Imaginary horns: conquer your man's delusions of jealousy

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• What is delirium of jealousy
• Symptoms and course
• Reasons for appearance
• Symptoms of psychosis
• How to treat the disease

Alcoholic delirium of jealousy is a chronic alcoholic psychosis. His main idea is adultery. The condition is gaining strength gradually. For quite a long time, others may not notice any changes in the personality of a loved one. The disease passes with the creation by the patient of a whole system of specific ideas, more and more distant from the real state of affairs.

1. The patient may spy on loved ones, making unfounded accusations from time to time.
2. He may start demanding confessions.
3. The patient's behavior may display traits of sadism towards innocent relatives.

Ideas that are a consequence of an altered state of consciousness are observed in the patient even during a period of stable remission , when he does not drink alcohol for a long time. Only specialized medical care can achieve a reduction in delusional states.

What is delusion of jealousy?

This condition refers to psychosis that occurs as a result of prolonged alcohol abuse. The condition occurs in 1-3% of cases of alcoholic psychosis. It intensifies gradually and implicitly. This makes the disease invisible to those around the patient - colleagues, friends and relatives. Only family members can begin to suspect something is wrong quite early. The disease intensifies when alcoholism enters the second or third stage. Most often men in the age group over forty are susceptible to this psychosis. Symptoms most often worsen by age fifty. In women, delusions of jealousy practically do not occur.

Manic pathological jealousy in men: psychology

This feeling, regardless of intensity and nature, is a very complex feeling. Most often, it provokes the emergence of anxiety, a neurotic need for love, and the activation of psychological defensive reactions against imaginary threats.

For this emotion to manifest itself, the presence of 3 components is required:

• The subject is the bearer of feeling;
• An object is a person in relation to whom an emotion arises;
• The object is a potential threat that the subject is jealous of.

This condition may occur for the following reasons:

• Fears;
• Mistrust;
• Low self-esteem;
• Selfishness;
• Psychological trauma;
• Strong passion.

According to the nature of its manifestation, jealousy can be:

• Aggressive;
• Passive;
• Converted;
• Hidden.

Whatever jealousy is, it inevitably causes many negative emotions in a person, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy and many other destructive feelings.

If we talk about whether paranoid jealousy is a disease, then the answer will be unequivocal - it is. Simply being jealous, a person experiences a lot of negative feelings, but if this develops into a disorder and takes on a paranoid form, all the same feelings acquire extreme forms of intensity, which is why the person loses touch with reality.

In the process of how the usual feeling of jealousy develops under the influence of external or internal factors, the emotional state of a person passes into the stage of a real mental disorder. A person generates in himself all the traits characteristic of jealousy, but with a predominance of extreme inadequacy, aggressiveness and obsession.

So paranoidity is a mental disorder that is expressed by strong attacks of jealousy, which can manifest themselves in a dangerous form in both men and women.

Very often, paranoid jealousy that arises is a sign of the development of another, more serious mental illness.

Please note that it is necessary to be able to distinguish aggressive jealousy from paranoid jealousy. Aggression is rather the result of a person’s character traits and an indicator of his personal primitiveness. Paranoia is a painful condition accompanied by aggression.

So it is not possible for a person to independently make such a diagnosis. The line between ordinary jealousy, expressed as aggression, and a real illness is too thin. Only a specialist can determine this.

Symptoms and course

The main features that distinguish this psychosis are the highest degree of systematization. The disease progresses gradually. The flow is accompanied by:

• increased psychoorganic abnormalities,
• an increase in the level of aggression,
• disturbance in social behavior.

During the intensification of psychosis, the patient may show aggression towards loved ones. He becomes cruel, he can beat or even kill a close relative. Psychosis has a chronic course, with periodic exacerbations.

The treatment that a person suffering from this type of psychosis should resort to should be specialized , provided by narcologists and psychiatrists.

Causes of female jealousy

Women's jealousy arises from the fear of losing their chosen one, but usually men become the main provocateurs of jealousy. Psychology claims that the roots of jealousy are laid in girls in early childhood. The source of the feeling is family upbringing. In childhood, emotional traits are poorly expressed. However, in adolescence, girls try to find protection and male responsibility in a partner. If you do not live up to your imaginary ideal or if you have a certain characteristic of a man’s character, jealousy begins to appear.

