- Everyone, in today's video, we are going to be talking
about my experience with delusions
and particularly what my top 10 delusions are.
Before we get started,
I just wanna give a quick definition
about what delusions are.
So basically they are a fixed false belief
that is not grounded in reality.
(calm soothing music)
So basically it's something that a person really
truly believes, but it's kind of an irrational belief
that is not grounded in reality
and that really has no basis in reality.
There are four most common types
of delusions and these range from persecutory delusions,
to grandiose delusions, somatic delusions
and erotomanic delusions.
So to kind of briefly explain what these are,
grandiose delusions are when you have an inflated perception
of yourself or your ego is over inflated
or that kind of thing.
You think your God or whatever
the grandiose delusion may be.
Persecutory delusions are more
along the lines of believing that someone is out to get you
or that you are being harmed in some way,
persecutory in nature.
Somatic delusions are when you believe
that some sort of body function or part
either internal or external is abnormal in some way
or it kind of goes along
the lines of hypochondriaism where you think
that something is wrong with you.
And lastly, eronomanic delusions are when you believe
that someone else is in love with you or infatuated
with you in some way.
If you're new here, my name is Lauren
and I make videos about what it's like to live
with Schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
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So before I get into my top 10 delusions that I experience
I wanna kind of give a little bit
of an analogy for what delusions feel like.
And so I was kind of talking with Rob about this
and we came up with the concept of, you know
everyone when you're young, when you're a child
has this kind of irrational fear of the basement, the dark,
the boogieman under your bed or in the closet or whatnot.
And you know, it can range
in magnitude in terms of fully believing
that there is a monster in your basement
and you run up the stairs because you think it's gonna
grab your ankles or something and fully believing that.
Or sometimes it ranges to the other end
where you know that there's no monster down there
you know, it's irrational,
but you still believe it and feel it within your body.
You still get this anxious flood of energy
that runs through you because you believe it on some level,
even if you might know that it's irrational.
And so that's kind of the range
in which I have experienced delusions anyway
where sometimes I just have no idea
that it's a delusional thought
and it's just something I believe
and something I know to be true,
even if maybe it isn't true.
Or sometimes it's more along the lines
of I know that this is irrational, but I still believe it
and am fearful or have some sort of reaction to it.
Okay, so let's get into my top 10 delusions.
So the first one is one that I have mentioned previously
on the channel and that is around mirrors.
I get a lot of paranoia, I guess, when it comes
to mirrors and I kind of spiral into this delusional train
of thought that there are cameras in the mirrors around me.
And so I've kind of devised this little trick
that I've had comments on our videos
in the past saying that it actually is a real trick
but it's something that I do kind of just to comfort myself.
So I put my fingernail up
to the mirror and if there's a space
between my finger and the reflection finger, then all good.
There's no camera in there, but if there's no space
or if it's distorted at all,
I allow myself to kind of spiral through paranoia
and delusion and just kind of have my guard up
about that mirror.
And this delusion kind of goes a little bit farther
than this too, where, you know, I just hung up a mirror
in our living room the other day with my husband Rob.
And, you know, I was part of the whole process
of putting the mirror up onto the wall.
So I knew there was nothing behind it.
I knew there was no camera in it
but still when it was up there
and I was sitting in the living room,
I felt really uneasy
being around this new mirror that I hadn't checked.
And, you know, having delusional thought
that there was a camera in there,
or that someone was watching us
or watching me and it was hard.
And when I first moved in with Rob too,
I had this delusion that he had cameras around the house.
And so I guess this delusion kind of stems from this idea,
this core idea of people watching me
or people observing me that I don't know
about or that I don't want to be.
So my next delusion is that of more
of the persecutory delusion,
where I believe that people are following me.
And typically it's police that I think are following me
whether that's to arrest me or to bring me to the hospital.
I don't know.
I just have this irrational fear around this.
I am constantly aware of when I'm driving,
aware of what vehicles around me,
if anyone seems to be following me
and that kind of thing,
or if I'm walking in the street
I'm, try to be very aware of my surroundings
because I'm always a little bit fearful of this.
And especially when I see cop cars driving by or whatnot
I get this surge of anxiety
that they are following me, they're looking for me.
And so that can be hard to deal with.
And especially when I am not taking my medications
regularly, this can be a really
really difficult one to manage.
And sometimes it goes as far as to be believing
that there are helicopters circling overhead
and sometimes it translates into a hallucination
too where I hear and see helicopters circling overhead
too that are looking for me
and are working with the police or whatever to find me,
arrest me or bring me to the hospital.
The next delusion that I experienced really
quite frequently is one that we actually did a video on
which you can check out here, my biggest delusion.
And it's basically around the idea of being in a coma.
And this comes up when I'm going to the washroom
because I have this irrational belief
that I am actually dreaming
or so whatnot when I'm going to the washroom.
And in reality, I am laying
in a bed in a coma somewhere, peeing the bed.
And it seems ridiculous.
It seems silly.
I think part of me knows that's irrational
but then the another part of me is like
that's what they want you to believe.
Like it's very, it's very much a spiral
a lot of these delusional thoughts.
And so, it's hard to deal with this
because you're always kind of in two places at once
where you're like, okay this is what I'm experiencing now
but I really believe this other line
of thought that is affecting my experience here.
And it's very confusing.
My next delusion is actually what is called
thought broadcasting, where I think
that other people can hear my thoughts.
This started very early in my experience
with mental illness where I fully believed
that people could hear the thoughts that I was thinking.
