I don't think I like reality.

As scary as my world is I think "reality" is scarier. I have a purpose in my world. It use to be just me... well it was me and Amber. Sometimes I wonder if Amber is me. She never leaves my head and I never seen her in person but she talks to me in a critical manner. I tell her to leave me alone but she never stops. Can't say she has never been wrong but she's never been right either. Now there are more people in my world. They go about their lives but if they need me they call my name in the "real" world. It's like I'm their hero. However I met a little girl whose parents aren't nice to her. Her name is Chloe. Her parents hurt her and she comes to me to hide from them. We play together. I even have baby dolls for her. I keep them so she has something to play with if I'm not around. I make sure she's ok. I am worried about her because I haven't seen her in a while. Something tells me she's dead. I think her parents finally killed her and they have people coming after me in reality to kill me and that's what happen... I don't know where chloe is. Amber tells me she's dead and I hope she's wrong. I hope she comes back.

I wish I could hold and soothe you Erti. I wish I could help you to feel safe. If you felt safe, maybe those images would ease from you thoughts. Love you sweetie, I have images in my thoughts also that do me harm, or try to sometimes. We can hold each other at PC, maybe? I hope so.

I think brook's right. Your world is where you can feel safe. It's protecting you from something that feels even more unsafe.

I wonder if it's why people start to get depressed once they come out of psychosis? Or are dragged out with medication? Those of us looking at the problem from the outside so to speak have a hard time understanding why a person isn't happier once their thinking clears up. But if you think about the delusions as a protection from really uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, it makes perfect sense that you wouldn't feel better once they're gone. Now you're left exposed without your defenses.

My son will go through this cycle in a matter of days. He starts getting stressed about something. It doesn't even have to be something external. It can be a memory or a thought.

Then he'll start "thinking." He'll start twisting the stressor and his thoughts about the stressor into some weird parody of reality. Then he'll share these thoughts with me (sometimes, when he's feeling trusting; sometimes he doesn't trust me, and I think it's because he knows I'm going to say something that will tear down the house of cards he's building to protect himself). I'll point out some inconsistency in his thoughts. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just trying to understand. So I'll ask a question. Then he'll fall into depression. Or he'll get really angry - which is just a way of pushing depression away IMO.

"Reality" sucks sometimes, Erti, but it's all we've got.

I put "reality" in quotes, because "reality" is in the eye of the beholder. The psych survivor movement uses the expression "concensus reality" to indicate that most of us - even those of us without psych labels - are more or less delusional. None of us is completely in touch with "reality." As long as you can stay somewhere in the neighborhood of concensus reality, you should be okay. It's when you start drifting too far into your own world that you get into trouble. And a huge part of why you get into trouble is because you get isolated. Other people no longer understand you, so they avoid you. Isolation is like a living death for people. We need other people to keep us grounded.

Some of the things you may believe to be true aren't true at all. They're opinions. You may believe that you can't trust anyone or that you're unloveable or that the world is an unsafe and scary place. Those aren't facts. They're just a bunch of beliefs you've acquired over the years from experiences you've had. They're not "reality" no matter how strongly you believe in them and no matter how much evidence you see that they're true.

Dang! I had one final thought on the nature of "reality," but I've lost it. If I remember, I'll come back and share.

Oh, oh, I remember!

I was going to say that reality includes lots of things, both negative and positive. We tend to get caught up with the negative aspects of reality and label those parts "real." War is "real." Poverty is "real." Cancer is "real." Republicans are "real." And they're all super scary. My god, if I sat around thinking about these real things all day long, I'd be a basket case.

Let me remind you:

Wiggly little puppy dogs with waggly tails and puppy breath are real.

The blue sky is real.

The moon reflecting on a still lake at night is real.

The sun warming you while you sit in the park and listen to the birds in the trees is real.

A hot bubble bath is real.

The point is there are huge swatches of reality that are uplifting or cheerful or blissful or joyful or [insert positive emotion] that we don't think about when we think about "reality." "Reality" is such a freakin' downer!

I seriously think you need to make time daily to experience fully some wonderful aspect of "reality." And the more emotional distress you're in, the more you need that exercise. Give yourself over to enjoying something pleasureable. Every day. That's a homework assignment for you, Erti.

Go pet a cat and hear it purr.

Eat a chocolate chip cookie and really, really focus on it.

Study the clouds.

Listen to a baby laughing.

Watch a funny movie.

Whatever it is you get into. Just make it something totally wholeseome that you can experience with your senses and take a break from the endless negative thoughts that you think are "reality." Let it go for at least two minutes a day.

Oops. Posted twice!

I understand how you feel somewhat Erti. I also tend to prefer my own little world to reality. Inside my head seems to make a lot more sense then the world outside sometimes.

Reality is not reality. The real reality is what most people think is fake. That's the way I look at it.

makes since. People having different perceptions of reality. Wouldn't that make everyone psychotic?

