[Guest]

Gstile and a few other (brave) souls here have admitted to having the delusion of ?I feel like I have made up the entire world.? Yep. THAT was the killer for me, too. It sounds so ridiculous and so esoteric, like something a bunch of laughing kids would discuss over some good dope and a long evening of creative thinking. It?s not. It?s petrifying.

I used to truly honest to God believe that I had invented the Universe. I felt like I was EVERYthing?.that my moods caused weather, that my anger made things break, that my desire made people FEEL something even if they were not in the room. It didn?t really matter, of course, because there were no people anyway ? only figments of my own imagination. I was All. My entire life experience had been nothing but a thought ? as if, as in The Matrix, I was lying something unconscious and dreaming up every sensory experience I had ever had.

HOW can a non-psychotic human mind actually fall into this kind of insane delusion?

The good news is that a non-damaged brain CAN. And the bad news is that it?s not even very hard.

In a regressed state, the mind can create an Experience of something that would otherwise only be an Idea.

Normal people are perfectly capable of saying ?you know?.I?ve been seeing my entire life differently lately ? this marriage I?ve been in for ten years, it?s like I just kept seeing the Ideal Marriage that I wanted to see ? but it?s NOT the real relationship that Dave and I have..?
Or
?I feel like everything I do has so much importance ? or potential consequences, and I can?t know ahead of time what?s the right decision?so I get so scared of making ANY decision.?

Those are not nutty thoughts. They?re METAPHORS for the personal experience that the person is going through ? they are using language (and symbols) to clarify some very complicated emotional states or issues.

But?.put a neurotic person into a dissociative and regressed state, and the metaphor becomes reality. The ?notion? of what the person is saying is perfectly normal ? ?life IS subjective and to a certain extent we all ?invent? our own take on things..? But?now take that notion and make it REAL ? the person suddenly feels like he actually IS inventing the world, and that nothing exists except his own thoughts.

The nightmare we experience in these delusions is based in SOMEthing genuine, but in that regressed mental state we can?t make the distinction between metaphor and truth. So we end up actually believing the symbolic meaning of our insecurities and fears ? and we become ?lost? inside a delusion that feels so insane, and so isolating, and so terrifying that we can?t tell reality from fantasy.

The Source of those delusions is a normal human issue. The Experience of them, however, in regressed mental states, becomes a terrifying acid trip-like solipsistic mind game that is paralyzing.

And that?s why I say, (and psychoanalysts say, its not just me, lol) that if you can work on the Ordinary fears/issues you have, you can find a way to DEAL with the ordinary ?stuff? that is sourcing those delusions. Working directly on the delusion won?t work. Working on the stuff behind it can work beautifully. The problem is that when you truly believe you invented the universe, you?re not particularly motivated to bother with things like ?fear of intimacy? or ?fear of failure? or ?fear of not living up to one?s grandiose self-image.? PUSH. Those kinds of fears are the keys to your freedom, even though they feel ridiculously petty compared to believing you are god.

 

[Guest]

Oh wise Janine,

How your posts give me the strength to push on LOL. But you are right, thoughts/delusons like these are strong, horrible and terrifying, and I cannot understand how I can actually believe these thoughts as they are so crazy and egocentric, but somehow I do. I become paralyzed by them, with such intense emotion, I know they must be true... But, I also realize that these thoughts (and similar ones) ran through my mind long before the DP/DR and delusions, so maybe I'm just prone to having weird thoughts : )

Anyways, I am trying very hard to reassure myself that these thoughts are related to more ordinary fears (or should I say "coded" as mentioned in the fine pages of Unraveling...) and will keep telling myself this no matter how far down the hole I get.

Thank you again for showing me that someone can have these thoughts and still end up as fufilled, charming, and sane as you are....

Best,

Jon
(trying to grasp reality....)

 

[g-funk]

Let me reassure you all, you cannot have invented the world.
Because I did. :lol:

Seriously, I went to see a therapist twice last year when I was really bad. To the point that the only thing I could do was cry in bed. She wanted to talk about things that ranged from how I felt when my cat got run over to whether I was being too hard on myself in what I expected of myself in my career. Anything but the dp hell I was going through.

I really didn't like her. She knew nothing about dp. She didn't have any tips on how to get myself immediately out of my own hell. From that I concluded that she was rubbish, and dropped her like a hot potato.

In retrospect, she knew exactly what she was doing.

 

[sixtiessoul]

Janine, yah i often felt that way too. We're all a bit egocentric like that, don'tcha think :::laughs::: =) I call that my "Dante's Inferno Purgatory Feeling" or "The Jacob's Ladder Experience". It's really very scary to not believe that the world exists, and a God has shunned your (whatever you believe), or that this is all a dream. I could've sworn I died, and it was "Appearing as monsters...and until you forgive yourself will stay monsters...and when you do, angels will appear and you will ascend to heaven" or so Danny Aiello says in that movie. hahaha. =) I just think that we become so obsessed with ourselves with our illness that we have to have some overreactive rationale to have our "ENTIRE EXISTENCE" taken away. We think of our lives in terms of before and after, and we want before SOOOO bad. Therefore we have to invent a tragedy like "Dying and inventing reality in purgatory" or etc. to rationalize a simple chemical imbalance or psychobiological impairment that doctors are working on curing. (Alot of this i posted in Spriggy's is DP/DR scary for you?)