And so, you know, I was
it was kind of funny cause I was always very mindful
of just trying to think very positive,
very complementary thoughts about people and whatnot
because I didn't want them to like catch me
thinking something negative about them
or something not very nice
because that's not how I wanted people to perceive me
or to, you know, think of me.
And so I don't know,
maybe it made me a bit of a better person
in terms of having more positive thoughts
but that was something that I struggled with for a long time
and something that I do still struggle with every now
and then now too.
The next delusion I'm going to share
with you is very, very embarrassing.
So sometimes I have kind of delusion of grandeur
where I believe that people who are in my life
or who I'm interacting with are attracted to me.
And this is embarrassing
because I am not a conceited person.
I usually don't just automatically assume
that other people are attracted to me.
I don't believe I'm exceptionally good looking or anything
like that to merit that kind of thought.
And people don't really like give me
that kind of feedback to believe that.
But it's just this kind of warp train of thought that I fall
into sometimes where I'm like,
they think I'm attractive.
They are attracted to me.
And I guess that kind of falls into the erotomanic delusions
to where you think that someone
is infatuated with you or something.
And so that can kind of play a difficult role in terms
of navigating relationships with people,
if I think that they are secretly, you know,
lusting after me or whatever it is.
Again, this is very embarrassing
'cause I don't believe this on a regular basis
but every now and then this comes up as an issue.
- [Rob] I'm lusting after you baby.
- The next delusion is the somatic delusion aspect
of things where I believe sometimes that parts of my body
or bodily functions or whatnot are things that only
I am experiencing and that I don't believe
that anyone else has or experiences.
And so this kind of creates an issue in terms of like shame
and embarrassment when bringing things up with my doctor
or with whoever might need to know, probably my doctor.
- [Rob] I just want to say everybody poops.
- And you know, I think a lot of people have that kind
of shame wrapped up into discussing more sensitive topics
or topics that aren't generally talked
about very much with their doctor,
but it's kind of, it's just kind of amplified
where I believe
that I am the only person who experiences this
and it makes me odd or different in some way.
A small example of this would be that I thought
that my body was so irregular for a long time.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror
at a dance class once when I was in like, you know,
the leotard and tights and whatnot when I was young,
and I just thought, I looked like a complete alien
because I thought that my body was so incredibly long
and my legs were so incredibly short
and I had this kind of morphed understanding
or view of my physical appearance.
And so that is one
of the ways that the somatic delusion kind of manifests,
but it can also be in terms
of internal body functions, external body functions,
it's a wide range of delusional thought.
The next delusion I wanna talk about is kind of one
that spirals out of anosognosia.
Anosognosia is when you don't have insight
into the fact that you have a mental illness or an illness.
And so I kind of spiral into delusional thought around this
that I don't actually have schizophrenia
or sometimes the delusional thinking takes the form
of I believe that I'm faking having schizophrenia
because I don't believe
that my experience of the symptoms is really real.
And I did a video explaining this more in depth
which you can check out here.
My next delusion is when I make connections
that really aren't correlated or aren't connected
in any way with external stimuli or external occurrences.
And so what I mean by this is like
I have some sort of thought
and then I believe that that thought precipitates
some sort of action in the world.
And it's not like, I think I'm gonna pick up
or I think I'm going to pick up that ball
and I go and pick up the ball
and that's the external action.
It's more like, I think a negative thought.
And then there is a hurricane somewhere, you know,
something like that,
where I believe that there's a correlation
between my thoughts and external occurrences
and this kind of plays out more often
in terms of like directly believing
that I can will things to happen.
So this happens a lot when we're playing board games
where I believe that I can kind of will a number to come
up on a dice or I can will something to happen in the game.
And that's kind of the delusional thinking
at its core that my thoughts are somehow connected
to things that are happening in the world
around me when really there is no connection.
My next delusion is that Rob is cheating on me.
I'm just kidding.
I know he's not,
but there have been times where I knew he was cheating
on me and this just kind of made me really sad.
You know, I didn't, it didn't make me angry or anything.
I just got really, really down
because it didn't matter what he said
to me or what I really in my heart knew.
Like we're so codependent,
we spend all of our time together.
There's no way he could be cheating on me
even if he wanted to.
- [Rob] I don't want to.
- So you know, infidelity is a common delusion
that people have when they're experiencing
delusional thought.
And so this is something that has come
up for me where I in my heart just know,
without a shadow of a doubt that Rob is cheating on me
even though when I come outta that thought
I know without a shadow of a doubt,
that he is not cheating on me
Thus, the extreme dilemmas
of living with delusional thought.
But this is just another example
of a frequent delusion that people may have.
And last but not least, this is probably my biggest delusion
in terms of how much it permeates my life.
And that is just the idea
that we are living in a simulation.
And I know this is nothing new.
I know that this is something that a lot
of people bring up as a theory and whatnot.
But I think I really have a hard time
with this one in terms of spiraling into this thought
that we are living in a simulation, nothing is real.
And I think that my illness kind of plays a role
in that in terms of the constant questioning
of my experience of reality
and questioning kind of everyone's experience of reality,
if there's a shared reality
and just questioning life kind of,
and questioning our experience of life.
And this idea of living in a simulation
kind of helps me make sense of everything in a way.
- [Rob] we're all ponds.
- So that's my list of my top 10 delusions.
I think there was 10 there, but if you also experience
some of the delusions that I've listed
or if there's other delusions
that you experienced frequently
I would love to hear from you in the comments below.
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Thank you so much again for watching
and as always wishing you and your loved ones good health.
We'll see you in the next video, bye.