Hello! Hello! Welcome back to another episode of diagnosing a killer. The mental breakdown.
The mentee breakie. Trying new ones out of that as well. Yeah. Mental breakdown.
Oh no. Oh! You should breathe into it.
Hello everybody! My name is Kenna. I'm Koelle. And welcome! If this is your first time listening
to us, welcome! I feel like we don't say that enough. And you know, sometimes when I start a
new podcast, I like to listen to the most recent episodes to see if it's like something that I'm
willing to put into the time and effort for the long run, right? So I'll listen to the most recent,
and then if I like them, I'll go back to the beginning and binge from there. So hello and
welcome if this is your first time. Louie said that the first episode he listened to, the first like
10 minutes was me talking about how I was on my period. And I was like, wow, how embarrassing if
that's like the first time you're listening. Yep. I just spit a little, sorry. It is what it is. We
talk about real, real world things. You got it. It's real world. It's real world. That's what I was
thinking. Seven strangers set to live in a house. True story. Yeah. Yeah. So we talk about real world
here. We talk about some real personal serious mental illness shit. And hopefully one day,
well, one day, hopefully one day, we won't have to talk about this shit anymore because it'll be
all fixed and there'll be no problems anymore. Probably won't happen in our lifetime though.
Probably not. We can hope. In the meantime, while we are waiting for all the world's problems to be
solved, you can check us out at diagnosingkiller.com. You can check us out on any social media platform
at diagnosing a killer, except for Twitter, which is at killer diagnosis, email us, all that good
stuff. Yeah. Speaking of emails. Live laugh lurk. Yeah. Speaking of emails, I do have one that I'm
going to read and it is going to be part of this minty breaky today. However, before we get started,
I also do just want to also plug the True Crime and Paranormal Podcast Festival that is happening
in August and we are going to be hosts there. They actually were very nice and posted about us the
other day. So if you've followed them on Instagram, we also shared it and tagged with them. And yeah,
so you can read a little bit more about us or you can just read our synopsis because it's essentially
the same thing. But I like what they said about us. It was really nice and I like that they're
individualizing every podcast. Like they're giving everyone a platform and a name before it even starts
so people can start to listen now before they start to meet people. Yeah. I'm really excited
about it. It's going to be a really great opportunity to connect with some other podcasts as well.
Yes. So excited. Okay. Are you ready to get into this mental breakdown? I am excited. Woohoo!
This is a week of suggestions because my mental breakdown today was suggested by a listener
and my case this week is also suggested by a listener. I listened and we shall receive.
We got an email from one Stephanie Coleman. Okay. That's Kul, K-U-H-L, not Coleman. Okay.
Stephanie says, Hi, I am a licensed mental health counselor in Florida and I recently listened to
the episode on Grant and motto. I'm getting you all in the sex and love addiction thing with all
the various wrinkles in the DSM additions. But really, this sounds like delusional disorder
first and foremost. So if anyone hasn't listened to that episode, Koel and I kind of maybe
speculated that he might be struggling or was struggling with sex and love addiction,
but we weren't sure because he was never diagnosed. Right. She goes on, I don't think he's the only
one either. I think it would be interesting to look at delusional disorder in many of your cases.
Maybe even a whole episode about the condition. What do you think? Well, I think that we're
friggin doing it. I think I also love the fact that you said, What do you think instead of just
telling us all this info and then, you know, just not expecting your response. So I love that.
Thanks for your email, Stephanie. Absolutely. I did reach it back out and I asked her if she was
okay with us sharing this email and her name and she said, Yes, I would be honored. It's one of the
least research disorders and hard to treat, but likely more pervasive than we realized.
Interesting. Thank you for that email. That was very nice and it enticed us to research it or me
because I didn't even know what I was doing. So we are going to be talking about delusional
disorder. We haven't done that one just yet. And honestly, I couldn't really find any infamous cases
or any like celebrity status cases, if you will, that someone was diagnosed with this and then
committed a crime. Again, probably because it doesn't get diagnosed as often and it's kind of hard
to diagnose as well. Yeah. A lot of the times we also talk about core morbidities with diagnoses and
most of the time, if someone is struggling with this, it's probably outshined by a personality
disorder. Yeah. Or you know, that's the most important. Or a most important. Or a most
schizophrenia spectrum. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, we are going to be talking about delusional
disorder and we will just get right on into it. This is all from the DSM-5. Delusional disorder
is a type of mental health condition where a person cannot tell what's real from what's imagined.