Personally Erti, I feel western culture has lost its connection to common sense and nature(human and earth). I try to manage myself well enough to survive, and I'm good enough at it to help others survive also. I enjoy myself and my life, despite time spent in hospitals and the rest.

I'm sorry, I have to interject by making not of how hilarious costello's comment about Republicans was! 'Republicans are "real." And they're all super scary.' Hahahahha!! :P

But honestly? Everyone is psychotic to an extent. Just because they don't have vividly bizarre hallucinations/delusions doesn't exempt them because reality IS in the eyes of the beholder... But at the same time, it's a spectrum. The farther you are from 'consensus reality', the more likely you are to hurt yourself or others in the process by being sucked into your ideal world. The farther you are, the more likely it is that you need help finding ground to stand on because your footing is weakened.

Are you hiding from facing a problem? Are you hiding from responsibility? Are you hiding from the hard truth? All of these are spooky things for a LOT of people, neurotypicals included. And you'll find that, with a lack of MI, a lot more intentional delusion takes place... With MI, at least you have a vantage point of KNOWING. Knowing your patterns to stop them & having support. If you're neurotypical & hiding from the truth, you are merely deemed irresponsible & have no choice but to find out the hard way.

Feel free to enjoy your reality, but there are a lot of things you are missing & you might be suffering more at the hands of your own imagination. There are ways of taking advantage of the life everyone else lives & making it advantageous. It's not boring all of the time!

lol... Thanks! I'm so glad someone noticed my joke. But, seriously, they're scary.

It's my belief that we're all deluded to one extent or another. I don't know that I would say that everyone is psychotic, because to me psychotic means that you've moved so far away from consensus reality that you're having trouble functioning in the world.

The thing that tipped my son into his last episode was having a woman break up with him. Actually she wasn't even kind enough to break up with him. She just stopped responding to his calls and texts.

He coped with this by simply refusing to believe it. He created a world where they were married and had children.

I suppose that would be ok except for two things: 1. If you're living a fantasy life in a fantasy world, you miss the chance to have a real life with a real woman in the real world. 2. Those fantasy worlds can turn on you fast! Yes, he got to keep his girlfriend, but he had to deal with ghosts and voices and scary thoughts that just popped into his head from nowhere.

I see eye to eye with you so much on this & you're not even afflicted!! I might just be more sane than I thought

But yeah. I'd prefer just accepting the girl was a ***** than to be assaulted by ghosts... It's easier to get over someone than it is to tell a ghost to leave you the hell alone. They're persistent!!

Hmmm I thought I was alone in this....after my episode in September I made a comment about kind of missing it. I dunno how to explain it but I felt more involved with the world even though it wasent completely real. And near the end it was like I understood myself more it was a different kind of clarity. I don't know how to explain it.

-Trish
"Don't curse the rain, without it things don't grow. Instead find the beauty in it."

I've had difficulty understanding reality since I was born. When I see nature being harvested for useless widgets and humans enslaving other humans so they can have servents and then use drs to help with their depression from inactivity, I'm Ok with not understanding reality.

I agree Costello. I remember listening to Bill Maher once talking about strange beliefs some religious groups have but because many people believe the same things it becomes sanity by consensus. If one person believes he is the reincarnation of Napoleon then he is considered crazy unless he can get a bunch of other people to believe that he really is the reincarnation of Napoleon. Then it becomes sanity by consensus.
To me psychotic means too much mental chaos to function and get along with the rest of the sanity by consensus deluded masses. There needs to be a restructuring phase after the mental chaos of the tornado of psychosis passes through. Maybe certain belief systems give people a blueprint or a structure to hang on to.

Yea, my son's pdoc tells him he has to be willing to go through the pain of these kinds of things. Stuff happens sometimes, and you just have to go into the pain and process it. It won't hurt forever - at least it'll hurt less with time.

Well I'm dealing with a lot of things. I have a past of abuse which is often triggered. I think a lot of my "hallucination" and "delusions" help me cope with all the abuse I've experienced when I was young. Looking back at the post I was in a bad place at that moment but right now I can't help but want to go back and see if Chloe is OK and if Amber is lying to me. I miss my world writing this and well then I think about the Alice in Wonderland quote. However my world is real to me... no matter what anyone else says to me.

hahaaa

My world is real to me too and especially the delusions!! I don't even think half of them are delusions! Take this...I am deathly afraid of running into people from my town (which is in Wisconsin) when I am other places because I think they are after me. So I go with a friend to Arizona. I'm OK with the fact that I am leaving the state, but I have this feeling like someone is following me there. I get there and a few days into the trip, we meet this lady from my hometown in Wisconsin!!! My friend says it really happened and she was shocked out of her mind too! I don't think all of our delusions are symptoms of a disorder. I think we have a special ability to just know things sometimes!!

Normally people give me funny looks or tell me nothing is there or if something sounds bizarre. It's finding the ability to trust someone even when it's hard to. I don't think I'm off in my world like a lot of other people are.