if you had complete insight, you wouldn’t be delusional. but yet the mental health community accepts that some insight is possible.
for me, ive struggled with delusion. sometimes it was like a reflex where i was becoming delusional yet i was aware of it, and sometimes it’s like something is physically overtaking me and becoming delusional and i’m aware of it, and sometimes i just become delusional with no insight.
ive seen most post here saying they had no insight. how does the transition into and out of psychosis work for ya’ll, how much insight is there?
how much insight can you have and still be delusional?
I’ve had very similar experiences to you, fluctuating between different cognitive abilities with my delusions. I predominantly had little to no insight into my delusions, definitely before medication. But I’ve also had delusions where I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn’t real, but I would still believe in it and act on it. I’ve also had ones where I had confusion in my delusions. All of those I would still consider being delusional.
I actually pun not intended have some insight on this topic.
I was delusional but in the process of getting a grip on things. I’m was a pretty hardline atheist before onset of my psychotic break and had researched rather rigorous methods for practicing skepticism and for how to practice rationality. My delusion started from my first psychotic break up to about I would reckon maybe 5 months after treatment began.
I believed that I saw miracles during my psychotic break and that they broke the underlying rules of reality. That reality was a transitional place where I was about to change to the next state of conciousness.
Obviously I could go on, but generally thats the jist of it. About 3 months in I had serious questions about this belief and about why I hadn’t somehow transitioned into the next stage of reality. The medications were working and I had no more hallucinations of the same nature as during my psychotic break. I understood my thinking was disturbed and I was no longer a reliable source for insight on the workings of the world as an observer.
Later I would have bouts of doubt as to my certainty on this and try to test reality. I would generally know when I would start doubting by the mood I was in. If you start feeling poetic and inspired by the beauty of reality and feel a sense of grandoise awe you might be more manic but also more delusional. Thats what happened with me and I was able to feel this out and wrap my head around it and generally keep trucking with rationalism and skepticism and now while I’m not as hardline an atheist as I was previously I after all had a direct supernatural experience of which I was a direct observer I understand that I’m not a reliable source of insight on the inner workings of reality anymore.
I’d say that quite a bit. In my case, the pdoc emphasises the double book-keeping dimension of my unusual beliefs which allowed me to believe and not believe in it at the same time.
When ill enough, I am delusionally paranoid with no or at least very little insight, you can’t convince me and I may pretend to agree with the doctor etc but nodding yes because I don’t want to argue.
Then there’s when I’m better I still have paranoia and think things are real and not real at the same time.
But I don’t have Sz. I think I have some paranoia that stuck on me from my bipolar breakdown in a mixed episode. Or it’s being schizotypal.
Right now however I know that some of my paranoia is correct bc there really is a ‘they’ as for example I know that my phone is hacked and they are watching me type. I’ve given up and can’t fight them anymore.
I only feel, out of psychosis due to medication or increase of meds. Into psychosis is difficult to understand for me and generally mentioned by my family members. So i become aware. Thats it.