Does a person with delusional disorder knows he/she is sick?

I think someone who has delusional disorder in the most basic way does not know they are sick. My mother has been diagnosed with it and she is normal in every other facet of her life. The delusion (my mother's is persecutory) seems to have developed over a 5 or 6 year period. She finally agreed to go to the doctor due to the stress she has endured from the people who are trying to harm her. My sister and I have disgusted the fact that there is a good chance that our grandmother also had the same illness.

I made a mistake today. My DD mom called and seemed like she was normal, but I have got to realize that no conversation is normal and I should never never try to explain anything or even touch on her sickness or hospital stay.

She began asking what I've told people, like my kids, and my in-laws. It seemed like she was concerned about being embarrassed about having been in a psychiatric unit. I tried to carefully say that they care about me and her and want to support us and help. I told her that I told them she was in the hospital because of psychological troubles, and also I said at that time she was saying alarming things and so I wanted to give them the heads up so they wouldn't be alarmed (which is true). She kept asking more questions about more people who know. I finally clued in that I shouldn't be telling her this, that she was actually agitated, so I denied telling anyone else anything. In reality, of course I've had to warn people, and tell some the truth because they might be believing her lies about her husband.

The whole time we are having this conversation, neither of us brought up the word delusion. We never have. We just say she believes things for which there is no evidence and never happened. I tried to end the conversation and told her I can't talk about this and I told her that the doctors said we shouldn't talk about it because she believes things that aren't true and we can't change that. I was not sure if I should not say the word delusions.

She, of course, then started going into 'evidence' about her husband's doings (her delusions are mainly focused on him), and said I just can't see it. She said I should look up the word psychosis so I'd know that's what he has. I said he still is part of our lives (meaning mine and my family's) and I need to keep inviting him to family events. She said that is cruel, that there is a divorce proceeding, and she gave an example of a person we used to know whose parents got divorced and both parents didn't attend events. (I have no idea how she thinks she knows this. This was my kids' babysitter and my mom didn't have contact with her.) Anyway, my mom insisted that we should not be in contact with her husband because there's a divorce proceeding, she said it's not protocol, and repeated it's cruel. Then she hung up.

I regret even thinking that the start of the conversation was normal. Though each experience like this does serve to help me realize and fully solidify for me that NO conversation with her should ever be taken as normal. I should realize that she is always going to twist every expression, every statement, and we should only talk about grocery store trips and the weather and such. When will I learn? When will I stop making attempts at helping her see the illness? When will I stop having moments of hope that she'll understand? It just upsets us both more.

1. Does a person with delusional disorder knows he/she is sick? How? :
that’s why they are delusional

2. What treatment does the doctor give the patient besides the medicine?:
Is it true that they don't tell the patient he/she is sick?(Or just my mom's doctors)…it depends on the level of the illness

3. Can a person be too boring (like doesn't have a job for 25 years) then became crazy?:
Anything is possible

4. The doctors don't let my dad and I tell her she's crazy(but we sometimes still tell her that, cause we can't take it anymore), they said it'll enrage her, but how will she knows she's crazy if no one tells her? :She needs time to heal, then (if she’d lucky) she will be able to see what’s going on

Three years ago I had to cut off a friendship of over twenty years. My friend had DD, but had no idea she was sick. It took me a long time to realise it myself and I spent three years humouring her while trying to get her help. She was a businesswomen who thought people were hacking into her website and computers, that cameras were secreted in her home, that people were trying to kill her dogs and steal her home, that people were stalking her and listening to phone calls. At one point she agreed to see a psychiatrist simply because she was so stressed and had already had one heart attack as a result. Unfortunately, the psychiatrist (like all mental health professionals I eventually convinced her to go to) was trained not to challenge her delusional beliefs. Therefore my friend was never told she was sick. She quit while believing the psychistrist supported everything she said. I can see the reasoning (for not challenging her) due to the risk my friend might quit therapy. I was left to wonder why this mental illness is treated differently to some other mental illnesses? I can't image a doctor would not tell a client they were depressed if that was the diagnosis. Afterall, giving a client a diagnosis is the first step in treatment, is it not? The client might not like the diagnosis, but at least they've been told the truth. If nothing else, it would give them something to think about and consider.
I think for this reason, the treatment for DD is very flawed. Probably one day there will be a re-write to treatment protocols when they realise that not telling a client they have delusions is in fact, a breech of their duty of care, both to the client and their families. Afterall, they're supposed to help, not hinder or postpone the road to recovery.
In the end I confronted my friend, saying I thought she was misguided at best, or even delusional. She got angry. She accused me of not being smart enough to recognise all the connections and signs she was able to read about her persecutors. Afterall, who was I to offer an opinion? she said.
I couldn't help feeling abandoned by the mental health professionals who had failed to do their job!
In the end, I had no other alternative, but to step away from our friendship of over twenty years. I know that in her mind I was just another friend or family member who didn't have the intelligence to understand the conspiracy being waged against her.
Sometimes we can only understand another, by living it ourselves.
Three years after the end of the above relationship, I experienced delusion myself, first hand. In the thick of it, I believed I saw connections and insights others apparently, did not. Five months later it was over and I was in the fortunate position of reflecting on the experience. This provided me with great insight. I could acknowledge I was incapable of understanding how sick I truly was. Therefore I developed great sympathy for my friend, because I knew her delusions were more sustained than mine, given that I now believe she has been delusioned for the whole of our friendship and probably still is, given that no-one or nothing has ever come alone to challenge her. How could I not have compassion as a result?

