What is persecution mania, its causes and manifestations, what should be done to get rid of this mental disorder. Persecution mania is an unhealthy manifestation of the psyche associated with a disorder of the brain. In such a state, it seems to a person that he is constantly being chased by someone in order to harm or even kill. An imaginary offender can be people or animals, any objects that often become inspired in painful speculations.
Description and development mechanism of persecution mania
Mania (delirium) of persecution is one of the most serious mental illnesses. First described by the French physician Ernest Charles Lasegue in 1852. In psychiatry, it is considered as a manifestation of paranoia ("roundabout") - a chronic psychosis, which, as a rule, manifests itself in adulthood. In such a delusional state, the individual is morbidly suspicious, it constantly seems to him that he is being watched.
Any stranger who says something or casts a casual glance at the paranoid can be regarded as a conspirator who is plotting. Let's say a person suffering from persecution mania during an exacerbation of the disease went to the cinema. People are sitting around, talking, whispering, laughing. The lights go out, the movie starts. And it seems to him that everyone in the audience is hostile to him, encroaching on his life. He is anxious, his psyche can not stand it, he gets up and leaves in the middle of the film.
However, the behavior and consistency of thinking of a patient with persecution mania often look quite normal from the outside. He gives an account of his actions, and his painful, unreal thoughts "are friends" with his environment. Relatives and acquaintances may not even be aware of the paranoid state of their relative and friend. The disease sharpens him from the inside, but outwardly he tries not to show his fear.
The famous Russian physiologist I. P. Pavlov believed that such delirium was associated with abnormalities in the activity of the brain. This chronic pathology, if it has already manifested itself, accompanies a person until the end of his days. Acute attacks of persecution mania, when anxiety increases and drug treatment is necessary, alternate with periods of remission. At such moments, a persecuted person feels relatively calm.
Experts from the American Psychiatric Association believe that 10-15% of the world's population suffers from paranoid thoughts. If they are frequent, fixed in consciousness, persecution mania develops. It is quite common among the elderly, especially those with Alzheimer's disease (senile dementia leading to memory loss).
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 44 million of them in the world. Most of them live in Western Europe and the United States. In the States alone, there are 5.3 million people aged 75-80 years.
It's important to know! Persecution mania is a disease that develops in the course of life. Associated with a violation of the conditioned reflex function of the brain. Most of the disease affects, as a rule, elderly people.
Causes of persecution mania
The reasons for persecution mania, why and how it develops, psychiatrists cannot say for sure. Some believe that the fault lies in the dysfunction of the parts of the brain responsible for conditioned reflex activity. Others see the problem in the central nervous system. In its special structure, which differs from the so-called "norm", there are hidden "pitfalls" that lead to deviations in the work of the central nervous system and, as a consequence, mental illness.
It is believed that externalists - people who do not know how to critically assess their behavior and blame anyone for all their sins, but not themselves - are more susceptible to obsessive thoughts. Those who believe that everything that happens to them depends on personal qualities (internal personality type), practically do not suffer from persecution mania.
Most often, delusional persecution develops in people suffering from severe mental illness, complicated by paranoid syndrome. The latter is characterized by an anxious suppressed mood, when semi-delusional ideas are embodied in any specific form and are associated with auditory hallucinations, especially manifested with the onset of darkness.
Let's say a person is at home, and in the evening children's voices are noisy in the yard. It seems to him that they came for him and say something bad about him. The head seems to be working, but the feelings refuse. Deep down, he understands that this is not at all the case, but he cannot help himself. This condition affects his health in the most terrible way.
An analysis carried out in the United States of patients with paranoid schizophrenia, when delusions are accompanied by auditory or visual hallucinations, showed that such persons, as a rule, are held captive by their obsessive thoughts. It always seems to them that someone is constantly watching them and wants to influence them physically, to do something terrible.
Among schizophrenics suffering from delusional ideas, there are more women. The men here gave them the "palm". With what this is connected, it is not known exactly, perhaps with the greater sensitivity of the female nervous system. The fairer sex is more difficult to experience their personal failures, often fixate on them. This "long-playing emotional record" can degenerate into a psychosis with obsessive thoughts. And here it is very close to an extremely painful state - a persecution mania.
