Are You Delusional?

Are we all slightly delusional? By Mario Najm

“Oh, I’m sorry, but I can’t go for a coffee with you. I’m meeting with the owner of the company in the next hour,” your friend tells you. “What do you mean you’re meeting with the owner? You only started working here a week ago. I’m the only person you know here,” you reply, amused. “Well, I do know him and he thinks I’m brilliant. You’re just jealous!” she snaps. You smile because you know that she’ll never change. “Poor delusional little creature,” you mumble. “At least meeting the owner of the company is still a better story than last week’s saga when she said Brad Pitt was a jerk and dumped him!” Okay, so we are not all this extreme, but we all have some pet delusions that affect the way we view life. For many, perception of life in general is all about them and veers from the absolute truth. According to mainstream psychiatry, we are allowed to do just that… to a certain extent, of course. We sometimes interpret things to suit our character and frame of mind, and this helps us stay mentally healthy in a complex - and sometimes - harsh world. We all know at least one person who “knows for a fact” that without exception, “Everybody likes me”. While it’s not possible to be loved by everyone we cross paths with, it keeps us happy to think that we are beings of pure radiating light. The real problem, however, arises when some people take these delusions to the extreme. In these cases, a false and self-appointed belief system of incorrect inferences about external reality becomes the absolute truth for such people. At a “normal” level, this is tolerable and acceptable, but at an extreme level, it becomes seriously threatening to society. I have met quite a few people with this ailment by the way. Despite sufficient evidence to invalidate their erratic perceptions, they will still maintain their views, and start clinging onto them even more fervently.

We have all come across people who left us thinking, “I felt really bad for the poor elephant trying to fly out the window.” I was once in a discussion with an executive and all he could do was talk about himself. Let me tell you, after about 30 minutes, I became delusional and actually visualized 10 poor elephants waiting their turn to fly out the tiny window! Delusions fall into many categories and some are more extreme than others. For example, we all have functional capabilities of intuition, but some people want everyone to believe that they are super-intuitive. You know the type I’m talking about, “A sudden feeling just struck me. Jack, your wife is having an affair. I just saw the entire scene flash before my eyes.” This is what psychologist call “Delusional Intuition” and the subject usually comes out with an ‘out-of-the-blue’ statement or prophecy. Even though there are no justifiable external causes to bring on these psychic attacks, they will defend their ‘feelings’ to the last breath, and tell you that whatever they said will happen - soon or later that is. If what they predict does not happen, they will simply try to find loopholes and excuses by usually trying to piece together unrelated events tally with their fairytale. These types of people live in their own little world and they just can’t seem to come out and smell the coffee. It has been noted that such people have usually been affected by a traumatic event that has shaken their lives to the point of escaping reality whenever possible. Others have “Delusional Perception” in which the person interprets any event that happens around them in their own way. For example, if two women are having coffee at a mall the delusional of the two might spot a man handing a woman a large shopping bag. She quickly nudges her friend and whispers, “See what he just gave her?” Her friend was busy sipping her coffee. “No, I didn’t see. What man?” “The man over there. Don’t look. I think they’re spies. He gave her a bag. I know the type: he stole some files and she’s his co-agent.” This scenario might go on for hours with the delusional woman taking us into a Matrix-like scenario just because of a shopping bag. Another form of delusion is, “Oh yes, I know the president very well. I was over at his house last week. Pleasant and well-educated man, but I didn’t have the time to sit and chat.”

I’m sure you’ve met someone like this before. You know, the type who met the president once – while he was serving him dinner at the restaurant. Such people create delusional lies to help themselves feel important. Many suffer from this form of self-deception albeit in smaller doses. We all like to name drop and place drop to show that we are highly social and well traveled. We may have met an important person only once, but we assure our friends that we know the person extremely well. The problem arises, however, if one of our ‘real’ friends feels they could use the help of our influential friend. We made up the lie, but now we are in a tight corner. Not wanting to be caught, we start fabricating excuses, “I wish that you had told me earlier he/she is out of town and won’t be back until next month.” Or if we are more ambitious, “Yes, don’t worry about it. I just spoke to him/her and they will contact the source giving you all this trouble and sort it out.” With delusional friends like that, who needs enemies? Another favourite form of self-deception is the “Delusional Memory” syndrome. Here we have people who just don’t remember things properly, or in better terms, they remember past experiences the way ‘they’ want to remember. For example, a man recalls the wonderful vacation he had with his wife. He will tell friends that they laughed, partied and made love, all endlessly of course, but he doesn’t remember that it was during that vacation that she asked him for a divorce. Even in his own mind: it never happened. For extreme cases, treatments do exist, but it’s a long and tiresome journey. The best way to treat these cases is by keeping an eye out for the youth. If children start showing signs of delusional behaviour, they should be corrected repeatedly until they stop. Many parents make the mistake of pretending to listen and laugh at what their children fabricate. If this is allowed to continue without proper direction, the child is going to grow into a delusional adult in one form or the other. It should be said that some people are only delusional when it comes to certain aspects of their lives: the aspects they cannot deal with. You will find that on a social level these people are not delusional, because they accept their friends and society, but these same people may be extremely delusional when it comes to their working environment. “Did you notice how the boss looked at me? He really hates me,” a man tells his friend.

“He didn’t look at you, he was staring at Peter sitting behind you. Peter made a huge mistake with the accounts and the boss is freaking,” comes the response. “No, he was looking at me. He really hates me,” the man persists. “How can he hate you when he hardly knows who you are,” comes another response. “He knows I have potential and he’s trying to get rid of me!” the man says, yelling. Okay, maybe the man in the example isn’t happy at work or just can’t deal with the pressure, but whatever the case, there is no escaping that he is being delusional. It’s similar to a married woman who is unhappy in her union. She will continually lie to herself and to all those around her that she has the most perfect relationship on this side of the galaxy, but deep down she’s falling apart. When people overstress certain aspects of their lives repeatedly in the most positive way possible: watch out, it’s most likely the opposite. Although we are not all as extreme as the examples given in this article, it does raise a very important question: How much self-deception do we practise on our friends and ourselves? If we do, why do we do it? What do we feel is lacking in our lives? What is it that we can’t face in our daily existence? It’s always good to take a closer look at our inner world and try our best to overcome this problem, if it does exist, and face the world without fear. Human beings are not “sick”, according to science, we all have our little problems, but we learn to deal with them in the best way we know how. Somehow, we always move forward try our best to improve upon ourselves. This is what makes us unique: the will to evolve. Life is short and we will eventually realize that there is nothing to fear but fear itself.