Columns

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Dealing With Delusional Content

Jack Bragen
Friday July 01, 2016 - 09:43:00 AM

What do you do when a difficult event takes place, and you have no explanation for it? One tendency for those of us subject to psychosis is to ruminate about it, and produce delusions, in a futile attempt at finding an explanation.  

Delusions often have a hold on the mind of a psychotic person through the emotions they generate. This is so whether the emotions are pleasurable or painful. A painful and scary delusion has just as much power over the mind as does the belief that something good is coming--perhaps more so. The human brain is designed to prioritize anything connected with strong emotions; and people with schizophrenia lack filtering compared to a non-afflicted person.  

Delusions aren't merely erroneous beliefs; they reinforce themselves through the emotional systems in the brain. That's why it is so difficult, or even impossible, to convince a psychotic person that he or she is having a delusion.  

I have more than thirty years of experience resolving delusions with cognitive techniques. However, I must do this in combination with taking antipsychotic medications, since the disease is too powerful to combat with cognitive techniques alone.  

If my delusions have progressed to a point where they could potentially affect business communication, it is a red flag. It means that I urgently need to create some self-imposed restrictions.  

A person in the process of becoming psychotic can often function up to the point where the delusions have finally taken over completely. I have an acquaintance who works, or did work, in a highly professional engineering position, and yet who suffers from a lot of paranoid delusions--but apparently was able to function despite this.  

Back in "the day," when I was nineteen years old, I worked at my job cleaning and polishing supermarket floors, and at the same time, I believed I was having conversations with extraterrestrials. Being able to drive a car, and even being able to function at a job, doesn't automatically mean that a person is not mentally ill.  

{You may have coworkers with a psychiatric illness and not know of this. Some persons with mental illness who maintain themselves with treatment, are able to be essentially normal--that is, hold down a job, raise a family and own a house. Those who function at that level tend to keep closeted about their condition, by necessity.}  

The trick is to catch it before reaching the point of no return. For someone becoming psychotic, the point of "no return" usually means that you are far enough into the delusions that you require hospitalization.  

The Presidential election, and now a number of other global events, are a continuous source of stress, even though it doesn't (at this stage) directly affect me, if I don't want it to. I think a lot of people who are in vulnerable positions in life are probably terrified of the possible outcome of this election. And you can't always get away from it. Turn on the news and there is always something about the election.  

Now, we are also seeing turmoil in Europe, we are seeing North Korea testing ballistic missiles and atomic warheads, we are seeing resurgence of the Cold War with Russia, and the list goes on…  

If you turn on the news, you could be in for a rough ride.  

The above, in combination with life circumstances that aren't perfect, has caused me to feel pressured from a number of vectors. And I already had a tendency to generate a lot of anxiety. 

These are difficult times for a number of persons with mental illness. We need to give ourselves adequate "down time" but at the same time this ought not be spent on ruminating. We need to do specific things to fend off a relapse.  

Not all people with schizophrenia are able to reflect and discern that they are having a delusion. This is a capacity that I have spent not just years, but decades, cultivating. Sometimes medication alone is not enough. Yet without medication, many persons with psychosis, such as I, do not stand a chance, against a disease that resembles a tsunami inside the mind.