The Persistance of Your Delusions
When you have to contend with delusional thinking, life can get hard.
Many times I’ve been so confused by whether or not something was actually happening that I made serious mistakes acting on those things.
I have hurt people and I have ruined friendships and relationships over my delusions.
I regret those things immensely and I have fought my delusions to the bone, time and time again, but here, 16 years later, I still experience thoughts that have no basis in reality.
Delusions are incredibly persistent and sometimes no matter how much work you do to combat them, or hell, accept them, they still come up and bother you, sometimes when it’s incredibly inconvenient.
A particularly insidious delusion I still have tells me that people hate me, that they’re judging every action I take and deciding actively to shun me and ostracize me.
Of course the reality is that people don’t actually care much about what anyone does and they’re mostly concerned about themselves, but still, day in day out, my brain tries to find reasons why people don’t like me.
As you can imagine, I’ve kind of folded in on myself and don’t really make an effort to meet people or even be around people because my brain is telling me that I can’t trust them.
To say the least, it’s caused me a lot of pain.
I continue to wonder why these delusions are so persistent even given my rigorous adherence to medication and therapy techniques and I think it’s because they play on your most deep seated traumas and insecurities.
Like it or not, that stuff is hard to come to grips with, and even when you think you’re out of the woods, it still creeps up and grabs you sometimes.
Over the years I’ve come to fully understand that my brain is, essentially broken, and like the people it tells me to avoid, I can never fully trust what it’s saying.
I’ve had to cultivate a sense of self that’s removed from the thoughts that are going through my head purely as a means of self protection.
It’s still easy to get lost in the fog of these thoughts, but when I realize that something I’m thinking is upsetting, I’m able to step back and evaluate the thoughts. 9 times out of 10, they’re irrational and have no basis in reality.
Realizing that is freeing, but I would still give anything to not get so lost.
My delusions though, have taught me many lessons, they’ve instilled a thick skin and they have been an integral part of what makes me who I am today.
Sure they’ve been inconvenient and many many times have been the bane of my existence but they’ve showed me things and they’ve taught me things not only about myself, but about the reality of human nature that would be difficult to learn in any other context.
It’s hard to be grateful for them but I am, and I know how hard it can be to live with them.
To anyone reading who experiences persistent delusions, I’m with you, remember, you’re not alone in this.
While they may never go away completely, you can learn the tools to help deal with them.
Therapy is your friend, self awareness is your friend and introspection is your friend.
I know what it’s like to live with this stuff and others do to. Also, your family and friends will always have your back no matter what your delusions tell you.
It’s ok to be haunted by stuff like this and it doesn’t make you weak and it doesn’t make you crazy.
You have help and you’re gonna be ok, I promise.
