the whole idea of a "psychotic recovering and returning to normality" is a modern construct. our society requires certain behaviors to get by. in order to hold a job, in order to be considered neurotypical, certain expectations are placed on human behavior. in my opinion this is just a modern bias, it has nothing to do with some "objective normal state." I do not remember where I heard this argument, but I have seen some argue that a schizophrenic in an old tribal society would have been considered to have a unique insight, and may have been a shaman. in recent times, they just spray you with pepper spray and arrest you or medicate you or institutionalize you.

in my opinion, the "non-normal" people are the one's who believe modern life is just peachy, and humans competing against each other for money is a fine way to organize a society.

Interesting how Active Self-Care is part of the same feedback loop of Finding A Social Fit. You would think a smidge of honesty to be a part of what is central to the diagram: in other words, "self-care or self-reliance" is impossible if one is reliant on others in the market society. Unless you are okay with being called a "consumer" and a "human resource/capital," part of the "labor market," and so on, you are lacking self-care...?

It's my personal belief mental health requires veridical self-sufficiency, not pretend. People who strive to be self-reliant are often viewed with suspicion by the centralized powers, intelligence agencies, armed forces/police state (their goal is to steer you into market dependence with all its behaviorist motivation systems... to allow yourself to be farmed.).

Choosing psychosis and nonviolence over neurosis and violence of the market society's exploit or be exploited (kill or be killed in the military model it's based on) is an easy one. Some of the most tranquil and harmless (and more intelligent) people I've known had schizophrenic tendencies (and were of course struggling to fit in), whereas the more impulsive/compulsive, angry, hateful, and violent (and less intelligent) had a lot of material or social capital at stake (to lose).

The most depressing outcome of thinking fitting into a society which requires the being to marginalize his self-respect by selling himself alongside toasters, automobiles, tvs, smartphones, screwdrivers, hammers, and homes...is that this could ever amount to self-care. Marketing oneself requires self-neglect, abortion of the inner world, the opposite of self-care.

Being self-reliant (and self-regulative) goes hand-in-hand with salubrious health. Virtue is its own reward. The reason for strife is just this: the fact we are forced into dependence on others. That Jesus was a carpenter tells you he was self-sufficient, could build the structures he was dependent on, etc. Someone who does the work of living eventually becomes thoroughly vexed by a human system revolving around endless beliefs and no relation to the substrate of life on which the organism depends.

The post doesn't reflect the title.

I think you're right. If memory serves an unbelievable fact is that most schizophrenics are NOT in mental asylums. Meaning??!!

the whole idea of a "psychotic recovering and returning to normality" is a modern construct. our society requires certain behaviors to get by. in order to hold a job, in order to be considered neurotypical, certain expectations are placed on human behavior. in my opinion this is just a modern bias, it has nothing to do with some "objective normal state." I do not remember where I heard this argument, but I have seen some argue that a schizophrenic in an old tribal society would have been considered to have a unique insight, and may have been a shaman. in recent times, they just spray you with pepper spray and arrest you or medicate you or institutionalize you. — rlclauer

To a certain degree it's true that we over-diagnose and medicalize states of mind that are actually perfectly normal, harmless, and sometimes even beneficial (minor depression has been shown to help people find solutions to pressing problems, for example).

But when we institutionalize people, we're not putting away people who are just merrily doing their own thing whilst happening to see unicorns or hear friendly voices and arrive at the meaning of life. We're putting away people whose psychological issues make them a continuous risk to themselves and other people. Depressed people who are so apathetic they sit in their own excrements and slowly dehydrate because they can't garner the enthusiasm to get a glass of water. Schizophrenics who hear voices that tell them to kill people. People with such strong paranoia they think their wives are going to poison them and so they think they're acting in self-defense by killing her first. Etc. etc.

Of course, if the history of the OED is anything to go by, even such cases can be thoughtful, intelligent people who have a lot to contribute (read "The Professor and the Madman").

wow, that was brilliant. thank you

I probably could have phrased my comment a little better. Anthony's comment is much better thought out, but he was saying what I was trying to see, albeit, his comment was less lazy and more eloquent. I do reject your idea that our institutions are based on some model which is beneficial to humans, as I feel the material conditions we find ourselves in actually drive a lot of these mental illnesses

That's my take, what's yours? — Wallows

Would be* considered schizophrenic. It's a second conditional, not third.

