Hello! I’m writing a story that involves a schizophrenic character with delusions, as well as another character who’s very set in his ways and tends to dismiss evidence against his troubled view of the world. The latter is not intended to be psychotic, just…deeply, stubbornly wrong.
Do you have any suggestions for how I should go about differentiating the two? Mostly for making it clear that the latter is not experiencing delusions?
2/2 Should probably be a little clearer about my ask actually. The second character is a conspiracy theorist basically and a lot of the stereotypical tinfoil hat type stuff kind of looks like delusions which is what could cause issues, I want him to have that tinfoil hat vibe but also separate him from the character experiencing actual delusions—it’s not because of psychosis for him, it’s because of basic mistrust and logic leaps. It’s late so I’m probably not explaining all this perfectly but I’m thinking about it now so this is when I write it
This is an interesting problem, especially considering that these two categories of people can definitely look the same (and rarely also are the same people). But I think there's a few things that you could do to separate them to the viewers.
The easiest is to show the schizophrenic character as having intermittent psychosis, rather than continuous. Conspiracy theorists don't really have "episodes" where they suddenly stop believing the thing they're conspiring about.
Another is to involve non-delusion symptoms, which are also necessary for diagnosis of schizophrenia. A conspiracy theorist, no matter how dedicated, won't experience hallucinations, catalepsy, or speech problems. A character with schizophrenia will.
A characteristic of delusions is also that it is not possible to convince the person otherwise. They will continue believing into whatever they're delusional about, generally without feeling like they need to explain it. Many conspiracy theorists actually change their beliefs (for example, starting to blame a different demographic for why XYZ is bad) based on what's going on socially or politically, even if the conspiracy itself continues.
Another method is the target of the delusion vs of the conspiracy theory. Persecutory "Big Government" type delusions can and are often similar, or mimic conspiracy theories. Erotomanic ones, generally speaking, don't. Etc. "Parasites under my skin" also doesn't sound particularly conspiratorial.
Alternatively, even if the character does have persecutory delusions, you can make them seem too extreme to be possibly considered genuine beliefs by the readers. A conspiracy theorist might think that the government is putting chemicals in the water, but probably not that they're literally inserting thoughts into their head, or that their loved ones have been replaced by identical clones.
Depending on the actual delusion and circumstances, a schizophrenic person can (and very often will) be heavily distressed either by the content of the delusion, or potentially by the awareness of being delusional. They can't really "tune out" if the subject annoys them too much. A conspiracy theorist wouldn't be afraid of the fact that they believe their theories.
I hope this helps - sorry for the late reply.
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