It could be a generalisation at my end, but from what I have seen and heard a lot of people with schizophrenia have a similar paranoia and my question is, is why is it specifically about someone (mostly government) tracking their movements? Why isn’t it about something else?
In: Biology
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There’s a lot of evidence that schizophrenic paranoia and hallucinations are [influenced by your culture](https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/07/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614). In cultures that believe in spiritual connections to, say, their ancestors, it seems like the voices and hallucinations tend to be friendly and helpful rather than “dangerous”.
Compare that to, say, Western cultures with a lot of Christian influences, and you get a lot of schizophrenia that manifests as “demons” or ghosts or other evil things that are out to get you. Even without Christianity, we have a lot of distrust in our government. Although the most famous example is probably the USA, a lot of countries in the west were founded on winning independence from a tyrannical empire. Those stories pervade even our fiction where we have stories like [Secret Invasion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Invasion_(miniseries)), featuring shape-shifting aliens taking over the government. Given how prevalent these stories are, it shouldn’t be surprising that someone with a mental disorder that makes them delusional would attach to that theme.
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The delusions of someone with paranoid schizophrenia actually vary by culture!
[There are differences between cultures in the prevalence of persecutory delusions much of which is culturally bound. For example, in South African Xhosa people, paranoid delusions and hallucinations are often triggered by an intense fear of magical persecution and witchcraft. In South-East Asia and China, the stressor is fear of loss of fertility through ascendance of the penis into the abdomen.](https://neurotorium.org/schizophrenia-across-cultures/#:~:text=There%20are%20differences%20between%20cultures,of%20magical%20persecution%20and%20witchcraft)
It’s about someone trying to control them.
In one respect, there are (not real) people “in their head” trying to control their behavior.
So this theme is playing out in their lives in a very real way.
We all have a certain level of distrust of authority figures and many people have been traumatized around themes of abuse of power.
So you take a natural tendency to blame authority, add in some personal control issues, and pepper in some schizophrenia, you get paranoid government control conspiracy. In some aspect, it is a defense mechanism to blame external forces rather than recognize it is your own problem. In another aspect, hallucinations, by definition, are indistinguishable from reality. So the phantoms that haunt them are real in their experience. It’s disturbing to imagine what that is like.
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My full time job is with a schizophrenic man.
His delusions vary over many topics. There are a few set delusions however. I would say whatever he can get reference from, can become his delusion.
With Covid being all over the news for the last few years, he’s heavy on scientists/ experimentation delusions.
When he plays lots of PS games he focuses on mafia/ crime/ gang delusions.
When there is movies on war, or commemoration news about WW1 or WW2, his delusions are all Nazi focused.
He has had ‘tracking’ delusions over the years but haven’t heard them for awhile. He linked that to “having a tracker inserted in his brain”.
He has a few different brain delusions (depending if it’s an ape, girls, child’s brain).
So, whatever he becomes hyper-focused on is his current delusion.
You get thoughts that aren’t your own that you know aren’t your own and need explanation on what or who would have powers like that. Aliens, gods, demons, angels, governments all sound like who might be able
I once worked at a mental health hospital and had to read all the police and doctors reports.
Just to add… aliens. Super common for EITHER the CIA to be spying on you through your toaster or other electronic equipment….or aliens doing the same. Surprisingly the tin foil type hat to mitigate such interference was reasonably common, not just a trope.
To add to a lot of the other comments, when you have schizophrenia, the government does try to control you… to get treatment for your schizophrenia. Doctors, cops, social workers, they’re all indeed part of a government conspiracy to keep a delusional person from going off the rails altogether. If you have schizophrenia, it probably feels a lot more sinister.
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