I think we get over that whole Jacob's Ladder thing real quick, because, we don't ever kinda "wake up again" bouncing back and forth, and other cool dreamy stuff. It just kinda sucks...and we all think "well if it were a dream, i'd give myself superpowers, a great build (or bust, haha), and rock the world in every way possible...not be sad lonely and grey in front of a computer". y'know wot i mean?

besides, what you can do in life...even if it is sacrificed in one's opinion... (i.e. i'm a horse that's gone lame, so i might as well be shot!) can amount to so much. you could never feel reality again, and donate to the tsunami victims all your being and soul for the rest of your life, and see that joy, cry those tears, and realize..."hey man, something greater than me is happening here, i can't have invented it."

I remember watching only reruns on tele cos i was afraid i was gonna make up too much scary stuff on the evening news. HA!

Cheers

doug/dj/that70sboy/sixtiessoul

 

[Guest]

The problem is that when you truly believe you invented the universe, you?re not particularly motivated to bother with things like ?fear of intimacy? or ?fear of failure? or ?fear of not living up to one?s grandiose self-image.? PUSH. Those kinds of fears are the keys to your freedom, even though they feel ridiculously petty compared to believing you are god.

I personally dont feel I am God, but I think that working on ordinary issues (like fear of intimacy, failure etc, which to me are not so ordinary actually) is what is gonna bring one back to the Real world. So I agree.

 

[person3]

Janine,

Are you saying the same things on this board that you were a few years ago? I mean, has your advice evolved (not in a BAD way, just more in depth I guess now than it was before?)

or am i understanding more if it, more clearly?

Maybe it's more your advice, or both. I dunno...

 

[Guest]

I think I'm probably saying MORE than I used to say - trying to be more explicit - plus, I understand it all better now, studing at the analytic institute, etc....I've hopefully got a better "handle" on th concepts.

But you're probably understanding more of it, too.

By the way, person3, you cracked me up in that thread where you told New Agey types to PM me re: mediation, etc.....I just howled. Got your message the other day, in and out, busy, etc...but loved hearing from you.

L,
J

 

[lone wolf]

Hi Janine and others - I think I may drop in and share my experience too.

Some years ago when I had my PTSD psychosis, in the end I was having almost exactly the same delusion about inventing the world and being my own god in my personal universe. Though my delusion was psychosis-related, I guess it doesn't differ from other people's anxiety-based experiences in this forum. I had also a delusion of grandiosity, like: "If I play my cards well with my universe and choose the best reality for me, I'll achieve something VERY BIG, e.g. I'll be awarded a Nobel prize or something like that and I'll be SOOOO famous!" (Indeed I feel ashamed telling this here. )

What Janine said in her post about the fears behind the delusion is so true:

The problem is that when you truly believe you invented the universe, you?re not particularly motivated to bother with things like ?fear of intimacy? or ?fear of failure? or ?fear of not living up to one?s grandiose self-image.?

Although the root of my psychosis was PTSD and the overwhelmingly painful memories of being raped, I also had very little self-esteem and huge fear of failure toward my studies and life in general. Thus I guess it felt so safe for me to plunge into that delusion, in which I felt I had created the reality for me, cuz in that way I had the (wrong) impression that I had everything in control.

I didn't believe that other people were wholly my invention, but rather that their realities crossed with mine while I was interacting with them, and I thought there were a plenty of universes and I just had to somehow "choose" the best universe for me. I really thought I could choose a universe, in which I could become one of the most celebrated people in the world. (So self-important, huh?)

I guess I started believing in that delusion, bc inside I quietly believed noone loves me, that I'm trash and can never achieve anything in my miserable life as I couldn't/cannot control what has happened/will happen to me (e.g. the rape in my past and my depression). So in the psychotic state of mind I freed myself from those painful feelings within and instead created a delusion, which was just the opposite of my deep fears.

Thus I feel Janine is absolutely right in this thing - the bizarre delusions are such an easy way for the psyche to shut down the fears of inadequacy etc. in one's life. It was so much easier to believe that I had created the universe or at least that I was in total control of it - than accept the fact that I cannot control everything in my life. In my PTSD psychosis I thought I even was raped just because deep inside I felt I deserve it, and thus the rape happened only bc of me.

It was so much easier to think like that cuz in that way I didn't have to deal with the uncertainties of life, nor with my insecurities related to it.

However - I'm aware that there is still some truth behind my psychotic delusion of being in control of my own universe. Metaphorically, or even literally to some extent, it is really true. I can choose what to say and make people around me happy/sad/angry/etc. with my choice of words, and I can decide which actions to take to achieve e.g. a degree at uni, an occupation, my scifi comic project etc. etc.

But... An anxious or psychotic mind (being in a regressed state, using Janine?s words) is in a state, which will easily take the delusion for granted for some reason. I believe the delusions almost always have a connection with some underlying, repressed fears - i.e. as my psychotic mind told me that I'm going to become something great in my life, it was a defense of not feeling the underlying crushing fear of being nothing. Similarly my delusion of being in control of my reality was based on my fear of having no control in my life.

This is why I think delusions can be insightful, cuz they definitely have been like that for me. Without my psychosis I would never have learned to treasure my everyday life and existence this fast. Though I admit that it is absolutely dangerous to give power to the delusions - it is a certain way to personal misery - I think they also may hint what might be wrong with you. You might look at the type/style of your delusions and try to see if there's something hidden. At least this was the case for me.

Anyone agree/disagree?