Delusions of Grandeur. John.

COMMENT. Narcissism helps you rise above that! Big respect Scotty for doing this blog x 

I’m not so so sure narcissism is the right term….but I see what you mean…. If anything its deflating the ego that helps you get over delusions. (John)

“GDs are characterized by fantastical beliefs that one is famous, omnipotent, wealthy, or otherwise very powerful. The delusions are generally fantastic and typically have a religious, science fictional, or supernatural theme. There is a relative lack of research into GD, in contrast to persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations. About 10% of healthy people experience grandiose thoughts but do not meet full criteria for a diagnosis of GD.^{4]”        WIKIPEDIA.} 

I’m going to come back to the story on my previous post at another time. At the moment I’d like to talk about Delusions of Grandeur. As you’ll see above a friend made a comment on my previous post on psychosis, and I gave them a reply revolving around the notion that battling delusions actually takes keeping the ego in check. That would probably also relate to how most of us go about life in the everyday (Obviously apart from the man in the image above). In no way do I feel this person was being negative. You can tell from the post they meant well. I’m just trying to get a grasp on what they might have meant by narcissism.

The Wikipedia post above is their definition of what Delusions of Grandeur are. For me it doesn’t exactly chime with my own experiences. Yes, I absolutely agree delusions are fantastical and can have religious, science fictional and supernatural themes…I would probably add conspiratorial to the list too. But when these delusions are described as making you feel omnipotent, wealthy or otherwise very powerful, I would not describe that as typical to my own experience or the experiences of many I have met on psychiatric wards.

When I first experienced a delusional manic high yes I absolutely did feel I was maybe caught up in some massive fantastical reordering of everything I knew as being normal, perhaps being wrong. Yes perhaps supernatural forces were at play. But the key term I use here is ‘caught up’. An omnipresent or very powerful person would never be caught up in these things, they would be dictating the terms and in charge of the situation. This is where I feel these things get misinterpreted often. Where people may think we feel something like the idiot in the above image.

Elle mentioned in her last post about feeling embarrassment when coming back from an episode of psychosis. I’ve experienced that too. You certainly don’t feel powerful. For me this is actually a healthy thing. It demonstrates an ego that’s fairly in check with the correct order of things. And that reductive ego plays a big part in defeating delusions that can seem incredibly true just the day before.

I’m not sure if I’ve entirely managed to make a clear point here. I hope so. As Elle has also stated, a big part of this blog is perhaps about trying to find a new language to describe the things we experience. I’m sure we’ll come back to that idea often.