When The Glass Shatters: What Happens When The Delusion Breaks

TW: Substance Use, Abuse/Bullying, Surveillance, Religious Delusions, Suicidal Ideation, Skin Picking Mention

The drop felt like release from an oxygen high. I felt Dissociated, dizzy, staring at my phone in a daze. For over 10 years I’d had this Delusion, and in one minute it had been definitively proven false.

I have had symptoms of Psychosis since my earliest memories, and there are Delusional aspects to my early Psychoses. However, the intensive Delusional states and Paranoia did not begin until Middle School. It’s hard to pin an exact age, but 12 is a good estimate for this article. My Delusions in early adolescence were Persecutory, and often involved an invasion of privacy, such as Thought Projection or Surveillance. Part of what made these Delusions so terrifying was that whatever outside entity was observing me was observing me in judgment, either for my Command Voices or for some odd trait of behavior, often a Delusional Safety Behavior (such as breath holding or skin picking), creating a feedback loop. 

I remember in 7th grade struggling greatly with Thought Projection Delusions, or the belief that others could hear my thoughts and (sometimes) that I could hear theirs. The thoughts that I thought others could hear were not mine, my thoughts were drowned out by the Command Voices that screamed violence and blasphemy. I thought that other people could hear those, and that’s why they were treating me so poorly. This caused me extreme Paranoia and Anxiety, and I often chewed on plastic objects as a Safety Behavior. I would destroy mechanical pencils and erasers, creating a complete mess at my desk. I would also doodle obsessively, often to the point that ink bled through the paper and the actual coursework was hard to see. When I did this, my mind felt more still, like I didn’t have thoughts to project and that the Voices couldn’t get to me as easily. I would get other Delusions as well, often triggered by Voices telling me I had sinned grievously or broken some sort of rule or law. I remember discovering that glow sticks made a satisfying crunch when you bit them, a crunch that stopped the Delusion for a second. I ended up biting through a glow stick, and tasting the foulest, most acidic thing I have ever tasted in my life. It was oily and spread over my lips and tongue, and was hard to get off. I was scared I was going to die, but I was too ashamed to admit to my mom and have her call for help. I decided to just have come what may. I am a bit embarrassed to say that I did not stop chewing on glow sticks afterwards, as they were too effective, until I bit through a glow stick a second time. 

As I entered high school, the Persecutory/Sin Delusions changed shape to Surveillance Delusions. I believe this was largely triggered by my stint in Foster Care, as well as the later release of the Snowden files. I was also involved in the robotics club at my school and learning about coding and computers more than the average teen during that time. In 9th grade, I developed the Delusion that I had been placed on the No-Fly list, and that the US Government was watching me closely. I believed this because I had developed issues with maladaptive daydreaming at the time, and my daydreams were often dark and violent, and I would google things like “how does disanguionation kill you?”. I would have Panic Attacks about this Delusion and had basically no social media presence until I was in my 20s because of it. My original plan going into Undergrad was to get a BSc in Biology and to go to PhD in Sweden, but I would regularly have mental spirals because I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to go abroad. Part of me knew this Delusion was ridiculous, but part of me just could not shake it, for 10 years. 

I believe that these Persecutory/Sin Delusions, from a Cognitive perspective, came as a Trauma response. As a child and teen I was living with chronic Trauma and experienced repeated acute traumas. I experienced constant peer rejection as well familial rejection and abuse. I believe that these Delusions were in part my brain attempting to create justification for what I was experiencing. “I have to be a bad person for all these people to be treating me this badly”. I also believe it was about having a psychological sense of control. If all you know is hardship that is out of your control, there is comfort in having a hardship that seems to be within your control (thus the Safety Behaviors). I think that the Government as the Surveyor was a prime choice due to Foster Care, my 9/11 Trauma, and my experiences growing up in the DC area.

I’m going to Florence, Italy this April as part of the Students With Psychosis envoy to the 2022 Schizophrenia International Research Society Congress. I haven’t traveled outside the USA since I was a small child. I had obtained a passport on a bit of a whim after updating my ID this past Fall; I thought it was a good idea in case something came up for work. Something came up for work! When I registered my passport with the airline, I felt a huge bubble of dread build in my chest as the system ran my information. I was shaking, but in only a minute or so with entering my information and the system scanning, I was told I am approved to travel, approved to fly.

It feels surreal to have this Delusion end, but I am choosing to see it as another step in my healing. I can leave this Delusion, and the pain that formed it, behind. I’ve got bigger things to focus on. 

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