Delusion is an unreasonable, baseless belief or perception preserved in mind in spite of reasons, rationale, common sense, scientific evidence, research findings etc. showing them to be false or wrong. Delusion is usually the symptom of a mental disorder called Delusional Disorder which was previously known as Paranoid Disorder.
Some examples of Delusional Disorder are given below:
- The patient believing that some well-known person is close and trying to interact with that person with familiarity, leaving him / her perplexed.
- Believing and behaving with a sense of holding grand powers, high self-worth, large self-image, great knowledge, magical powers, uncommon skills, incredible talents etc. and with all these, the individual succeeding in convincing the gullible others to follow him / her blindly. Many in delusion at times end up gathering followers who are unaware of the hollowness of the claims.
- Carrying paranoid beliefs resulting in suspecting even close people like spouse. Suspicion leads to jealousy and behaviour expressing both of these.
- The patient perpetually carries a feeling that others are out to destroy him / her and are mistreating, disrespecting, spying, scheming etc. With these there will be instances of complaints raised to others, including to police, courts and government agencies.
- The patient carries a belief of being perpetually sick, having some physical defects or deformities etc. and carries on with such baseless complexes without them really being present.
- In Delusional Disorder, the patient may have many or some of the above symptoms.
People with Delusional Disorder could often become depressed, stressed, anxious etc. because of the unfavourable response they get from others towards their unusual behaviour. Because of these, they may end up becoming violent, complaining (even to the government and the courts), engaging in foolishly adventurous activities resulting in self-harm or harm to others. They could take unwise financial decisions too. They could also have many broken relationships and instances of close people distancing from them. They may find socialising difficult. However, it is also possible that they do well in other areas in which they do not have delusional beliefs.
Delusional people may end up having difficulties of conflicts in relationships, loss of employment, carrying perpetual hatred towards others including even some communities or groups and performing poorly at schools and workplaces. They could also develop other mental disorders.
Delusional disorders are treatable. The route to that is through psychiatrists and psychologists. Psychiatrists will be able to manage the condition with medication and the psychologist will deal with the person’s behavioural and cognitive difficulties through counselling and psychotherapy. However, as always, in a country like India, the chances of such cases reaching these professionals and the treatment progressing under them with sincerity are rare. Maybe we will change some day with better awareness of mental health spreading in the societies and families.