252/
DBT – http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm
MBSR – http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
ACT – https://contextualscience.org/act
10 StEP – http://pairadocks.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-10-steps-of-emotion-processing.html
MBBT – https://www.newharbinger.com/blog/introduction-mind-body-bridging-i-system
SEPT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_Experiencing
SMPT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensorimotor_psychotherapy

Knowledge is power, wisdom is how you use that knowledge.

I feel that to grasp your thoughts more precisely I’d need them to be a bit more elaborated, if you were so kind to do so.

I think it all depends on what one has knowledge about. How could having knowledge of one’s impotence be a form of power, and how could it be a form of wisdom to apply the knowledge of one’s powerlessness, given the fact that it implicitly prevents itself from being applied in any form?

Lmao dude if you have impotence, knowledge of it lets you try something else to work around it instead of failing over and over because you’re impotent and that my friend is wisdom. Working around it would be coping skills by not wasting time and energy focusing on something you can’t fix or even the wisdom to fix it or do better if possible.

I’m afraid I don’t agree, dude, or rather, I don’t think things are always that simple. In my view knowledge of one’s impotence is precisely the knowledge of forthcoming failure. And in that case the only form of wisdom would be that so eloquently phrased by Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”.