Surely, at least once in your life you felt an unpleasant chill that ran down your back from someone’s intent, unkind look. And disturbing thoughts immediately arise in my head: “Who is this? What does he want? Why is he following me? Even if there seems to be no cause for concern. But in a healthy person, such sudden discomfort passes quickly and may never happen again in life. And in patients with schizophrenia, persecution mania can become one of the main traumatic symptoms. What is this persecution mania and is there an effective way to counter it?
Everything scares, nothing helps
Persecution mania or delusions of persecution is nothing more than a mental disorder expressed in a constant obsessive fear for one’s own safety. It always seems to a person that everyone around is watching him and no measures, such as changing his place of residence, work or the usual route, can save him from constant nervous tension.
However, only specialists know that there are as many persecution manias as there are diseases that cause this common disorder. And each variety has its own characteristics. According to the characteristic symptoms and in the course of a conversation with the patient, the psychiatrist can draw conclusions about deeper lesions of the psyche. Crazy ideas are often quite logical, well systematized and organically inscribed in reality. The presence of deviations in this case can only be indicated by the obsession of the state. The danger in this case is that logical delirium inevitably forms a new personality of a person with schizophrenia.
Unsystematic delusions or the presence of pseudohallucinations may indicate, for example, alcoholic psychosis or obsessive-compulsive syndrome. It is worse when two delusional pictures are layered on top of each other, making it difficult to diagnose and driving the patient into an even more difficult state.
What diseases can cause persecution mania?
There is a fairly long list of illnesses and conditions that can cause sania as a psychiatric symptom. And far from always their specificity is associated with the human psyche:
- organic vascular lesions, cerebral vascular sclerosis;
- stroke and post-stroke conditions, as well as encephalopathy;
- advanced age of the patient and associated physiological and mental changes;
- states of decompensation of brain nutrition;
- a sharp increase in psycho-physical stress, causing nervous strain;
- depression, increased anxiety, paranoid ideas;
- a wide range of neurological disorders.
- But paranoid schizophrenia remains the most common cause of persecution mania. In this case, the delirium is distinguished by logic, a strong connection with reality and reasoning.
The connection between the disease and the symptom is especially vividly illustrated by the fear of poisoning. Patients constantly feel foreign tastes in food and drinks, food causes burning of the mucous membrane, exudes unpleasant odors. The phased formation of persecution mania based on emotional components makes it possible to differentiate schizophrenic symptoms from, for example, alcohol intoxication. However, as well as the safety of intelligence in schizophrenic disorders. Another reason associated with both schizophrenia and the development of persecution mania is the desocialization of the patient, the manifestation of his social phobia.
If the patient has no reason to worry about his safety, but fear continues to destroy his life, you should definitely seek medical help. By itself, this condition will not go away and can only worsen without proper treatment.