There are many different types of delusional disorder, including persecutory, which I'm trying
not to say charcuterie, persecutory, jealous and grandiose type. So those are the three. It is
treatable with psychotherapy and medication. We will get into that in just a second. The main
symptoms is the presence of one or more delusions, hence the name delusional disorder. But it is also
under the branch of psychotic disorders. Okay. So schizophrenia spectrum, other psychotic disorders
this would also fall under there. So what is a delusion? A delusion is an unshakable belief
in something that is untrue. The belief isn't a part of the person's culture or subculture,
and almost everyone else knows this belief to be false. Okay. So it's not, again, we talked about it
with, I'm not exactly sure what we talked about when the last one, but we talked about something
like a religious thing, like believing in God would not be, oh it was the folly of do. Believing
in God would not be a delusion because it's a commonly thought thing in the Christian faith.
Yeah. Or other faiths. So it's something that almost everyone around this person believes to be
false. People with delusional disorder often experience non-bizarre delusions. So non-bizarre
delusions involve situations that could possibly occur in real life, such as being followed,
deceived, or loved from a distance. Okay. Could happen, probably not going to happen.
Remember what I was telling you about being, like I have a rational fear of someone shooting me
like while I'm driving? Yeah, when we have that whole conversation, it could happen. Probably not
going to happen. It's a delusion. Now these delusions usually involve the misinterpretation
of perceptions or experiences. In reality, these situations are either untrue or highly exaggerated.
Have you ever had like super high paranoia like that before? Oh, absolutely. That's why I don't
do drugs anymore. Seriously? Not anymore. I wasn't like a drug user, but like I just smoked my fair
share of pot. That's why I don't do that anymore. Same. I'll convince myself. Me too. Like I'll just
start spiraling and I'm like, oh my god, they're going to kill me. They're going to kill me. I can do
that. They're going to kill me. They can do that. Yeah, I've done it sober too. It's terrifying.
It is terrifying. People with delusional disorder often continue to socialize and function well,
which I thought was very interesting, apart from the subject of their delusion, which is why we see
so many cases of people saying, I never thought that they could do something like that. Oh my god,
I never saw them as that person because generally they function and socialize very well. It's just
the delusion that can take over. Yeah. Generally they don't behave in an odd or unusual manner.
This is unlike people with other psychotic disorders who might also have delusions as a symptom.
I thought that was interesting as well. In some cases, however, people with delusional disorder
might become so preoccupied with their delusions that their lives are disrupted. Okay. So like I
said earlier, there are different types of delusions of disorder. I mentioned three, but I think
there's actually about six. These are determined based on the main theme of the delusions that the
person experiences. So I'm just going to kind of go through them one by one. The first one is
erotomaniac, which sounds like sexual. So people with disbelief of delusional disorder believe that
another person, often somewhat important or famous, is in love with them. Okay. Like we've seen this
before. Taylor Swift or Tiffany or yeah. We've had someone that we talked about recently in an
episode, right? That had maybe, they thought that or you know what? It was almost like Mark Chapman,
but like the opposite. Like he doesn't believe that John Lennon's in love with them. He just like
believes that John Lennon, you know, is this giant problem. Yeah, exactly. That he can affect the
world. Yeah, exactly. People that are experiencing this type of delusion may also attempt to contact
the person of the delusion and engage in stalking behavior. So it kind of is like Mark David Chapman.
Yeah. Now the next one is grandiose. We've heard this word a lot grandiose sense of self.
People with this type of delusion with disorder, excuse me, have an overinflated sense of self-worth.
Self-worth. Self-worth. Self-worth power, knowledge, or identity. They may believe they have a great
talent or have made an important discovery. Like we've seen that a lot. Timothy McFay was kind of
that way. You know, he thought that his knowledge and well, I guess Tia and Do would be that as well.
Yeah. A lot of people we've talked about, which Stephanie's right on the money here. Like that's
a lot of people we've talked about already. Just that one type. Right. So the next one I mentioned
earlier is jealous. People with this type of delusion disorder believe that their spouse or
sexual partner has been unfaithful without having any concrete evidence. So they just make up things.
Oh, who was it? It was Catherine Knight. Yeah. Catherine Knight. I was just about to say that.
She killed the dog. It was like, this is supposed to happen if you cheat on me. It's like, he didn't do anything.
