Doublethink: Believing contradictory ideas at the same time

[FormerHotMess]

This all started for me about a year-and-a-half ago. I started to have strange and/or unreasonable ideas. It has been very slow and hard for me to recover. I’m currently on the minimal therapeutic dose of a common antipsychotic – my SO thinks it’s really helping a lot.

My background is in working with computers, but somehow I developed a lot of really weird beliefs by the time I was starting on medication. I was paranoid about everything. Also, for over a year, I believed that my mind was being controlled by the Chinese. But because of my methodical way of thinking, I had developed a super complex and sophisticated web of ideas about what technological components were enabling me to be mind-controlled in real life. At least I don’t believe that anymore finally, but I still have anxiety when I think about it. It is traumatic to believe that your mind is being controlled over and over again.

My SO and I have had so many conversations about my weird ideas. I don’t know how she/he puts up with me. It is so hard to convince me sometimes about what is real.

I like reading this forum because I feel like I’m not the only person with unusual beliefs. It makes me feel more normal.

I guess I shouldn’t complain – after several months off work and on meds, I was able to go back to work. But it’s still difficult for me. The only way I seem to be able to do it is that I have learned doublethink. I can believe two contradictory ideas at the same time. For example, I am deeply paranoid about my coworkers, but my SO says that they are ok. Since I cannot completely give up my delusions, I learn to believe what is real (according to my SO) even while I cannot fully give up my delusions – so I still believe them too, somehow at the same time. It makes me nervous that I am doing this because it contradicts my originally very methodical way of understanding the world, but it seems to be the only way I can manage. I worry that someday again my delicate way of navigating all this will burst again, and I’ll be so confused that again something bad will happen. I feel like it is a charade. I try to pretend at work that I’ve got my ducks in a row, but inside I’m constantly fighting with paranoid irrational thoughts and false beliefs about conspiracies. I want to rejoice in my thoughts and give in to them – it is my personality now, but I know my SO believes that they aren’t true, so I feel like I need to suppress this. I’m afraid that because of my weird beliefs, I will someday say something at work that really offends someone (I mean, I know I already have to some extent, but I’m sure it would be possible to offend them much even more) …

Thanks for listening.

[Here4You]

Here is a corollary to double truths. I think it is very hard for many people to experience love and hate together. It takes a strong insight to see how we may harbor a few negative thoughts for someone we love. However, we need to keep the hate in check. We just should not completely deny this side of our emotions.

[anon9798425]

This is apparently very common. It is called double bookkeeping. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/double_bookkeeping
(In that link it says we remain unbothered by it, but I’m not and I don’t think it’s that simple)

It’s really a good sign that you’re doing this. It means you have good insight into your illness. When people fall too deep into psychosis, they normally stop doing this.

I still do this to some extent. And it still bothers me. But it doesn’t mean that you’re being fake. It means that you recognize that your delusional perception of reality is not the only true way to perceive reality.

[FormerHotMess]

Thanks for your notes. It certainly is hard to deal with double truths. I just mostly keep my mouth shut as much as I can when I’m in public.

I see there is another post on double bookkeeping Double Bookeeping - Very interesting - Thoughts? I didn’t know that was a thing, but it certainly sounds like what I experience.

For me, it is a lot of work to try to gain insight. I have been working on trying to get unconfused for over a year. My SO is so tired of talking with me about my delusions but is gradually starting to become more patient again.