Hello doctor,My friend undergoes frequent delusions and nightmares about some men raping her. She is 20 years old now. When she was around 10 years old, she went to a wedding ceremony. She made friends with a boy much older than her. He took her to someplace on the very same day telling her something nice and all. Then she saw four to five boys standing outside a dark construction site. She fainted then and after that, she only remembers waking up. She says that all these are coming back now because she is curious about what happened to her that night. Her delusions and nightmares were triggered by a rape scene she was seeing in a daily soap recently which made her remember the incident.What is worse is that if she gets to know what happened that night, and if it is really something that bad, she might commit suicide or hurt herself. Recently while I was at her place, talking about these problems, suddenly she felt dizzy and sat down, and then she stared intently at the entrance for at least five minutes if not ten, after which again she was normal but she does not know any part of the time when she was looking at the door and thinking something. I am very much worried about her. Please I need some advice about what can I do about and how can I help her? She is in so much of pain. Please help.
Hi, Welcome to Chat Doctor forum. It appears more of an anxiety spectrum disorder rather than an actual delusion. Which antianxiety  ChatDoctor. 25 mg Clonazepam at night, if there are severe nightmares there is also an option of Prazosin 1 mg at night, you could meet a local psychiatrist for these. I would recommend you to not actively talk about the rape thing to her or do any online therapy since it can make her focus too much on the topic. Try to distract her and keep her engaged. Yoga and muscle relaxation exercises can help. If there is a clinical psychologist near your area, she can be started on a cognitive behavior therapy but again I would recommend the above options before trying it out. 