schizophrenia spectrum people who are homeless or experience food insecurity are still deserving of care and compassion without judgement

schizophrenia spectrum people who talk out loud to hallucinations and act erratic in public are still deserving of care and compassion without judgement

schizophrenia spectrum people who cannot work or go to school because of their symptoms are still deserving of care and compassion without judgement

schizophrenia spectrum people who struggle with personal hygiene are still deserving of care and compassion without judgement

schizophrenia spectrum people who don’t want to take medication or cannot adhere to a medication regiment are still deserving of care and compassion without judgement

schizophrenia spectrum people who live with their parents as an adult or needs a carer are still deserving of care and compassion without judgement

"I often talk about reality checking and going along with it when helping someone deal with delusions, but I felt as if I didn’t really make it clear to what I meant when I said it.

Recently I saw a post similar to “how to sneakily give your delusional friend a reality check when they told you not to” and honestly, that’ll just make us lose trust for you. Because we can tell when you do that."

i was on the buss and i hallucinated bugs crawling all over my hands, so my friend pulled my hoodie sleeves over them with permission and held my hands through the sleeves to "keep them off". they used the logic you would in a real bug situation.

i went nonverbal in a bad one in class, so my friend wrote me a note to give to the nurse since the teacher wouldn't let her go with me.

i often am very paranoid about the delusion that meat is actually rotten, so my dad will sometimes eat a bit of it before me

instead of telling me my delusions arent real, they help me through it using logic like it was real. they dont tell me that nothings going to hurt me in my sleep, they stay with me to keep me safe. then when it passes i can realize its not real

edit: i am not a doctor. i am not saying this will work for everyone, the only reason this works for me is because I have short term delusions typically. Typically, it helps me most when people point out the things not real in a loving manner AND help me as though it is

this is not advice for helping every mentally ill person

Normalize "abnormal" speech patterns. Normalize lack of eye contact, normalize ticking, normalize emphasis on different syllables. Normalize "Inappropriate" emoting, especially when it's a stress response.

Normalize verbally processing thoughts, external system communication, non- aggressive interaction with hallucinations or delusions.

i implore you to imagine this for a second: you can't trust ANYTHING. you don't know what's real or fake. there are a bunch of different people and things shouting different ideas and opinions at you at all times all day every day and you dont know what to believe. it's like having a blindfold put on while people spin you rapidly in a chair and then let you go to stumble towards a moving goalpost.

it's not just opinions, either. it's people, and yourself. but let's focus on the former for a second. you don't know who to trust anymore. this black and white way of thinking makes you suspicious of everybody, because in your mind, you HAVE to be. otherwise you trust the wrong person and get hurt. it's like BPD in that way.

and you can't trust yourself, either.

so eventually, something comes along that, to you, feels like Undeniable Truth. in the case of delusions, it's not actually True, but you can't (fully) convince your mind of that, regardless of who or what tells you it isn't real. your mind has clutched to that truth like a vice because it's the first truth you could actually rely on in a while. it's security in a world that doesn't otherwise have it, regardless of how unpleasant the delusion is. a little part of you, conscious or subconscious, takes comfort in it.