When it comes to persecutory delusions - what are they like for you guys?
Mine well basically I keep hearing voices saying that they are going to do me for this that and the other… total head wreckers.
Like, at times I walk past people, and they are saying stuff, which could well have nothing to do with me, but I still interpret it, that its about me. I was really upset over Christmas over something someone said as I walked past. The truth is, I dunno, like I don’t if it was about someone else but I was really upset over it.
When I was delusional some 16 years ago, I had horrible persecutory delusions about being trapped in a CD on a computer, not having a real body and thinking the devil was after me…I stabilized after 7 months, wrote a book about what I went through, self published and never thought about it again…well, that’s not quite how it is, I still have to ignore visions I had back then…still haunted, I guess we all are…?
When I was deep in psychosis, I believed that I was being spied on, and that people were doing things to try to get me to commit suicide. I thought I was being spied on through my dad’s computer camera, and through my bedroom window–by military spy planes. I also thought that people were spying on me through my cell phone camera, so I blacked that out and put masking tape over it–that’s what I did to my dad’s computer camera too. I also thought that people were surveiling my internet use. They were all out to get me. I don’t have those delusions anymore. I also thought that the mail my family received–some of it–was directed at me and intended to cause me psychological damage, so I threw out the offending mail.
My first persecutory delusion was when I was working. I thought my boss hated me and was messing with me, trying to get me to step down to part time.
I considered him a friend before that, as did he. We would talk about the latest and greatest in phone/pc/tablet technology and crack jokes and stuff. Then I started getting the sense that he really disliked me and that turned to thinking he hated me. Every time he walked by, I could feel his hatred.
Then I got the sense that he wanted to fire me or put me in a very low paying part-time position. I knew for him to do that he would need me to be a bad employee, so I thought he would wait in the parking lot after leaving for the day, watching me, waiting for me to mess up. I realized he could have enlisted the help of other employees to spy on me while he wasn’t at work and ultimately I thought he had convinced Loss Prevention to install cameras to watch me. Even further down the rabit hole, I thought the weather was a sign of the kind of day I was going to have; clear sky’s was a good day, gloomy was a bad day.
Finally the anxiety over my job got to me so much that I was sick almost every day of the week and contemplated driving my car off a bridge every day on the way to work. The nausea from the anxiety ultimately made it so I couldn’t even drive to work and that forced me to seek medical help.
My new doctor (a private GP that only charged me $90 per visit), was convinced that what I told him was really what was going on and diagnosed me with anxiety and put me on short term disability and LOA from work. Things got worse as I started getting anxious about everything. I’d see the same model truck my boss drove and think it was him monitoring me. I felt very exposed when outside my apartment like someone could be staring at me down a sniper scope. Every time someone walked my my apartment, I thought they were here for me and were gonna bust down the door.
Finally, a few months later I realized through similar stories people went through online that I might just be paranoid and I learned what delusional meant. So I saw another doctor (after changing to my wife’s better insurance plan) and they diagnosed me with depression w/ psychosis and finally SZA.
I had no intent to write such a long story, but yea, that is an example of a long standing persecutory delusion I had before I knew what that was.
It’s all about the kidnappers. People were following us so they could kidnap my siblings. Every single person on the planet was a kidnapper. The mailman were there to deliver ransom notes. The phone would freak me out.
Anytime it rang I know someone on the other end was going to say… “We have your sister, and if you want to ever see her alive again you must give us money…”
I spent almost my entire life fighting kidnappers. I made my siblings learn brail so they could leave coded notes in case of being kidnapped. I made them learn to NEVER walk into any building before looking through the window and devising an escape route. Always cary an empty classic coke bottle and a lighter so they have something to hit people with and make them back off. On and on and on. Everyday was something new in the war against kidnappers.
Because I was sure that they the kidnappers were watching over my training so every thing I taught my sibs could be thwarted so I had to teach my sibs something else everyday, something unpredictable so the kidnappers would be thrown off.
I have had the same delusions, which started when I was in fifth or sixth grade. One day I was walking home with my sisters from elementary school and I saw a man following us. He eventually got past me and was going to kidnap my littlest sister and possibly rape her. I had had a dream about kidnapping in that very situation the night before and I tried to get my kid sis to come back to me even though she was mad at me.
Another time, I was entertaining the notion that I was pregnant with the devil’s child, that I was going to give birth to the Antichrist against my will. I still believed it even though the doctors told me there was no sign of pregnancy. Sometimes I will still believe I am pregnant.
You get used to it. I think like a wife in a bad relationship, you get used to hearing things and disassociating their meanings. For your own sake. You can listen to criticism all the time… eventually. And not care about it anymore. Just be careful that you don’t stop caring about everything else too.
I don’t really fall into this delusion, it don’t last, but when I’m having a sleep over or stay in a different house for a while the delusion of being spied on starts to consume my time, I start searching and searching and once I get a little of relief that there are no cameras or any weird holes in the walls or decoration, I start to trust the house in someway that I can have privacy.
i would love to b able to say yes to this one. to believe that it’s all in my head but it’s not. i was raped by some one famous when i was 15 years old. i was then tortured to make me forget about it, which i did. i found the scar on my vagina at 17 and also the scar on my face. they have come back over the years to programme me to make me look like a schiz and each time, i forget. i have woken with lovebites on my breasts with no idea where they came from so i know some one has been in the house and i know it wasn’t my late husband that gave them to me as i asked him and he said no. he believed i should have gone to the press and let them investigate but i don’t think i like the sound of that. i’m just gonna have to earn the money to investigate myself. then we’ll c where we go from there. you know one of them even phoned me and laughed at me down the phone, then hung up. i can’t wait to get them in prison where they belong. no, no persecution complex. hypnotic abuse yes, persecution delusion, no.
they even try to convince me that this is all a government conspiracy because i invented free energy but i don’t believe that either. this is a simple rape case. that’s it, in a nutshell.
In a public place, usually a place of business, I feel like people think I’m a troublemaker or criminal. I feel like authority figures think I have a gun or am going to steal and at any moment they are going to harass me or tackle me down and arrest me for no reason. I feel like women think I am going to rape them or take there kids or something. I’m a nice guy so that’s a pretty crappy way to feel. It hasn’t been as bad since I started taking meds, but it’s still there on a bad day.
I thought everyone in my life’s intent was to cause me mental anguish. I have intrusive thoughts/voices of everyone threatening me or my loved ones. They all talk in code and simulate telepathy, mind reading and though control to fool me into thinking that the paranormal is real. I’ve always fought the supernatural delusions, but he persecutary delusions were and can be real as life to me. So much so that I’ve gone to he authorities. I still think some events that happened actually did happen and my family is covering it up, but it may be this illness plaguing me.