The causes of female jealousy are characterized as follows:

1. Fear of loneliness . The emotional state caused by the fear of loneliness is a woman’s protective mechanism under any circumstances. Women always feel insecure without the support of men. A particularly depressed state is observed if you have to raise children alone. Fear worsens when a woman is in a relationship with a man.
2. Low self-esteem . Uncertainty about one's attractiveness and character traits causes jealousy in women. Low self-esteem leads to decreased competitiveness among women. An insecure woman is afraid of losing her chosen one. The fear gradually intensifies and she experiences irritability, anger and resentment.
3. Selfishness. For girls, the world and their immediate surroundings are property. Selfishness is especially evident in relationships with a partner. Any discrepancy in the behavior of the chosen one leads to negative emotions and causes jealousy.
4. Wild imagination . A provoking factor in the development of female jealousy is excessive impressionability and a wild imagination. Any events that occur are perceived too emotionally.
5. Evidence of feelings. According to tradition, jealousy is an indicator of strong feelings for one's partner. Such a statement is considered erroneous. Jealousy is the main reason for mistrust and disrespect for a man.
6. Hiding your own betrayal . Suspicion of possible betrayal manifests itself in women who regularly commit betrayal towards their man. Jealousy for them is a reliable defensive reaction that allows them to hide their own actions and betrayal.
7. Lack of communication. Lack of mutual understanding and lack of communication in personal relationships with a partner cause the development of jealousy.
8. Attraction to the female sex. Most men experience an irresistible attraction to women. For them, light flirting is not considered cheating and brings great pleasure from pleasant close communication with lovely ladies. Individuals conduct active correspondence with unfamiliar girls, enjoy their attention, causing jealousy in their beloved women with such behavior.

Causes

The main reasons for the formation of the disease are considered long-term drinking of alcohol . Uncontrolled systematic abuse leads to the formation of this psychoorganic disease. Most often, the syndrome develops in people with epileptoid or paranoid personality accentuation. Even before the formation of the disease, such a person may be:

• self-centered,
• distrustful,
• suspicious
• prone to strict regulation of the lives of loved ones and demands to strictly follow the norms and rules created by him.

During the premorbid period, the patient has a desire to form highly valuable ideas for himself. Most patients suffered from continuous long-term alcoholism (more than ten years). Such patients experience alcoholic personality degradation .

There have been cases of delirium tremens and other alcoholic psychoses. Patients suffer from severe dysfunction of internal organs. There is alcoholic encephalopathy , alcoholic polyneuritis. They also have other diseases, the appearance of which is caused by the presence of chronic alcoholism.

Is it possible to cure delusions of jealousy?

Good afternoon, my husband and I have been together for 11 years (he was the first and only man in my life), married for 6 years and married for almost 5 years, we have a 4.5-year-old daughter. I am 26, my husband is 28 years old. Previously, we had an absolutely normal family, everyday conflicts and disputes over trifles, scandals were rare. 1.5 years ago, my husband began to get jealous; after going to a club (me and my friend), he began to prove that I was definitely cheating on him. Then hell began in my life. I have irregular working hours, I can return from work at 14.00 or 15.00, I can do it later, calls every 15 minutes, I always bring someone home and sleep with all my neighbors, acquaintances and strangers, I cannot wash myself without scandals, I washed myself , it was definitely sex. I'm afraid to go to the bathroom at home, cough, or even squeak. He constantly puts on voice recorders, even at night, and constantly hears a man’s voice on them and proves to me that I’m sleeping with someone, I go somewhere with men at night, while he and the child are sleeping, in order to have sex with someone. He climbs through the laundry, checks how the bed is made, finds some hair of his own in the bathroom and proves that a lover is coming to see me (Once he actually put an open condom under the bed and poked it in my face, proving that it was me here with I had sex with a man (I have strong feelings for him, we have been together for many years and love each other, but my patience has come to an end, if this imbecility is not treated, I take the child and move. I am already omitting those moments when he is in a fit of jealousy raised my hands and how many scars remain on my body (My husband and I have sex 2-3 times a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, sometimes, I’m even ashamed to admit, I’m afraid to tell him that I don’t want him to start screaming again , which means somewhere I haven’t already been studying. He constantly doesn’t believe that I love him, although I tell him this 10,000 times a day, and show him this in every possible way with actions and pleasant little things. I decided to take a polygraph in the hope of changing everything. The most the nightmare began 2 weeks ago, We went to Minsk, I passed the polygraph, I was confident, and he said that the polygraph would change everything, I passed it and of course, as I tried to prove to my husband all this time, the polygraph showed that I only had sexual relations with my husband. There was no fact of treason! He seemed to understand everything and asked for forgiveness for a long time, I believed it, but here it is again. I always lie to him, I bought a polygraph, I bought the results, I drive him home, just like I did, and everything is new(((((((((I’m just killed mentally, I feel like I’m falling into a severe depression(I just don’t know) , what to do. Please tell me whether this can really be cured, and how to do it, who to contact. He doesn’t think that he was sick in the slightest.

