OK I have posted many posts on this forum and I am greatly thankful for the immense help and advices I have got from so many good folks here.
I thought about it today and I did realize that I do have probably at-least - Delusional Disorder. I absolutely have no hallucinations so schizophrenia could be ruled out. The one psychiatrist I visited a few months back asked me a few questions for about 5 minutes and diagnosed me with Schizophrenia and prescribed me with a large dose of Risperidol. I did not visit him again since I did not find him to be truly interested either in my disease or in curing it.
However since i do have many posts here I would like to briefly share about my life that I thought could be helpful for some folks.
I am 30 years of age and belong to India. I hold a technical masters degree and work in one of the technological companies here in India (Actually it is a US company who have outsourced their work here).
That is the career aspect of my life.
Now about the Personal life of mine which is actually the cause and probably (the solution) of my illness. I was born in a very rich conservative Hindu family in India. We are 2 Sons and my elder brother (33) is 3 years older to me.
My earliest memory of my childhood is my elder brother smothering me with a pillow and I overhear my Mother telling him to be careful else you would be in trouble. All through my childhood I remember episodes of my elder brother being praised and honoured both within family and in front of the social circle while I was always ridiculed to be either and/or Innocent, naive, foolish and even Crazy. I do remember that as an 8 or 10 year old my parents had taken me to the nearest mental hospital and I was given shock treatment.
This point was taken up my elder brother and I was teased by him to be crazy and being given shock treatment all through my childhood. I do remember my elder brother bringing his friends and slapping me 4-5 times with my mother watching and smiling and then calling me crazy. I also remember how my mother and father always used to do preferential treatment to my brother while I was almost always either hit, slapped and sometimes beaten brutally for hours. This treatment has occured to me over my entire childhood.
However (with surprise) I always managed to do well academically in school and managed to achieve good grades. My brother however was bad in school and he always made sure to blame me for his failures and told me that I was responsible for his situation. All this had a tremendous impact on my mind and growing up I struggled to get the confidence to face the world.
All the while I remember my parents supporting and encouraging my elder brother and giving him costly gifts and keeping him happy while completely ignoring me (Except for the weekly physical abuse) and the day to day verbal abuse which I became quite accustomed to.
Anyway growing up in school I did manage to make many friends both in school and outside. While in college I generally stayed away from girls (being shy) but I did have other friends. However whenever I used to bring them home , my dad used to question them and ask them intrusive questions which drove them away from me. My dad also stopped me from going out with my friends during college and a complete ban was placed on me from going out on weekends or after 6 PM in the night.
The few friends that I did have were only when I was meeting them in the college campus since after I reached home I could not visit anywhere nor bring my friends home.
I graduated from my college and gained a Visa to go abroad for further studies. I took a bank loan and pursued my education abroad and managed to get a Job abroad. All the while I was abroad I was constantly phoned in by my dad/Mom and asked about my day to day routine. I was constantly persueded every day to leave the country and come back home and even once asked by my dad to quit my good job and come back home. Please note all the while I was an Adult (21-25) and strangely I WAS influenced by their talks and I DID LISTEN to them and most of the time followed their advices and suggestions. However their behaviour towards me never changed and they always talked Rudely and condescendingly towards me.
As fate would have it I lost my job during a recession (30% of the staff was laid off) , my visa cancelled and I had to return to my country and landed up at my parents place.
There the constant rude behaviour with me continued and I struggled to get on with my life in India. What little progress that I did make in my job irritated my family and they ALMOST always managed to influence me into quitting my job and in return seriously hamper my career. NOTE ALL THE WHILE I was an adult and still was getting influenced by them.
Recently I got married and now the marriage is in trouble. My wife was constantly insulted at home by my family and abused off. They kept feeding me everyday wrong things about my wife and I did get influenced and in anger said certain things to my wife which caused immense harm to my marriage.
Now my wife is away from me and I dont know what is going to happen to my marriage. It is in imbroglio.
However through the power of my will I decided about an year back to finally separate out from my parents and stay away from them. Now I have been living away from them since an year and I am quite happy with it . (Though my marriage is lost).
The problem is that whenever I do visit my family, I start getting these delusions that they have Injected me with Antipsychotics. I DO REALIZE now that these are delusions and are probably due to an overtly negative behaviour of theirs causing stress and psychosis in me…
However I do notice certain things and have an insight on a few things:-
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I have never suspected my friends, relatives, or just about absolutely anyone(my wife I LOVE her a lot) else of cauing harm to me.
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The 4.5 years that I was abroad and away from my family I did not have a SINGLE DELUSION of persecution against anyone there.
I think my delusions are with respect to my family and my family alone. And my insight says that these are occurring due to the terrible inhuman way that they talk to me and their behaviour towards me.
Just to give you an example:- I visited my Dads home for just 1 day and I tried to make a joke and he told me that this was HIS HOME and he was paying the rent and that he asked me to shut up or he would call the security gaurd to kick me out.
There are many other situations like this.
Now about the solution. What I have finally decided is to legally separate out from my family. I have decided to take the help of my relatives in this. I almost genuinely feel that I will be able to overcome my DD and any other anxiety, confidence issues if I stay almost completely away from my family. I think that I will be able to recover mentally and gain the necessary confidence to move forward in life.
I wanted your genuine advice and suggestions as to whether this step of mine would help me ?..
With Regards.