#definition of psychosis

[categories-9]

Acute Psychosis in Pune Dr. Ankit Patel.

[schizosupport]

One of the curiosities about how psychosis is defined, is the fact that clinically, delusions are defined as strongly held "wrongful" beliefs that don't respond to counter-proof, and that aren't shared with others in a subculture.

In other words, believing even very bizarre conspiracy theories such as "the earth is flat" isn't a delusion, though in a broader linguistic sense it is sometimes referred to as such.

In this post I wanna talk a bit about why that is, and why I do think that it's important to have a distinction between clinical delusions that happen in psychotic illnesses, and strange beliefs that arise in other ways.

So why is it not a delusion if it's shared with a subculture?

I think the reason for this distinction is that delusions experienced by people with psychotic disorders are something that comes from within, rather than something we've been taught to believe. Per definition. Psychotic people aren't particularly "gullible", we don't lack critical thinking skills, we have an illness that make us believe random untrue crap in a way that makes us unable to think critically about it. So while a psychotic belief could be inspired by something we've come across (like a conspiracy theory) our brain is generally gonna take it as a seed and run with it. Therefore we usually quickly get out of bounds from the 'community' that might have inspired our belief anyways.

Overall, we are less prone to having gotten our beliefs from others and are more prone to being the originator of a belief. In something like folie a deux, a non-psychotic person is taught reality from a psychotic delusional person, f.ex. a child growing up with a delusional parent. The child might appear at first glance to be psychotic, but actually they only believe those things because that's what they were taught by someone they consider an authority. If you remove the child from that environment, you will usually be able to help them regain a better understanding. Similarly someone might grow up in a cult. And they are believing what they are being taught, and their parents are believing what they have been taught. And there will be most likely an originator to the cultish beliefs. That person might be maliciously making things up, or they might even be psychotic and delusional. But the people who are being taught these things as facts are behaving like most humans, as social creatures who's reality is defined by their context.

Most people's context is defined along the lines of consensus reality, but if your social context is not aligned with the majority consensus reality, you are still aligned with the beliefs of your social context if you share your weird beliefs with a subculture. Your brain didn't independently come up with a wild belief that is out of touch with everything you know/have been taught.

Consensus reality is a consensus. And even if the consensus you follow is shared by only 2% of the population, if that 2% is all the people you relate to and consider to be the people "in the know", then you are in a way not going against your contextual consensus reality. You've just picked a less popular one.

So what defines a clinical (psychotic) delusion is that it does not align with any consensus about reality that you have access to. It's your own, and it's unlikely that you have allies who are supporting your beliefs. Though in rare cases a clinically delusional person may be contributing new material to a subculture, that others then start believing, and as a result they do share their beliefs with a subculture. But they didn't just learn the belief from the subculture, the belief is growing and morphing independent of the group.

But yeah that's all clinically speaking. In a broader linguistic sense, I think people use "delusional" to refer to anyone who has beliefs that aren't aligned with the majority-consensus-reality, or even more simplistically, that aren't aligned with the speaker's understanding of consensus reality (usually as an insult). So an atheist might refer to the religious as delusional, and vice versa.

It may be a losing battle to get wider society to stop using 'delusional' in this way, but I think it is at least helpful to talk about how such "delusions" differ fundamentally from the psychotic experience.

[k9offline]

being nonhuman kinda feels like zoochosis in a way,,, like an animal raised in captivity in a non suitable enviroment who would never survive in the wild pacing around in circles for hours on end because they know it just isnt right

[thedreadvampy]

sometimes I forget that my experience has been. um. not 'your experiences are not universal' vibes but more like 'your experiences are EXTREMELY atypical'

[dnphan]

being a dan and phil fan is just repeating the same things over and over again for 15 years

[ladyylavenderrr]

Considering writing a fic where Julian takes Garak’s insistence that the Federation has planted some kind of mind controlling device in his head more seriously. The crew kinda brushes it off as silly old Garak, all paranoid about nothing, but considering Julian knows he has a history of drug addiction and mental illness (Garak is practically suicidal in The Wire), and highly likely abuse (if Julian hasn’t figured out Tain was abusive by now, he never will), psychosis is a definite worry. And I’ve seen some people say Garak wasn’t being serious saying this, which I guess is possible, but realistically, Julian should be worried either way. This would also be me finally exploring Garak’s psychosis properly in a fic, and I definitely see him as being psychotic after all the events of ASIT

[impishtubist]

It's light when I get up and it's light when I leave the house after work and it's light when I get back after that and it's STILL fucking LIGHT when I go to bed and then it's light when I get up and it's light when I leave the house after work and it's light when I get back after that and it's STILL FUCKING LIGHT ALL THE TIME I'M LOSING MY MIND

[turrondeluxe]

In your universe, are Mikey's brothers part of his subconscious, or are they actually ghosts? Did he stop seeing and hearing them after killing Hiroto/running away with the kids?

