What is the oddest belief that you are allowed to have?

When I look around it appears that my conditioning from childhood that “honesty is the best policy” is being sorely and constantly challenged. I’m damned near afraid to leave the house.

That “Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue. And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

“Allowed” by whom?

Last I heard, as long as your belief doesn’t translate into ACTIONS that would harm anyone else or infringe upon their rights, you can pretty much believe whatever you please as long as it’s confined to your own head.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone will ever follow any of those beliefs but you can believe whatever you wish, no matter how preposterous.

(altho there are sizable numbers of people who share a belief in Astral travel so that’s not what I’m referring to. There are plenty more things that would more easily qualify as preposterous.)

What exactly do you mean by ‘allowed to believe?’ Do you mean legally? Because I think you’re allowed to believe whatever you want. You’re even allowed to believe that everyone in your office needs to be gunned down on the spot. You’re just not allowed to do it.

Do you mean, allowed to believe and people won’t suggest you seek mental health professionals? Because that’s an entirely different matter. I mean, if someone starts jabbering nonsense words on the street because they think a spirit overtook their body, they’ll likely send him to the hospital for observation. But if he does it in a charismatic church, he’s ‘speaking in tongues’ and it’s totally fine.

Unicorns vomit rainbows.

I’m going to talk about this, because the OP might be thinking along the lines of mental health, considering a few other questions s/he asked. My husband, who is a mental health professional told me this and it totally blew my mind.

I mentioned the ‘speaking in tongues’ thing in my post, because the situation bothered me irl. I asked him why ‘speaking in tongues’ was acceptable in church, but you might get put in a hospital if you do the exact same thing on the street. He said that even though there was a chance that the guy in church had the exact same chemical imbalance that the guy on the street had, it wasn’t affecting his daily functioning in any way. Where he was having his experience was an acceptable and appropriate place to behave that way. Behaving like that in the street is creating a public nuisance which could get you arrested and then “locked up” in the psych ward.

So from a mental health prospective, theoretically you could have all of the symptoms of classic schizophrenia, but not be ‘sick’ and in need of treatment. You’re only considered in need of treatment if the symptoms you are having are negatively affecting your daily functioning, social relationships, emotions ability to hold a job…or anything else an average person needs on a regular basis to make you happy.

That basically means that you could be convinced that the government was spying on you because you were the reincarnation of George Washington and blue people from Jupiter appeared in your living room every night. But so long as you’re not causing any disturbances, you’re able to hold down a job, and have good relationships with everyone around you, you don’t need treatment for a mental illness.

Unfortunately, most people with delusions like these are not functioning very well. Seeing or hearing things that aren’t there will make you act erratically in public, and may make it difficult to hold down a job. Being paranoid can make it difficult to have positive relationships with people around you. Having people react negatively to your odd beliefs can make you depressed. So the majority of people with schizophrenia are suffering and need treatment—not because they have delusions, but because having the delusions makes them suffer and have a lower quality of life than they would have without the delusions.

Basically, nobody suffers from mental illness if they aren’t suffering. It doesn’t matter how eccentric your thoughts are, it’s how the eccentric thoughts are affecting you life that matters.

If you believe that you are astral traveling through time and people are psychically stealing your anime, that’s totally fine, these beliefs don’t hurt anyone. And if you’re not having any trouble with school, or holding a job, or keeping friends—basically if you’re generally happy and OK with life, you’re free to think whatever thoughts you want—no matter how “odd” other people may think you are.

But if your beliefs make you angry or afraid on a regular basis;If you’re failing school or in danger of losing your job; if you are having a hard time relating to people; or if these thoughts just contribute to you being unhappy for the most part, it may be a very good time to get your meds changed out or request additional or more intense therapy.

@keobooks That’s interesting. What exactly does your husband do?

@fluthernutter he’s a mental health counselor. He primarily works with SMI aka “seriously mentally ill” population. Some of his patients Iive alone but many live in group homes or special apartments where there are mental health staff in the complex. Most of these people would likely be living in State hospitals if teams like his weren’t around.

I should have also mentioned judgement. If your beliefs make you likely to make poor decisions that will negatively affect your life, that is taken into consideration.