Yeah. God is terrible. Then we move on to charcuterie, persecutory. People with this type
of delusional disorder believe someone or something is mistreating, spying on or attempting to harm them
or someone close to them. See, that sounds like a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Yes. The way
that you would normally, that would manifest. I agree. Yes. People with this type of delusional
disorder may make repeated complaints to legal authorities. So I mean, there's someone outside,
even so like maybe aliens or something like that. Something that not a lot of people think is
possible or feasible. There's an alien outside my house or whatever. It can be anything like that.
I saw a video once of an older man. I don't know if it was necessary. Well, it might be
delusional disorder or I think he also had sundowns as well. Which sundowns is, I'm sure you're
aware, it's kind of like a nighttime dementia. Okay. So sundown or syndrome, meaning like once the
sun goes down, you become... You're like a psychosis? Not necessarily. It usually happens in older
people. It's kind of like many all, I wouldn't say many Alzheimer's or many dementia, but essentially
that's... Like there's circadian rhythms all off and they don't know what time it is. Yeah.
Because it's at night and usually during the day you can stay pretty busy. So this video has this
older man and he calls 911 and he's called 911 multiple times before saying that there's people
trying to break into his home and he brandishes a gun and he shoots up police officers because he
doesn't know what's going on or who they are thinking that somebody's breaking into his house.
And he had even said he was being attacked by someone and there was nobody that had broken
into the house. He was just having a delusion of some kind and it's really scary and thankfully
they didn't shoot back at him. They were, you know, they'd... Realized? Yeah, he realized.
That's still scary. Anyways, that's what that reminded me of when you have this feeling like
you're being watched or attacked or and it makes sense that they would call 911 often for help
because they think that they're being attacked or watched or stopped.
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Craft Beer Club today. And you're totally right about the Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder too.
Like these sound very similar to me, especially this branch of delusional disorder. It sounds like
maybe, you know, I've seen an episode of Grey's Anatomy where there was a Schizophrenic pageant
and he was thinking that aliens were going to come and steal like his mom or they had replaced
his mom or something like that. That's a delusion, but he was experiencing the delusion from
Schizophrenia Spectrum, not from delusional disorder. So I imagine that it can be hard,
like Stephanie said, to differentiate between the two, whichever one outshines the other, I guess.
But again, more so often, Schizophrenia Spectrum is diagnosed and that's why we see that so often
in these cases because it's probably the, it's just outweighing. Like it's like the most forward
presenting, like we say, disorder that this person has. But isn't that interesting? Like I was talking
about dementia and you're talking about Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder, but that they have the same
signs and, you know, signs. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's why this was saying that, you know,
similar to a personality, excuse me, similar to a psychotic disorder, a delusion is a symptom of
a psychotic disorder. It's not the same thing as delusional disorder. It's like a completely
different thing, right? So it's weird when you get down to details because it's really something
so small that can differentiate what you're diagnosed with. And it's hard because you don't
see all of these things at once when you're trying to diagnose someone or you usually don't, right?
It's my two cents. It's our two cents. Our two cents. Our four cents. And the last type, I'm
sorry, not last type, the second to last type is somatic. So people with this type of delusional
disorder believe that they have a physical issue or medical problem such as a parasite or like a
bad odor. Like they can always smell a bad odor. They have like, you know, a chronic, I don't know,
something going on internally. Okay. So it almost makes me think of munch-hazam. However, they don't
take steps to like treat an illness. And it's not like hypochondria where they think they're sick
and they like make it a big deal, but it's like an internal belief. Yeah. Okay. And lastly, the
other one is called mixed. It's people with this type of delusional disorder have two or more of
the ones that we've already spoken about. So I know we've kind of already talked about it, but
just the difference between schizophrenia spectrum and delusional disorder. So schizophrenia
spectrum disorder would include behaviors such as organized, disorganized, excuse me, speech or
behavior, negative symptoms, which is like a decrease in emotions or a person's facial expressions,
not necessarily negative, like bad, but negative, like taking away. And delusional disorder is
different from schizophrenia because there aren't any other psychotic symptoms other than delusions.
Oh, okay. So that's kind of making it sense. And then again, this is a DSM-5 in addition.
In contrast to schizophrenia, delusional disorder is relatively rare and daily functioning is not
as impaired as it is with people that have schizophrenia spectrum disorder. So who does
delusional disorder affect? Delusional disorder, it's hard to say it like delusional disorder.
It most often occurs in middle to late life with the average age of onset being 40 years old,
right? Wow. That is such a late onset. That is. In my opinion for a mental disorder,
especially one like this. 40. Which explains why- Yeah, I've got five more years than me.