Actually it could be third conditional as well I guess

I do reject your idea that our institutions are based on some model which is beneficial to humans, as I feel the material conditions we find ourselves in actually drive a lot of these mental illnesses — rlclauer

I agree with the second part of this statement, but do not know what it has to do with the first. At least, it is not clear what "institutions" you mean--mental asylums or general political/economic? Because I never claimed that of the latter, but I would maintain the former are meant to help people.

if the material conditions are generating the mental illnesses, in my opinion, it also follows that the logic entailed in those conditions (capitalism, labor for income, artificial scarcity, rugged individualism) would be reflected in the values of the institutions which are generated. Thus, while there may be well intentioned people who work for a mental institution, the logic from which the institution arises is based in the material condition. If we agree that these material conditions are problematic, the institutions which arise to reify the values of those conditions, the values of that system, they are illegitimate and not serving humanity, but they are serving the system from which they arose.

That only follows if a) the institutions are only getting their values from those negative conditions and if b) those conditions are 100% negative.

Even capitalism has it's positive ideas and influences, as destructive as the negative ones are.

I do not agree. Doctors might do good things occasionally, but the profit motive and private insurance schemes completely obscure the moral goodness of that institution, and perverts the value. You may object to my absolutizing, but until we have an equal society not based on reducing humans to working units chasing money, it's corruption all the way down.

You may object to my absolutizing, but until we have an equal society not based on reducing humans to working units chasing money, it's corruption all the way down. — rlclauer

I reject your absolutism because I think it is narrow-minded and short-sighted. We can't have an egalitarian and equal society by tossing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.

Small businesses in small towns, for example, are not "corruption all the way down." Though they are victims of the corruption evident through massive corporations trying to kill any and all competition.

you are right I will be more careful with how I frame things. absolutizing language is not helpful

Well, I'll be doggonned. Never thought I'd live to see the day someone on the interwebs listens to reason :rofl:

Actually it could be third conditional as well I guess — Evil

If the 'if clause' was changed

I don't know whether you know Tomas Szasz:

Thomas Stephen Szasz (15 April 1920 – 8 September 2012) was a Hungarian-American academic, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, as what he saw as the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as scientism. His books The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) and The Manufacture of Madness (1970) set out some of the arguments most associated with him. — tomas

He is best know for the statement:

"If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; If you talk to the dead, you are a schizophrenic."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz

Yes, and God would be considered to have broken the genocide convention.

And people who consider the USA is a democracy are not generally considerd deluded.

Psychosis can be temporary. Some people move in and out of psychosis their whole lives. Some people got there once.

Schizophrenics actually do better in places where psychiatry and big Pharma have not arrived. Where families take care of their own and where people can move in and out of functioning as they can. But they start to do worse once the pharma model enters the country.

I'll elaborate. The end of this analysis is very depressing. First, it confirms that the schizophrenic or psychotic will never be able to attain the highest goods that society has to offer (despite notable cases like Philip K. Dick) or others.

These themes are rife in his books and essays.

I'm going to be blunt here and say that the end of the analysis is suicide. If one's self cannot attain deep aspirations, as we all mostly have, or belonging, as Reagan closed off all mental asylums, which some could have called "homes". then there is very little to live for a schizophrenic.

Let me provide an anecdote. I was having one of those strange days that I knew wouldn't end well. Towards the start of the night, I had delusions that reality is actually run by aliens that secretly run society as they see fit. Sorta a synopsis of "They Live!" movie. What was different this time was the amount of mental stock value I was putting into this delusion. It all seemed to make sense that angels were fighting aliens over the fate of humanity.

It's worrying because I felt my core logical faculties to start melting or being eroded, meaning that my condition was lapsing or something. Suicide wasn't the only thing that came to my mind, more like worry and exasperation of my mental condition.

My small bubble was bursting. A new guiding belief about why we can't all get along together started forming, which paradoxically was out of my control (don't ask me about the people who think they do have any control over such a delusion)...

