Al/Alan

There is a heavy emphasis on treating the hallucinations and delusions of psychotic patients. While they do deserve that recognition, there is a very significant symptom that psychiatrists rarely even inquire about. False memories.

There are a number of reasons why this should be considered a severe symptom. The foremost being that they can be the root cause of delusional narratives. People who experience delusions often have a false memory as evidence that their delusions are true.

False memories can also mimic the symptoms of command hallucinations. If the memory in question is that of receiving instructions on how to go about performing a certain mission, it's every bit as influential as a commanding voice. Perhaps more so.

Memories also shape who we are. False memories create a false sense of identity. A person may believe they've accomplished grandiose feats which lead them to believe that they are far more important than others perceive them to be in shared reality.

It's quite remarkable when you think about it. Unique minds from different cultures and upbringings. Dissimilar surroundings and experiences. Yet, while psychotic, they produce amazingly similar delusional narratives.

All one needs to do is talk to groups of psychotic people to see how true this really is. Nearly all psychotic people believe that the television or radio has been talking to them at some point in their life. Most have known that the people surrounding them are hearing their thoughts. There is always a conspiracy involving the people in their lives. With all of that, those are just the textbook examples.

There are countless people who believe that they are living in a simulated reality where all of the people around them are different aspects of their personality. They believe that certain advertisements contain coded messages needed to accomplish grandiose goals. One could fill a library with examples.

Why though? These people didn't live the same life. When their brains went cocoa puffs on them, it should have produced wildly different experiences for each person. Yet it did not. Fascinating doesn't begin to describe it. Maybe we'll learn the answer one day. There is an upside, though.

If you suffer from a psychotic disorder, you have a ton of people with a lot of things in common with which to form friendships.

I'll tell you what's on my mind. It's roughly the one year anniversary of the time a SWAT team came to my house while I was binge watching Supernatural. They called my phone sounding just like a tele scammer. That is, until I was asked to come to the door with nothing in my hands. I really like 7up so I went ahead and brought that out with me.

My front yard looked like something out of one of those FPS games where people pretend to kill each other on a computer screen for fun. This was no screen. I've never seen such artillery in my life. They were positioned in trees. Behind bushes. Behind their many many cars.

All of these bowel movement-inducing tactics used against a guy watching Netflix on his own property. I could mention how horribly rude they were but what looked like grenade launchers sort of overshadows it.

At this point you probably feel you're missing a piece of the story. You are, but not much. My doctor called in a wellness check for me earlier in the day. I'm no stranger to wellness checks. You have a chat with unarmed cops and then they leave. Someone(everyone denies it) told the police I wanted to do a suicide by cop.

It's utterly absurd that one false statement made by an unknown person can result in your freedoms being violently stripped away at (many) gun points.