There are many different causes of persecution mania. The risk factors for which this disease can occur and acquire a persistent, chronic form include:
- Genetic predisposition … If the parents suffered from serious mental disorders, accompanied by the "quirk of persecution", this can be inherited.
- Constant stress … Let's say eternal childhood experiences due to family scandals. By adolescence, this had already become the norm and passed into adulthood. Thoughts all the time spin in one direction, become obsessive to delirium.
- Psychoses … When the psyche is unstable, nervous breakdowns are frequent. They are accompanied by loss of mental balance and inappropriate behavioral response. Then this behavior is hard to experience. If the person is of an external type, she can get hung up on her experiences. And the obsessive state is the threshold of the persecution mania.
- Violence … If a person experiences physical abuse for a long time, he has a fear of the abuser. This negative emotion is reinforced by the thought of constant persecution.
- Anxiety … A person is always in anxiety, suspicious and fearful, looks around, thoughts get confused, offenders are seen around him.
- Paranoid schizophrenia … Characterized by auditory and visual hallucinations, in which persecution mania develops. This is already a chronic disease that requires urgent medical treatment.
- Senile dementia … In older people, mental activity is often weakened, for example, with Alzheimer's disease, which leads to the appearance of obsessive thoughts, accompanied by delusions of persecution.
- Alcoholism, drug addiction … The second and third stages of the disease are accompanied by mental disorders, when delusional ideas of persecution appear. This is especially true with hallucinosis - a sharp cessation of the use of alcohol or drugs. Consciousness seems to be clear, but the psyche is torn, the mood is alarming, twilight.
- Drug overdose … Especially psychotropic, which are used in the treatment of mental illness. A large dose causes auditory and visual hallucinations, which are often accompanied by persecution mania.
- Diseases of the brain … The left hemisphere is responsible for the thought process. If, for example, it is damaged due to injury, it will malfunction. This can cause a delusional state, when the patient will constantly think that, for example, someone is chasing him.
- Head injury … Damage to the brain can lead to a breakdown in the left hemisphere, which is responsible for thinking and speaking. This is fraught with the emergence of "unproductive" obsessive thoughts - persecution mania.
- Atherosclerosis … With this disease, the elasticity, the patency of the blood vessels decreases due to the deposition of cholesterol in them. The stress on the heart increases, which leads to an anxiety state when obsessive thoughts may appear.
It's important to know! If the causes of persecution mania are associated with chronic diseases, it is impossible to completely get rid of them. The disease can only be stopped for a while. For this, it is necessary to undergo a course of treatment in a neuropsychiatric hospital.
The main symptoms of persecution mania in humans
Sometimes they live with persecution mania for years, and not always people around can guess about the disease. A person is anxious, but he knows how to keep his behavior under control, realizing that his thoughts are false. In such a borderline state, when the psyche is seriously disturbed, but there were no "drives" to a psychiatric hospital, a person can be quite successful both at work and in personal life.
However, in most cases, the symptoms of persecution mania have obvious manifestations, by which one can judge that something is wrong with the person and he needs medical help. These signs of a delusional, painful condition are:
- Obsessive thoughts of a threat to life … A man or woman constantly thinks that someone or something is threatening them, that bad "people" (objects) want to take their lives. Such people become extremely suspicious and withdrawn, limit their circle of communication.
- Suspicion … When a person is constantly in an anxious, depressed state. Let's say it's not going well in the family or at work. Gloomy thoughts become obsessive and can become delusional when all people appear suspicious and hostile.
- Dubiousness … According to the type of character, such people are classified as psychosthenics. Eternal "digging" in one's own experiences, combined with low self-esteem, often leads to the "jungle" of obsessions. They can manifest themselves as a persecution mania.
- Hypertrophied feeling of jealousy … When a husband is overly jealous of his wife, all men are suspicious of him, they want to destroy the family. He begins to follow his half. This is already paranoia - delusional thoughts of persecution with a persistent clear consciousness.
- Aggressiveness … There are frequent cases when hatred for people is transformed into an obsessive state, becomes delirium. The individual constantly thinks that everyone is enemies, and although he is evil.