I'll elaborate. The end of this analysis is very depressing. — Wallows

make sure this is not the only place you give this information out to. Family, friends, a professional, face to face. You may need to protect yourself from the idea that things cannot be the way you want or get better or fulfilling. There may be times when that idea adds to the pain. However, no one knows where you can get to. Keep that door open, when you can.

Let's begin by revisiting the graph you provided in your original post, Wallows.
I am failing to see how the graph falls in on itself, given that the self returns to normal. Perhaps rather than a linear graph if the graph were laid out in a circular pattern you would find it more compelling.
Regardless, let's now look at a quote from one of your clarificatory posts:

"I'm going to be blunt here and say that the end of the analysis is suicide. If one's self cannot attain deep aspirations, as we all mostly have, or belonging, as Reagan closed off all mental asylums, which some could have called "homes". then there is very little to live for a schizophrenic."
Deep aspirations is meant here as societal normalcy and finding a social fit, yes?

I suppose my objection would then be that the highest good society has to offer is finding ones fit in society. Additionally, equating societal belonging with self care is objectionable.
If the highest good society has to offer is fitting in, then the highest good would be an ever changing good.
The highest good must be non changing.
Society's standards for fitting in are ever evolving.
Therefore, fitting in can not be the highest good society has to offer.

The graph's equation of self care and societal belonging seems entirely contradictory. Seeing as only a certain number of people determine who and what belongings in society at any given period of time then the vast majority would be conforming to the minorities standards. Going against one's nature would be the opposite of self-care, and is seemingly detrimental to the self.

Those were just a few of my half-baked ideas that do not necessarily go together. :smile:

Wow, one of those topics that hits you in the feels months later, when things are going somewhat OK.

I'll get back to you @robbiefrost soon, I need to build some distance here between the apparent Helter Skelter feel of this thread and whatever logic it may contain.

these people have no place in society if not taking their medications on time or have an emergency to the former due to some poor metabolism of some drug or medication. — Wallows

Psychiatry is an alternative discipline to spirituality, for treating people who are struggling with demonic assault. Psychiatry is a secular (non-religious) discipline, that does not understand spirituality; and as you have noted, it likes to cross the line from mere ignorance of the spiritual, to persecution of those who exercise it.

For thousands of years, religion has been understanding the human problem - what gives a spirit a hold over a mind, and how living righteously is a shield against a depraved mind. But in the present age (Matthew 12:45, Matthew 7:23), where thinking is depraved because it subjects itself to smut through media, the real knowledge of spirituality is difficult to find. So, most of the people who promote spirituality are nuts and legislators are naturally unwilling to yield the law into their hands. In contrast, the psychiatric institutions seem more level-headed, but only until you begin to question their reasoning. At that point, legislators are incapable of arguing against the confounding contortions of "expert knowledge" and words that "may have a different medical definition than their meaning in common language" - so they concur that the doctors are smarter than they are.

So I say a person who needs deliverance from evil spirits can only find it by following Jesus, and that Psychiatry is not able to cure people of those conditions. Psychiatry only prescribes medicine that reduces the problematic symptoms, but not understanding how it does so, and choosing to classify other regressions as acceptable and normal "side effects".

Sometimes a person can become cured while being treated by psychiatry - and that is because their thinking has been corrected. It is not medication that fixes a person's thinking, but words. Every word causes our mind to change, and if we follow the right words, our thinking is brought into the right way of thinking - but conversely, if we don't follow the right words, we are going in the opposite direction to right thinking, as likewise if we follow the wrong words. Jesus said "You have been made clean by the word I have spoken" (drawing a reference to the teaching as found in Matthew 12:43), and similarly Ephesians 5:26.

It's grounded in the very fabric of society that a person is quite essentially obedient. — Wallows

That's an authoritarian attitude. What happens when the authority is wrong and the people are expected to obey? (Yeah, it does happen). The community comes under a curse. Righteousness is the only defence, and that means that authorities must be opposed when they are exercising wrongness. What you find when authorities do get away with wickedness, is the opposite of what you described: malleable, coherent and stable. It is only righteousness that can produce those results, because righteousness is a defence against accusations according to the truth. The opposite requires deceit and corruption in order to defend it's workings.

Let me provide an anecdote. I was having one of those strange days that I knew wouldn't end well. Towards the start of the night, I had delusions that reality is actually run by aliens that secretly run society as they see fit. Sorta a synopsis of "They Live!" movie. What was different this time was the amount of mental stock value I was putting into this delusion. It all seemed to make sense that angels were fighting aliens over the fate of humanity.