Knowing back on how some version of the turtles are confirmed to have psychosis (strongly looking at 2012 leo and mikey), I'm going with that knowledge and confirming that in the AU the "ghosts" of ronin Mikey's brothers are hallucinations caused by psychosis that developed because of extreme events happening all at once in his life (also mixing with his depression, extreme stress, isolation and deep grief).

He does stop seeing them and hearing them after running away with the babies. Taking care of them (getting to realize he wants to live in the long run and seeing the babies as reasons to stay alive at first, help monumentally) and being away from all the fighting help lots to his mental health!

Mikey saw "his brothers" for the last time ever when he was setting the lair on fire.

[dxntbreathein]

also i know people dont really take systems seriously whenever the word fictive is mentioned especially but in my specific experience its more complicated than just . oh thats me

its liek imprinting onto the character in the media so vividly and harshly and mixing their similar experiences to my very unrememebred ones to the point where they seem unseparable in my mind and i emotionally react off of it as if it were what happened. my perception of the character in the media also plays a huge role, not what the character ACTUALLY is like . ones perception of a thing is very impotant i feel like whjen it comes to stuff like this.

ofc this might not be "The True System Experience" [or whatever the fuck people wanna call it] but its the closest to what i experience and what ive found researching online . for reference i mostly heavily identify with OSDD-1A rather than OSDD-1B .. if that .. makes sense.

[crumbleclub]

Thoughts for your consideration: a Michael who's so unused to being treated like a person that he has no idea at all how to respond to people being kind or comforting or even just. Acknowledging that he has thoughts and feelings?

Ik this sounds like an angsty concept but it's intended to be the start of things that are happy for him. Like he's given the chance to have positive interactions with someone (ghosts? henry? does he manage to secure a standard human friend somehow? fuckin helpy?) and yea he short circuits in the short term but in the long term he's way better for it and kind of learns from experience how he can express his own feelings and things which allows him to feel less isolated

[thethingything]

does anyone else ever get delusions that aren't particularly well defined, for lack of a better description?

like I know for us, the way we normally describe delusions is more "this is a thing that feels very real whether I choose to believe it or not. I can decide that it sounds ridiculous and impossible, but that just feels like being in denial about something that's very obviously happening", but sometimes it feels like a thing is happening but I can't quite pinpoint what it is other than just the vibe of it being a particular kind of delusion.

there'll be the sense that it's definitely a specific type of thing, but no concrete details about the exact nature of it. I feel like I see delusions described a lot as being really specific beliefs and I do experience that, but there's also stuff that's more "something related to this sure is happening but the details are a complete mystery" and a hell of a lot of stuff that's somewhere in between

[kiki-strike]

thinking abt how the two main sibling pairs in atla are both older brother and younger sister and also in both the younger sister is shown to be more mature (generally) than the older brother. both are more powerful and have more responsibility and are still playing second fiddle to their brothers (at least in the fandom). was this supposed to happen? or is this just because the creators are men and didn’t notice 🤨

[emiliosandozsequence]

honestly if i do have bipolar disorder, it would at last explain where my psychosis comes from bc i've been baffled about that for years

[cannibal-nightmares]

i do love to joke about it, but my past shrink sincerely and adamantly declaring me a time traveler was a lot more damaging than i would care to admit.

[naturalbornlosers]

this site is borderline unusable for people with ocd sometimes. if someone made a “joke”/comment that triggered someones psychosis, people would rightfully tell that person to shut the fuck up, but if someone makes similar comments that triggers someones ocd (example: “if you don’t reblog this, block me”), it’s somehow okay?? make it make sense.

[justanapparatus]

nothing but respect for the manifestation girlies but I want yall to know that when I said things like "reality is simply a reflection of my imagination" they committed me to a psych ward