Is it possible to cure delusions of jealousy? (1 answer)

Symptoms of alcoholic delusions of jealousy

The formation of psychosis occurs gradually. At the initial stage, various suspicions are expressed by patients extremely rarely, and only when intoxicated or in a state of severe withdrawal. But over time, he develops his own delusional explanation of reality . It occurs not only when a person is under the influence of alcohol, but also when he is absolutely sober . The formation of the disease is facilitated by the deterioration of relationships in families, the cause of which is the drunkenness of one of the family members.

Insofar as psychosis is formed on the basis of the current discord in families (quarrels, disputes and showdowns). The first accusations made may look, in such cases, quite plausible to others . But subsequently, the patient’s statements become less and less plausible, completely lose touch with reality, become systematized and acquire many “realistic” details. At this stage, illusions , expressed in an ironic or sarcastic form, in the form of half-hints or randomly thrown phrases overheard by the patient, in which he catches the discussion of those around him about his personal life.

1. The patient's behavior becomes more active.
2. His statements during quarrels can be supplemented by actions that “expose the unfaithful spouse.”
3. Patients organize surveillance of loved ones, try to provoke their other half, or set up situations in which, as they think, “betrayal” can be detected and it can be proven.
4. The patient can turn to the superiors of the other half with a request to help in the situation, reveal infidelity or influence the “unfaithful” spouse in order to save the family “for the sake of the children.”

Lack of treatment leads to worsening psychosis. The patient experiences confabulations in the form of false memories and infidelity of a loved one. He begins to think and claim that the other half not only began to cheat on him recently, but did it throughout their entire life together. The patient claims that the children are not his family. They are born from lovers. This leads to the fact that the patient’s attitude towards children sharply worsens.

As evidence, he can cite a lot of invented “facts”:

• based on false memories
• other people's "stories"
• or personal presence during infidelity.

But the patient does not say anything about how he behaved during the establishment of the fact of infidelity of the other half. This is typical even for those cases when, according to him, he was present at the “fact” of betrayal.

In some cases, psychosis may be associated by the patient with other ideas (for example, harm, witchcraft or poisoning). Gradually, more and more aggression and elements of sadism appear in human behavior. Cases of violence against other family members (for example, against “strange” children protecting the mother). The reality murder becomes obvious.

Much less often, the patient develops a feeling of aggression towards the “rival”. Even if he knows the “lover” of the other half well, aggression towards him does not manifest .

Most often, psychosis goes undiagnosed for a long time. This is explained by the fact that the patient initially tries to hide his suspicions . This happens until the moment their idea is fully formed. In some cases, a person manages to hide psychosis and cover up an act of violence, even to the point of killing his other half.

People who develop this disease pose a huge threat to others. Since they manage to hide their condition for a long time, doctors cannot:

• conduct extensive surveys confirming the formation of delusions of jealousy
• and do a test with alcohol (a 20 percent solution of which is administered to the patient and delusional deviations are examined)

The patient does not share with the doctor his suspicions about his spouse’s infidelity.

Symptoms

If with ordinary, generally normal jealousy, suspicions and worries in one of the partners begin in the presence of certain direct or indirect evidence, that is, facts, then with irrational jealousy a person does not need reasons. He himself invents events, facts, rivals or rivals for himself, he himself “cultivates” his suffering, and all attempts by his partner to explain that this has nothing to do with reality are perceived exclusively as a lie.

Even when receiving convincing evidence of his wife’s fidelity, the pathological jealous person does not calm down, he sincerely does not believe in their reliability, and believes that those who provide such data are in cahoots with his unfaithful partner.