It's worrying because I felt my core logical faculties to start melting or being eroded, meaning that my condition was lapsing or something. Suicide wasn't the only thing that came to my mind, more like worry and exasperation of my mental condition. — Wallows

I relate to this. I sometimes have similar delusions too (they were exacerbated last fall when a break-up and meeting someone with a 'hookup' aligned & I went on a month-long LSD binge.)

For me these 'delusions' are either (1) Exciting and mania-inducing, like I have some deep-insight being transmitted to me or (2) very scary and feed into suicidal though and worry, just like you say.

I've been trying, mostly successfully, to manage them like so : At this point, I know I've had these things since at least late high school. Over the years I've learned a bit about how they come and go. I track them, and my moods, and other stuff, and I can see a cyclical pattern. That's the first thing that helps : I know, when it's happening, that this isn't forever. If i can get some sleep, and focus on routine, and take care of myself, it'll diminish after a while.

But the other problem is how convincing they seem at the moment. It's hard not to believe the delusions. I've found that it helps me to tell myself that, while they're not 'true', they are insights that are being distorted, as kind of hamfisted metaphors. I don't reject them anymore, I mean, but see them as imperfect presentations of something I'm not ready to handle. That helps me when the feeling of 'truth' is so overwhelming I can't discount it. It allows me to remain in it, without forcing me to any kind of rash action. 'It's true in some way, but clouded, so I can't act on the understanding I think I have, because it's imperfect and distorted' if that makes sense.

(My 'delusions' usually center around gnostic themes, similar to P.K. Dick (and probably partially because I read so much about and by him.) They involve 'archons' and 'sleep/awakening' and all that sort of thing. )

hookup(s) — csalisbury

Talk about distorted thinking!

Listen! I was HEARTBROKEN. Some lady walks into my life says she has a sheet of acid for a couple hundred.... only a saint could resist.

Listen! I was HEARTBROKEN. Some lady walks into my life says she has a sheet of acid for a couple hundred.... only a saint could resist. — csalisbury

I hear you. It wasn't necessarily directed at you. Just the whole thread, Jesus, and my neuroticisms showing in full force.

I think, my real point was that cognitive distortions only manifest after the fact. So, no harm meant.

The most depressing outcome of thinking fitting into a society which requires the being to marginalize his self-respect by selling himself alongside toasters, automobiles, tvs, smartphones, screwdrivers, hammers, and homes...is that this could ever amount to self-care. Marketing oneself requires self-neglect, abortion of the inner world, the opposite of self-care. — Anthony

I relate to the some of the points you make, but I also think strangers can't care that much about one another. As long as live in groups of millions of people, I don't see how we can avoid marketing ourselves. Strangers don't want us, and we don't want them. We want their skills applied to our problems or the stuff they can give us. And the reverse. As long as we are dependent on that stuff on those skills, we have no choice but to scrounge around for whatever they'll take in trade.

I agree that self-reliance can come off as creepy and threatening to people. It is an especially proud position. I share your disgust with just being a product, on the department store shelf next to toasters. But I think it's deeper than capitalism. It's human nature.

Being self-reliant (and self-regulative) goes hand-in-hand with salubrious health. Virtue is its own reward. The reason for strife is just this: the fact we are forced into dependence on others. That Jesus was a carpenter tells you he was self-sufficient, could build the structures he was dependent on, etc. Someone who does the work of living eventually becomes thoroughly vexed by a human system revolving around endless beliefs and no relation to the substrate of life on which the organism depends. — Anthony

I like this. Good point about the carpentry. I am actually thinking of seriously changing my lifestyle, starting by abandoning the city. What's frustrating is that I still have to buy land. And then medical care costs a fortune. So it's quite hard to unplug. And I don't want to be farmer. It's much easier to get the money to buy canned beans and cage free eggs (which don't cost much) than it is to create my own food --especially given my abstract hands-off education. So the realistic compromise seems to involve smart shopping and maybe creating my own job.

I do feel the absurdity of our distance from the substrate. Most of us just glide along, dreaming. We live in screens (which does have its good points.)