I think about this kind of thing often. Not specifically about schizophrenia, but about people and their self-awareness in general.
I live in Utah, and Mormonism puts a heavy emphasis on something they call “personal revelation.” Basically, it’s the idea that God gives you feelings about things. A gut feeling, a hunch, an intuition, is actually God sending you a message. And I suspect that makes people just go with their gut feeling instead of taking the time for some introspective.
Whenever I get a feeling about something, I can think to myself, “Why am I feeling this way? What is it about my personality or my life experiences that is making me have this opinion?” But if it’s a personal revelation, it’s not actually you who is feeling that way, it’s a third party that is making you feel that way, and that third party is God, so you’re supposed to go with it.
It’s like an excuse to not take ownership of your own gut feelings.
My first gut feeling is usually delusional. I’ve dealt with delusional thinking for pretty much my whole life. I’ve been able to deal with because I know that it’s not an evil demon or the voice of the Satan, no…it’s just my brain misfiring, nothing more, it’s not part of what defines me as a person. So the scientifically accurate way of looking at it is by far the healthier way because it doesn’t put the blame on you. It doesn’t make you convinced that you’re being punished because you’re a sinner.
I think about this kind of thing often. Not specifically about schizophrenia, but about people and their self-awareness in general.
I live in Utah, and Mormonism puts a heavy emphasis on something they call “personal revelation.” Basically, it’s the idea that God gives you feelings about things. A gut feeling, a hunch, an intuition, is actually God sending you a message. And I suspect that makes people just go with their gut feeling instead of taking the time for some introspective.
Whenever I get a feeling about something, I can think to myself, “Why am I feeling this way? What is it about my personality or my life experiences that is making me have this opinion?” But if it’s a personal revelation, it’s not actually you who is feeling that way, it’s a third party that is making you feel that way, and that third party is God, so you’re supposed to go with it.
It’s like an excuse to not take ownership of your own gut feelings.
My first gut feeling is usually delusional. I’ve dealt with delusional thinking for pretty much my whole life. I’ve been able to deal with because I know that it’s not an evil demon or the voice of the Satan, no…it’s just my brain misfiring, nothing more, it’s not part of what defines me as a person. So the scientifically accurate way of looking at it is by far the healthier way because it doesn’t put the blame on you. It doesn’t make you convinced that you’re being punished because you’re a sinner.