Signs of this mental disorder most often appear after the age of 28. According to the observations of psychiatrists, there are ages that are the most “dangerous” in terms of the development of symptoms - 30, 35, 37, 42, 48, 50 years and older. Older people (after 65–70 years) are jealous even more than young people, especially for women who are in a state of menopause.

A jealous person of any age is characterized by the predominance of the personal over the public. He only cares about his emotions; many events in family life (children’s successes, parents’ problems) pass him by, he does not delve into them. But he can talk for hours about his own suffering over his allegedly philandering partner and his supposedly insidious actions and plans.

Assault and aggression do not always indicate the presence of pathological jealousy in a man. The use of force often serves as an expression of the primitiveness and underdevelopment of a person’s personality. For such a man, violence serves as a normal mechanism of interaction with other people.

But senseless pathological jealousy in men is more often directly associated with violence and aggression. A crazy jealous person is often physically superior to his partner, and the use of force is seen as the simplest means of coercion and proving that he is right. This is the danger of male pathology. Representatives of the stronger half of humanity in a delusional state are more likely to commit crimes.

You can identify your partner’s pathological jealousy by the following symptoms:

• unreasonably spying on your partner, gross violation of personal space - eavesdropping on conversations, reading personal messages, constant need to know about whereabouts, and so on;
• outbursts of causeless rage (especially noticeable in men), accusations of treason, hysterical behavior;
• refusal to express feelings and intimate life with your partner;
• reproaches and sidelong glances towards a partner for no particular reason, searching for the slightest reason for a reproach or scandal;
• negative attitude towards friends, relatives, colleagues;
• restriction of a partner's freedom up to locking him in;
• infliction of bodily harm (especially noticeable in men), followed by lengthy apologies and promises that this will not happen again.

Pathological jealousy as a psychological disease is accompanied by the following symptoms:

• decreased emotionality and intellectual development, susceptibility to parody other people’s actions;
• impairment of memory, hearing or vision;
• the predominance of reason over feelings;
• finding justification for all your actions;
• sudden pedantry, tendency to order;
• constant gloomy irritability, being in a bad mood;
• changes in a person’s personality during alcohol intoxication or under the influence of any drugs (including when using sleeping pills).

Alcoholic delirium of jealousy: what to do

Treatment for this disease takes a long time . It must be carried out in a specialized psychiatric or drug treatment hospital. After:

• detoxification carried out,
• vitamin therapy,
• A course of neuroleptics uses psychiatric and psychotherapeutic influences.

Persistent deep delirium is eliminated using insulin comas. The patient is discharged only after the delusional idea has been reduced and the aggressive tendency has been completely eliminated.

Patients suffering from alcoholism are able to mislead doctors by hiding the manifestations of the disease, trying to assure others and the doctor of their excellent condition and trying to speed up discharge. A patient suffering from delusions of jealousy is discharged only after a verdict made by a medical commission. For three years, such patients remain registered with narcologists and psychiatrists. Exacerbation of the disease leads to immediate hospitalization. If the patient does not want to be treated, he may be forcibly hospitalized.

Even in a state of long-term remission from alcohol dependence, such patients can retain delusional ideas. But abstaining from alcohol for many years can weaken the delirium of jealousy. The patient is able to “forgive” the spouse, consider the “incident” to be unimportant, and strive to improve the relationship. And only 30% of patients who completely stop drinking alcohol achieve full recovery .

Symptoms of delusions of jealousy

Detecting the disease in the early stages will help not only maintain calm and peace in the family, but also promptly begin diagnosing other more serious diseases. In particular, schizophrenia.

The main symptoms include:

• repeated manifestations of jealousy towards your partner;
• illogicality of claims;
• confusion of charges;
• non-acceptance of evidence, arguments and explanations;
• self-confidence.

Characteristic development of the disease:

1. The first symptoms appear in the stage of alcohol intoxication or in the presence of any reason or suspicion.
2. It starts with light reproaches and unfounded accusations.
3. Increased influence, up to open aggression.

Delusions of jealousy in women are often accompanied by depression:

• a state of complete despair;
• insomnia;
• loss of appetite;
• anxious thoughts;
• lack of interest in life.

In men, the disease is very often expressed by attacks of physical aggression (it is not by chance that the name “Othello syndrome” was chosen). Since the characteristic features of a thinking disorder are groundless accusations and rejection of obvious arguments, a man in the active stage of the disease often does not find any arguments other than physical influence.