We have a lot of people that we talk about though that like, not only are they, you know,
starting off their criminal record early on, but it lasts if, right, they don't get caught. And to
old age, this might be why. Yeah. You know, especially like golden state. I was just about to
say golden state. Yeah. So the persecutory and jealous types of delusional disorder are more
common in people assigned male at birth. And the erotomaniac type is more common in people assigned
female at birth. People who tend to be socially isolated are more likely to develop delusional
disorder. We talked about that in the Folly Adu episode. So these populations include
people that immigrate that have language barriers, people who are deaf, people who are
visually impaired, people who are elderly. And I think that's it actually. I was saying it like
it was gonna be a long list. You had an habit of items. And we always like to talk about prevalence
of certain disorders. So although delusions might be a symptom of more common disorders again,
such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder itself only affects approximately 0.05% of people
of the adult population. That we know of that have been diagnosed. Exactly. And it's really hard
to diagnose, which makes it even more rare on the prevalence. But it says it's 0.05 to 0.1%.
So just in that little range. Yeah. Pretty wild. Interesting. And I think I have a couple more
things if you have time. And that's a short middle break. So the most common type of delusional
disorder is the persecutory type again, that people believe that others are to harm them,
despite evidence to the contrary, lacking self-awareness that their delusions are problematic.
People are unable to accept that their delusions are irrational or inaccurate,
even if they recognize that other people would describe their delusions that way. So they're
like, I know that you think I'm crazy, but this is real. Either way, even the bunch of things
tell them otherwise. Yeah. They often engage in anger and violent behavior. If someone is
experiencing persecutory, jealous or a rhodomaniac delusions. Early signs and symptoms of delusional
disorder may include feelings of being exploited, preoccupation with a loyalty or trustworthy
friends, excuse me, a tendency to read threatening meanings into benign remarks or events,
persistently holding grudges, and a readiness to respond and react to perceived slights.
So just like overall temperament is on guard all the time. Wow. I mean, who wouldn't though,
if you felt like you were constantly being watched or attacked or persecuted or, you know,
feeling jealousy or anger or whatever. I mean, yeah, it's completely understandable, honestly,
especially if your brain is tricking you essentially into thinking that all of these things are real.
How dare you try to tell me that I'm wrong and I'm being overdramatic or whatever. I'm scared
and you're not taking me seriously. And we always say it where I always say it,
like we're all the stars of our own movie. And so definitely when you feel like you're not being
understood, that's really frustrating too. It's like you're speaking a different language almost.
No, honestly. It's the same thing that I, the only thing that I can equate it to is like,
I've talked about this before on the podcast, like when someone tells me I'm lying, when I know
I'm telling the truth, that bothers me to nobody's fucking, to the no extent. I'm like, no, you're
not listening to me. Like I am telling you the truth and it's so frustrating that you don't
believe me. I feel like it's the same kind of thing, right? See, for me on the flip, it's like,
I know you're fucking lying to me and why don't you just fucking admit it? Yeah, well, either way.
So people with delusional disorder may also develop anxiety and or depression as a result
of their delusions. Obviously, we just talked about that. It can be very frustrating. So what
causes delusional disorder? Obviously, we don't really know the exact cause of delusional disorder,
but researchers are looking at the role of various factors that may contribute to developing the
condition. Okay. First one being genetic. We always talk about being predisposed to developing a
certain mental illness. So the fact that delusional disorder is more common in people who have FIM
members with delusional disorder or schizophrenia spectrum disorder suggests that there might be
a genetic factor involved. Researchers believe that as with other mental disorders, a tendency to
develop delusional disorder might be passed on from parents to their biological children.
That brings us to biological factors. Researchers are studying how abnormalities of certain areas
of your brain might be involved in the development of a delusional disorder. An imbalance of certain
chemicals in your brain, neurotransmitters, have been linked to the formation of delusional symptoms.
Hmm. So an imbalance of neurotransmitters. All these words are really big. You're doing great.
