I know from what I’ve read that one of the hallmarks of schizophrenia is difficulty in differentiating what is real from what is not. In my own particular experience anyway I don’t see it as this per say. I, when symptomatic, have in the past been…I can’t even say convinced…but something close to that at times…of the reality of my delusional remembered past or that I really was receiving and transmitting thoughts. But looking back I know that it was rather a constant battle between my rational mind and what I was perceiving.
As I see it, the problem was not that I had lost my ability to distinguish fact from fiction but that what I was perceiving was so seemingly, convincingly very real. In this constant battle I’d go from telling myself that none of it was real, it was all in my head only for this rational thought to be once again challenged by the seeming reality of what I was experiencing.
I mean we ARE told that things such as psychic powers and whatnot are not real and thus (most) of us believe this. But then you experience what seems for all the world to be just this. You tell yourself no this can’t be real. But then it was all so seemingly very real when I was experiencing it. It was a constant battle I tell you…back and forth between belief and disbelief.
When not symptomatic I don’t have this problem of distinguishing reality from fantasy for my mind is not perceiving false perceptions or whatever they may be. There may be the odd paranoid thought every now and then but this passes fairly quickly.
I’ve heard it said that “perceiving is believing” and having experienced how convincing the delusions, thoughts and voices of psychosis can be I can only believe that it would be easy for anyone to get lost in false belief if experiencing psychosis as we do tend to trust our senses…they are what we rely on after all in experiencing the world around us. When they fail us it is very seemingly real.
Again, just my thoughts on my own experience with psychosis and false perceptions
That’s what scares me the most about my illness—my senses failing me. As you say, we have nothing to rely on but them, and when they are distorted, what are we supposed to do but believe them?
This is what jumped out at me due to the fact that I have a few perceptions that are simple and very plausible and that is what throws me. Demons… angles… creatures… I can dismiss in a short amount of time.
False memories… those stick hard.
I have to struggle with this a lot. Some stuff feels, smells, looks so real… I act on it. Then I find… no, it was a glitch. It’s hard when I don’t fully trust my own perception.
The one thing that kept me going through my last psychotic episode was that I could still distinguish reality from hallucination, or delusion. I knew it wasn’t real, but it felt like I was telling myself that grass is red. I could tell the difference, but it seemed so real, I sometimes wondered if reality was the hallucination and what I was perceiving was truly real. But I could always count on logic to save me. Telling myself that the walls couldn’t be moving, they’re solid plaster and can’t ripple without cracking. The monsters aren’t real, someone would’ve noticed them in the wild by now and there’d be news about them. The voices would even admit that they were just in my head, but they’d argue that it didn’t make their points any less valid. So I guess I had an easier time of it than some, because I could filter through the noise and chaos to find the reality, and just focus on that. It still sucked, but it kept me alive, it kept me from completely losing myself.
This is similar to what got me through when my positive symptoms returned for two or three weeks earlier in the summer. There were times when I was becoming a little more convinced of my hallucinations and delusions but overall my rationality won that one…
I’ve only lost contact With reality completely once.
I had gone from hearing God to becoming God. I thought Jesus would take over my body through what was called the gift of transfer. I would literally morph from my self to Jesus and when I was Jesus I would try to convince them by speaking in any language which was complete gibberish.
This happened when I was "told by God that everyone would die if they went into my brothers room due to severe demonic oppression. I threw all my brothers dressers out of the room and felt like I was being choked when I went in the room.
I would spaz and scream if anyone tried to go in there. I’d be yelling “don’t you get it? I’m using this body as a vessel I am Jesus you dummies!” Then when anyone was crying I’d tell them they were being healed. It was ■■■■■■ up.
The next day I was still the same. Yet Jesus decided the room was safe now.
I snapped out of it after 2 days. They were very close to taking me to the hospital that time.
I believe it is not a black & white situation when it comes to delusions. I believe there’s a grain of truth in every delusion or erroneous perception. Not everybody is against me. But there are people out there who wish people bad. Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get me.
