Talk to them for 2 minutes when they are having an episode. The effects are not subtle.

It’s an extremely debilitating condition.

I can't speak for the above person, but what the OP of this comment thread said also tracks with my own experience of schizoaffective disorder: when I'm psychotic, the pattern matching part of my brain goes into overdrive and not only does my brain erroneously fill in the blanks in sensory input (causing hallucinations), it does the same thing on an abstract or logical level with ideas and people. It's easy to fall into the trap of paranoid delusion when you feel like you're seeing connections between so many otherwise benign, disconnected things and events.

I think what really gets me is that despite my constant vigilance and skepticism toward my own thoughts, I simply cannot talk myself out of how truly real those delusions feel when they happen. I can even acknowledge how absurd they are, even in the moment, but I can never shake the feeling that they're still very, very real. It's so maddening. The best I can do is to just not act on those thoughts.

Maybe the above person's family is actually unearthing valid insights, but if they're prone to psychosis, in that state they'll be prone to finding connections, associations, patterns, and so on between things in a way that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It'll feel very real to them in the moment, but when they exit that state (if they do) they'll likely be on the same page as others in thinking those ideas were a stretch.

Do you take adhd medication by any chance?

I used to on and off in the past, but I found it made me more prone to mania, so I've since stopped. Why do you ask?

Stimulant induced psychosis is very common. One of the major side effects of those medications, just like their street cousin, is paranoia.

I don’t really believe in the dormant/latent argument because once you shift down to the underground (as in, entertain all possibilities, even the possibility that you share something in common with drug abusers) where people abuse drugs, there you can see just how common psychosis is.

The drugs fuck people up. Interestingly, after many years of laying of the substance, many do find their way out of the psychosis.

I can't say I've experienced psychosis due to stimulant use personally, but I see what you mean. For me it's maybe brought on instances of hypomania a few times, but I get how it could trigger issues in others, especially in high doses.

My instances of psychosis outside of depression/mania tend to be triggered by stress. I don't use drugs or take any stimulant medications, but they still just happen sometimes. It sucks. I'm thankfully not in an active episode at the moment, but I do suffer on a daily basis from the "negative" symptoms of schizoaffective disorder (i.e., the symptoms that take away function, like anhedonia, avolition, alogia, etc).

This is how we got all the "jews" intellectuals and other people who fought the evil fascists, angkor, and so on, who were "murdering intelligent people".

My brother has schizophrenia. He has never met or interacted with any jewish people, and lives in a part of the world where they have no influence. He still fell entirely for online antisemitism and will text me insane messages about the typical theories.

You misunderstood. I meant that thought that they were superintelligent people who should teach others and lead the world, but they just had schizophrenia.

I'm not certain, but, in the case of my family member, their "certainty" is that everyone is conspiring to kill them. As I am one of the "conspirators," I can assure you that they are dead wrong.

Also, in my days of yute, I was fairly profligate in the use of ... mind-enhancing chemicals, shall we say. They basically gave me the same exact certainty and "insight."

Once, I decided to write down the marvelous insight that I experienced, while tripping. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff in a notebook, and then read it, a couple of days later.

It was pure gibberish. Made no sense at all.

I wonder about this as well...like maybe there's some comfort in automatically "diagnosing" someone when they might see patterns or think in ways that challenge your priors..

EDIT: Imagine being powerful and wealthy and assured in your position in the Catholic Church and someone comes along and questions geocentricity and says you're wrong. It's a pretty easy leap to huffily say well, they are "mentally ill, crazy, delusional, paranoid"

all kinds of authoritarian regimes and movements certainly do this.

that said... you just have to have a conversation with someone experiencing psychosis. it's a totally altered state of consciousness, they are sensing and understanding the world in a radically different way. it's never just an otherwise normal person with a nonconformist belief.

Schizophrenics do sometimes have novel insights. I've noticed that schizophrenics tend to be extremely talented at coming up with deeply cutting insults. Like, insults that will change how you see yourself forever. Something about high pattern recognition. Plus an ability to mentally "go there", to countenance dark things that other people willfully ignore.