in my experience, as someone with bipolar 1 (or possibly schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type) all of psychosis was bad but the parts that have been hardest with me to recon with is the delusions. and learning to what was real/ how to think for myself again.
i’ve been doing research on common delusions and here are a few i’ve come across:
this site talks about schitzophrenia psychosis specifically, but for me i experience lots of these and i’m not sure i’m even schitzoaffective. here are the things i experienced
persecutory delusions: believed the cops were after me because of my politics. believed my dad poisoned me growing up. when i got to the hospital, believed the doctors were trying to poison me and prosecute me. was so convinced i hid the medicine and refused to leave the room, going as far as pissing in a cup.
referential delusions: believed people were sending me secret signals. believed my favorite poet was writing about me and in real life shared an ungodly amount about my trauma with her in dms. hallucinated she made posts on her social media about me.
grandiose delusions: believed that i was an angel or saint sent to start/ run the revolution. believed i was a writing savant. believed i was beloved by many.
erotomanic delusions: believed that my roommate was in love with me and was my boyfriend. also that he was cheating on me. and would not let him leave my side because i believed it was the 1950s and we were being prosecuted as a gay couple (this goes back to persecutory.)
somatic delusions: experienced an extreme amount of leg pain (not sure how much of this was delusion and how much was disability) and believed my body was falling apart and i was dying, in desperate need of medical attention.
bizarre delusions: believed all my trauma was connected to capitalism. thought my dyslexia was much worse than it is and talked weirdly (southern accent or word salad). thought i had been abused worse than i had and was scared of even my semi-safe parent. thought i was so sick that once i “got treatment” i wouldn’t need glasses or disability aids.
other: seeing all sorts of connections that did not exist. paranoia of strangers. thought i was solving the answer to the revolution. played chess for 3 days straight under the guise it would help me strategize said revolution.
mania symptoms: such as went days without sleep, delusions of grandeur, stopped eating, stopped showering, nonstop activity, racing thoughts, pacing, poor impulse control (spending, sexual come-ons, lots of masterbation), hypersexuality
other symptoms: hallucinations (visual, touch), stopping attending work, lying, paranoia, influx of feelings, trouble communicating, trouble with light and sound (more than usual), disorganized behavior, uncontrollable age regression
why do i tell you all this? i just need to think out loud i guess and need this for my own record/ my own “things to look out for” emergency packet. and because i’m curious about other people’s delusions and how they interconnected with other psychosis symptoms for you? what were you diagnosed with?
