What are some things other psychotics do to differentiate between hallucination and reality? And what are ways some of you hold off symptoms? Looking to get a nice thread for people to help each other going here, this stuff isn't posted about enough.
Ways we prevent symptoms/stop them from progressing:
Make background noise to prevent auditory hallucinations. Most of ours start by hearing something that we can't identify the cause of in the background, and our brain starts the spiral from there. So we listen to music all the time and sleep with a fan on every single night, even in the winter. We just point it away from us if we don't want it making us cold.
Blame the cat (or other pets). Any weird movement, scratching, crunching or thumping? That's just Jerry, don't worry about it. He's a silly cat that does cat things even while we're sleeping. Any noise can be blamed on pets or the wind, which stops the paranoia from setting in and making everything bad.
We also tell ourselves that if there was an actual issue like an intruder or monster, the cat would hiss or scream, and the dog would be barking or making noise. This can be applied to many pets.
Stay busy. Focus on something--art, video games, tv shows and films, craft, gardening, anything that keeps you thinking. Don't let the anxiety get to you, just stay focused on your regular life.
Laugh at it. You're hallucinating a monster in your peripheral vision? Name it Fred and tell him to pay rent. You hear weird noises? Tell them to come back with a warrant. For us, treating symptoms like they're jokes or not serious makes us less anxious and therefore makes it easier to get back to a point where we're okay.
Having a friend or a pet near you can help. We feel safer and less alone when we see another living thing near us that's safe. We don't feel as much like we're trapped in another dimension that way.
How we differentiate between reality and unreality:
Touch it. This one only works for things you're not scared of, and if you don't have tactile hallucinations. It's not foolproof! But when we're seeing things like bugs and stuff, reaching out to touch them causes them to fade away so we know they're fake.
Ask friends and other trusted people if they "heard that" or "saw anything". If they're psychosis friendly, feel free to explain and be specific. If not, be vague and keep it to simple things like "hey did you hear anything? I couldn't tell what it was", if that will be safe enough. Having people to ground you can be great.
Look at how others around you are acting. Are they running or interacting with the thing in question in any way? Do they seem to look at it or no? If no one is noticing, it's less likely to be real.
These won't work for everyone and some of these might be harmful to others, but they're helpful to us. You know best what will help you!
Please feel free to add your own! We need more discussion around psychosis that isn't "scary evil person disorder and how to deal with people who have it".