Also, if you’re caring for another person, you will be evaluated by how your beliefs, actions and decisions affect that person. If you have a child in danger of being taken away because your beliefs led you to abuse, neglect or cause trouble for them, that’s a big part of the picture.

No one ever told me what I’m allowed to believe in or not believe in. Well, maybe some people on the internet have, butt fuck em.
But I have no beliefs like that to begin with, anyway.

@keobooks I wonder if this is the general approach that people in mental health take? Or if it’s more specific to his job since he’s intervening at a pretty critical stage. It sounds like his job is almost related to a case or social worker, where you need to find real world , immediate solutions to complicated situations. There’s more of a need to break it down pragmatically?

@fluthernutter—this is the general modern approach taken. This approach solves several legal issues that plagued the courts, and could send fairly healthy people to State hospitals and also make it very difficult to get people in serious need of a State hospital stay to get committed before this approach to mental illness was taken. I’ll post more later this evening.

Seventy kinds of crap. I had this all posted up and then I accidentally clicked on a link. When I got back to this page, all of my text was gone. If you want more details, please ask. Maybe I’ll be up for rewriting my whole post later, but I’m too frustrated now.

Basically, deciding the difference between a delusion and an eccentric thought is a very difficult and extremely subjective decision. Deciding the difference between an obsession and an enthusiasm can be just as difficult and subjective. I’m not going to even touch what happens when you include the more charismatic branches of religions into the mix.

It’s much easier and much more objective to evaluate someone’s behaviors and reactions to these thoughts than it is to evaluate the thoughts themselves. Check out this list of warning signs of mental illness:

If several of the following are occurring, a serious condition may be developing.

*Recent social withdrawal and loss of interest in others.

*An unusual drop in functioning, especially at school or work, such as quitting sports, failing in school, or difficulty performing familiar tasks.

*Problems with concentration, memory, or logical thought and speech that are hard to explain.

*Heightened sensitivity to sights, sounds, smells or touch; avoidance of over-stimulating situations.

*Loss of initiative or desire to participate in any activity; apathy.

*A vague feeling of being disconnected from oneself or one’s surroundings; a sense of unreality.

Unusual or exaggerated beliefs about personal powers to understand meanings or influence events; illogical or “magical” thinking typical of childhood in an adult.

Fear or suspiciousness of others or a strong nervous feeling.

*Uncharacteristic, peculiar behavior.

*Dramatic sleep and appetite changes or deterioration in personal hygiene.

*Rapid or dramatic shifts in feelings or “mood swings.”

I highlighted the two warning signs that point to delusions and paranoia, so you can see that they are NOT removed from the evaluation altogether. But having delusions is not enough to cause enough concern to warrant a full evaluation on their own.

Many people have what some people would consider to be delusions. People believe in ghosts, or alien abductions, or ESP, or astral travel or Bigfoot. People think that they have special relationships with celebrities that they don’t really have. People may feel like dolls or photographs of people are watching them. People believe all kinds of things!

But if they can live a fairly normal life and these delusions don’t get in the way of their functioning, they aren’t “sick” enough to need treatment.

But it’s a general rule that while you may find an unusual case or two where someone has classic delusions associated with schizophrenia with no loss of quality of life, it’s extremely rare. Most people with a large number of severe delusions are suffering in many other ways.

Many people who suffer from delusions refuse to believe that their beliefs are delusions. It’s very difficult to convince someone like that to seek treatment because of their delusions alone. I think most therapists have given up the old tactics of getting someone to admit hat they are suffering from delusions and only declaring them competent when they stop having the delusions. It’s pointless. And it involves possible delusions that may not be considered delusions because of the religion they practice, it may infringe on their personal liberties.

While it’s almost impossible to force someone to admit that they may have a delusion, it’s not impossible to evaluate them based on the other criteria. It may be fairly easy to get them to admit that they aren’t sleeping well or feel anxious. It’s easier to develop a relationship as a therapist if you approach the other symptoms and leave the delusions themselves alone for the most part.

Wow. I guess I could rewrite my post.

Sorry your first post got deleted. I hate when that happens! But your rewrite was great too! Thanks. :)