Delusional Disorder, even Jealous Type, can be treated successfully with medication...my fiance just got on the right dose of medication (2 mg. Risperidone), and he has had a complete remission of symptoms, and even has insight into what he is afflicted with. Don't give up hope. Find a good psychiatrist. Delusional Disorder cannot be "reasoned with" or cured with "therapy". It's brain thing. And there are miracle medicines. God bless you all.

Medication is essential but after you've come down from your delusional high, that's when psychotherapy can work and help you reduce the dosage. There are side effects to prolonged use of antipsychotic drugs like dyskenisia (that might become permanent), lack of concentration, problems with memory, diminished libido, so the less I take of it the better.

sanmom3 wrote:She said I should look up the word psychosis so I'd know that's what he has.

i'm sorry to read your story sanmom. my mother has DDP and the line i quoted is too familiar, as i've had a lifetime of such experiences myself (her comments weren't about my father, but about many others, including me) and i know what it feels like to hear such stuff. i wonder what it indicates about delusional people that they themselves accuse others of derangement.

Thank you, sal magundi, for your words of understanding. Yes, just today my mom was lamenting that I won't open my mind and realize the truth, and she's called me naive, and when she's being particularly mean she says I have a "daddy fixation" or "fantasy" about my family and that is why I refuse to 'see' what her soon-to-be ex-husband has done. It really stings, especially since she never, ever called me names or had any negative words about me before her delusions began three years ago. It is indeed very interesting that she can spend hours perusing websites about sociopaths and has insisted I read a book about them (I refused that request, of course) so that I can understand what she's been through.
I know now that I cannot respond or reply in any way or else the conversation just ends badly. I just try to quietly be supportive in other ways. I now just say I can't talk about this and she stops and is angry, but drops it. It's hard to understand how her mind can negate everything she's ever known about me, can override the trustworthiness that I've demonstrated all my life, and how she can now think I'm controlling other family members into also not believing her.

My ex suffers from delusions - conspiracy theories/police are out to get him/people are making up stories about him/people are trying to poison him/I was being unfaithful - all that stuff. It got harder and harder to be around him. I broke up, and then regretted it. But he is ill and exhausted. I was missing him badly, and texted a bit, and got a (for him) long text about one of his conspiracy theories. It was a smack in the face, hearing all that stuff again. It hasn't gone away. I can't "heal him with my love."

Anyway: People are always surprised, if they know him, when I confide about all this stuff, because he keeps it hidden till he knows you well. I was shocked when I discovered it myself. He can choose who he tell about it: it isn't as if he starts talking this way to everyone he meets.

I don't think that's necessarily deceitful. There have been times when I have not bothered telling people something if I think they won't listen - for instance, if I'm deeply depressed, and someone I don't know well asks how I am, I'll just say "Fine," because it's too much bother explaining and they don't care. So maybe he's the same way: not bothering to explain "the truth" because he knows people won't listen. There also may be an element of grandiosity in this - "They're narrow minded, they aren't interested in the real issues" (something he's accused me of).

He has some insight - he knows that he is paranoid - but he won't accept that the conspiracy theories are any part of it, and his insight otherwise varies - shortly before we split up he told me about how someone, a friend of a friend of his, tried to poison him. I tried all the alternative explanations but it was no good.

So I think it varies. Sometimes he knows he's paranoid. But there are some delusions which are so deep that he will never accept an alternative explanation, and is angry if one if offered. And sometimes that insight of his vanishes altogether.

He's too sick for us to be a couple. It makes me so sad. I am having a very hard time accepting that, not drifting back into my daydreams of being loved and taken care of by him. But that's not possible.

flying solo wrote:Unfortunately, the psychiatrist (like all mental health professionals I eventually convinced her to go to) was trained not to challenge her delusional beliefs. Therefore my friend was never told she was sick. She quit while believing the psychistrist supported everything she said. I can see the reasoning (for not challenging her) due to the risk my friend might quit therapy. I was left to wonder why this mental illness is treated differently to some other mental illnesses? I can't image a doctor would not tell a client they were depressed if that was the diagnosis. Afterall, giving a client a diagnosis is the first step in treatment, is it not? The client might not like the diagnosis, but at least they've been told the truth. If nothing else, it would give them something to think about and consider.
I think for this reason, the treatment for DD is very flawed. Probably one day there will be a re-write to treatment protocols when they realise that not telling a client they have delusions is in fact, a breech of their duty of care, both to the client and their families. Afterall, they're supposed to help, not hinder or postpone the road to recovery.

Just read this, and am astonished. My ex saw a psychiatrist a few weeks ago and apparently she said things like, "Your problem is you just know too much about how the world works," and said he needed to live alone somewhere like the Highlands - she did not say, as I expected, "You do seem to be having some delusions - maybe we should try anti-psychotics." Don't they tell people they are delusional? I have mental health problems (anxiety and depression to a savage extent) and I would be appalled if a doctor didn't tell me what the problem was!

I also know someone who is schizophrenic. A psychiatrist said to him, "Either you're delusional or there is in fact a gigantic conspiracy against you." My friend told me this, and said, "At last someone has admitted that this is really being done to me."

Just wanted to add this as I was so appalled to read it. I feel like my ex has been left adrift now - he's had some flattering attention and no real help.