- Inappropriate behavior … Oddities in actions are striking. Let's say he turned to a person with a question, but he shuns, looks with hostility. It is highly likely that the person is at the mercy of the delusional idea of persecution. All people seem to be such enemies who "jinx" him.
- Mental disorder … Often occurs in older people over the age of 65, although earlier cases are diagnosed. The disease is associated with the processes occurring in the brain during aging, for example, in Alzheimer's disease, when memory is lost.
- Inability … A person does not "enter" the social environment, because because of the constant fear that, for example, he may be killed, he refuses to contact anyone.
- Complaints … A victim of persecution mania can file appeals to various government agencies. For example, a person is suspicious of his neighbors and constantly writes petitions to them that they robbed an apartment or basement in his absence.
- Insomnia … A person is tormented by the thought that even in a dream they will do him badly. The fear of being caught off guard keeps you awake.
- Suicidal behavior … As a result of such serious illnesses as alcoholism and drug addiction, which are often accompanied by delirium, especially with the so-called "waste" - a sharp cessation of alcohol or drug use, patients often think that they are being persecuted. It ends tragically, for example, they can jump out of the window or hang themselves.
- Schizophrenia … This disease can be acquired or hereditary. It often develops paranoid, when auditory and visual hallucinations are accompanied by anxiety that some persons or even objects are watching, wanting bad things.
It's important to know! Persecution mania is a psychosis that needs to be treated not at home, but in a mental hospital.
Ways to Deal with Persecution Mania
Mental disorder, accompanied by bouts of insanity, when the patient thinks that he is constantly being bullied, is dangerous for others. What to do with persecution mania, the advice is unambiguous: inpatient treatment is necessary. Only a psychiatrist, after a detailed acquaintance with the patient's history, will prescribe an appropriate course of treatment.
Treatment of persecution mania with medications
Although this mental illness has been studied quite thoroughly, it cannot be said that there is a radical way to get rid of it.
As a rule, psychotropic drugs are prescribed, they help get rid of anxiety, relieve fears and improve sleep. For example, antipsychotics suppress delusions, tranquilizers relieve anxiety, antidepressants improve mood, normotimics make it stable.
These include Fluanksol, Triftazin, Tizercin, Eperazin and some others. These are drugs of the latest generation. From taking them, the harmful side effect, for example, lethargy, dizziness, stomach problems, is quite insignificant.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) can help treat persecution mania. It is used only when other methods of treatment are ineffective. The essence of the method: electrodes are connected to the brain and an electric current of a certain magnitude is passed. A significant drawback is that the patient may lose memory. Therefore, without the consent of the patient or his relatives, this method is not applied.
People with schizophrenia aggravated by persecution mania may be treated with insulin. Some psychiatrists believe that insulin shock therapy can help stop the progression of the disease. However, this question is controversial.
The patient is given injections of the drug, each time increasing the dose until he falls into a coma. Then glucose is injected to get out of this state. The method is extremely dangerous, there is a possibility of death. Therefore, it has been used very rarely recently.
Psychotherapeutic assistance for persecution mania
The methods of psychotherapy in the treatment of persecution mania are powerless, but they are quite suitable after the main course of treatment as helping the patient to fit into the social environment from which his illness "threw out". The psychologist, using various techniques, for example, gestalt therapy, develops and tries to consolidate in the patient's mind the mindset for fearless contact with people.
After psychotherapy sessions, the help of a social worker is needed. He must constantly visit the patient at home, monitor his condition and provide him with the necessary support. And here the assistance of loved ones is invaluable. Without their benevolent participation, the period of remission - the weakening of the disease, when the state of health of the person suffering from persecution mania improves, is simply impossible.
It's important to know! Persecution mania is treatable, but there is no way to completely get rid of its causes. You can only "muffle" the symptoms of the disease for a while. How to get rid of the persecution mania - watch the video:
Persecution mania is a mental disorder. A person with his obsession can live for years, get used to it and not experience serious discomfort. And even to be successful in life. If a light "home" delusion develops into a psychosis, which makes a person anxious, withdrawn and often aggressive, dangerous to others, this is already a chronic disease that needs drug treatment. It is impossible to completely get rid of such a "quirk", but you can stop it by taking all the necessary measures. Especially when the sick person is a loved one.