Thank you. And lastly, environmental and psychological factors. So evidence suggests that
delusional disorder can be triggered by stress. Alcohol use disorder and substance abuse disorder
might also contribute to the condition. Hypersensitivity and ego defense mechanisms like reaction
formation, projection and denial are some psychodynamic theories for the development of the
disorder. Also, social isolation, envy, distrust, suspicion and low self-esteem are also some
psychological factors that may lead to a person seeking an explanation for these feelings and
thus forming a delusion. So like if you are overexposed to being cheated on in like every
relationship you've ever been in, then you would probably just assume that every partner you're
ever going to be with is like that. Exactly. I mean, it makes sense though. Like if you're,
okay, every single time this happens, it's failed. So why should I believe otherwise? Right. And you
know, you talk to someone that's been in a healthy relationship for 30 years and they're like,
what, what do you mean? That's never possible. Yeah, that doesn't happen or whatever because it's not
their experience. Yeah, exactly. And lastly, you almost made it one whole episode without going
eugh. I don't know what's wrong with my voice. I get like so excited about things. I was telling
Koelle off mic. I came home from work and I was like so hungry and I ate like this giant meal and
I got a rush of endorphins because I just ate and I was so hungry and I came here. I'm sitting down.
I'm all like fucking moving around all crazy. I'm like, do I sound like I'm talking really fast?
And you're like, no, you look like you're talking really fast. I don't know if anyone else has noticed
because I've definitely noticed when I listen back. But when I'm reading off script, I talk so much
faster than what I'm actually reading my notes. Yeah, it's just coming from my brain.
Yeah. The other night, me and Frankie and Kimmy were hanging out and Kimmy was going off about
work and all I could think of was she just talks like a sister and she's a sister talking to her
sister and but it's so fast. It's so fast. It's so fast. And it was just sweet to watch because
Frankie's just like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Like she can hear everything. You know, it's just like,
like again, we said a second ago, like speaking another language. Yeah. So funny. I was talking
really fast to someone I had just recently met the other day and I don't remember who it was,
but they kind of like looked at me and they were like, they looked at me and they looked at like
another friend that I was with and my friend was like, oh, I'm frequent in Ken. I'm frequent. I'm
fluent in Ken. I like, what do you want to know? Like what did she say? I mumble and I talk super
fast and I try not to, which is so funny because I have to fucking podcast. I probably shouldn't.
But in real life, I mumble and I talk super fast. On the podcast, I'm very articulate and I talk so,
I like have to like remind myself to slow down when I talk. Sorry if it ever gets away from me.
But lastly, lastly, how is delusional disorder diagnosed? I'm going to try to do a 2020 special.
No, not 2020. What is the one that does? Dateline? I don't know. Whoever's
two more posts. Two more. Oh, yes. That pesky DNA.
What did we say last night? Oh my God, I'm never going to get to this point. We were talking like
last night about how whenever we were eating dinner and you said something like they left
him out in the cold or something. Oh, it was we were listening to this music on the TV and mom
was like, this kind of sounds like like scary music. And you were like, yeah. Yeah. She approached
the door at 9pm. Yeah. It was like, it was like not L.A. Noir, but Noir style music. Yeah. It was
like this weird, I don't even know. She came in from the back door. Yeah. Wearing a giant coat
because it was cold outside. Yeah, exactly. Her coat dripping from the rain. Yeah. It just kept
going on about that. Okay. So do you want to know how delusional disorder is diagnosed? Yes.
So of course, one seeking a diagnosis of anything would see a healthcare professional,
therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist. This diagnosis is only available when a person
has one or more delusions for one month or more that cannot be explained by another condition.
Okay. Psychosis, schizophrenia, spectrum disorder, things like that. It's a piece of plastic.
Right next to the mic. So yeah, that's the last point I was trying to make and it took me the
longest to say it. That is my mental breakdown. I like that. So delusional disorder is y'all,
if you want to hear about any other disorder that we've mentioned during this episode,
we likely have a mental breakdown on it. So go ahead and look back. If there is a disorder that
you guys would like to know more about and you want us to do the deep dive and you like hearing
our voices and you don't think I talk too fast, then send us an email or send us a direct message
on Instagram and let us know what you guys want to hear. We definitely can always use some more
ideas for mental breakdowns. Absolutely. And also, if you are subscribed to the Patreon, you also get
first dibs on topics as well. Absolutely. And you also should be looking forward to our new bonus
episode coming out on the 29th for Patreons only, tier 2 and 3. That's going to be raw, unedited,
unfiltered, gory, no content free. All that good stuff. And of course, any of our Patreon members,
any of our Patrons, get access to ad-free episodes all the time. Go ahead and give us a like, give us
a review, send us a message, do what you do. I'm a poet and I didn't know it. And do you have anything
else? No, I think that's it. Thanks for joining us for a short minty breaky and we'll see you guys
on Thursday with another case. Yeah, love you. Bye. Love you, bye.
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