i heard her say on the ‘living well with schizophrenia’ channel on youtube that a person can know they are being irrational and still be delusional if they still believe the idea anyway. but can that degree of insight really warrant someone into being fully delusional? cause they say delusions offer no insight. well, i suppose i’ve heard professionals say maybe a little insight is possible, but i might think that just means knowing things dont make sense about the belief. plus i think it matters how much one actually believes it… like they absolutely believe something they know is irrational v they admit they could be wrong but still believe it. that video she didn’t get that much into the degrees of belief. i dont know how much that video, how much she believes her delusions. i think she seems pretty normal, and for her to even call the video ‘my top ten delusions’ seems pretty insightful. it almost seems by definition calling your belief a delusion is a non sequiter.
for example, i believe if i dont live properly, i will become famous and then be assassinated. i could be wrong about it. i believe this in the same sense as i believe in God. maybe God doesn’t exist, but i believe he does. this degree of belief isn’t absolute, so maybe it’s not technically believing something that could be irrational.
maybe the ultimate question is, how much insight can a delusional person have and still be delusional?
Interested to know this myself. I was just at pdoc today and he tried to convince me I can’t kill others with my thoughts but I said it takes a long time. Everything he said made sense but what I believe makes sense to me too. I have my logic too even though I understand others don’t share it
I have close to zero insight when delusional. My delusions can be so disturbing that I feel to ashamed and embaressed to share it with anyone once I’m in the middle of a delusion.
At some point I would up my AP and PRN cause I sense that something could not be ok. Next step is to get an urgent psychiatrist appointment. One time my brother had to intervene to ensure i got a speedy appointment with the psychiatrist.
From my experience you can know that you have a delusion and still act on it. As long as the delusion is in your mind, even in the presence of doubtful or rational thoughts, it can cause you to act on it. In my case opening windows in the winter when I thought I was being poisoned, and eventually threatening the guy downstairs. The rational thought will not be able to neutralize it and the delusion will have power on its own.
when I first became psychotic and was diagnosed sz, I didn’t believe it and stopped my meds. it took me about three months but I was then delusional for seven months before I was retrieved by society and put in a third and state hospital ward…what I’m saying is if you think you are becoming delusional be honest and share this with your pdoc so you can nip it in the bud.
My spiritual teacher would say that it isn’t our thoughts that distress us, but it’s the belief that we give to those thoughts. When I notice I’m having a delusional thought, I mentally label the thought as psychotic and move on. I can’t help but have thoughts that are kind of crazy, but I can choose not to believe them. The real trick is maintaining a solid mental model of reality so that you know when you’re being delusional. The limit of insight with delusions is the experiences of the person being delusional, which is why you need people around you that you can trust that can lend you their perspective on things.