This sort-of delusion that I have

It’s kinda weird and a bit involved, so forgive me if this gets too long (as my posts often do).

I have this weird thing that I’m guessing is a false memory created shortly after my last psychotic break, while I was still recovering and had just come home after my ex-wife kicked me out and ended our marriage.

This memory (or whatever it is) is of me returning to my hometown and having a bizarre conversation with my former neighbors. It involved me telling the future about what was going to happen to me. In the memory I was hallucinating that one of the guys I was talking to was my (female) former psychiatrist. I remember him saying to one of the other guys, through a bit of laughter, “he keeps calling me Dr. ******.” I didn’t want to give her real name just now. At one point in the memory I came out of my hallucination not remembering what I had said to them, and they told me I was seeing the future. I asked them if my future involved getting my ex-wife back, and the guy said, “she’s gone.” I asked them if I’m going to be ok in the future, and the guy said, “you’re going to be fine.”

I suppose it’s possible that what I remember happening really did happen, that it’s not a false memory, but I have my doubts. My memory of this is awfully cloudy, while my false memories normally are extraordinarily detailed. I’m about 90% certain that even if it really happened there’s no way I could’ve actually been seeing the future, but then there’s that small part of me that thinks I really did. That part of me finds comfort in those words, “you’re going to be fine.”

I called it a “sort-of delusion” because I don’t consider something a true delusion unless I fully believe it, have zero insight. With this I have enough insight that I pretty much know not to believe it; like I said, about 90% of me doesn’t believe this stuff.

1 Like

It is not a full-on delusion if you do not fully believe it actually happened.
There are lots of things that have happened to me that I am not really sure if they really happened or not.

2 Likes

Yeah, it can be hard to distinguish the false memories from the real ones. I think for the most part I have sorted out what’s real and what isn’t, but this is an example of one for which I have not fully made up my mind. There’s another one, regarding some wild and tragic stuff that may have happened to me my fourth year of college, but that’s another long story. My roommates from that year would be able to verify whether or not it happened, but I have no contact with any of them. Even if I got in contact with one of them I would feel weird asking if that bizarre stuff actually happened.