What is mental illness to me?
A mental illness is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, it just is. It’s something you either have or you don’t have. Just like high blood pressure, diabetes or benign prostate hyperplasia. People with mental illness are often viewed as downtrodden and uneducated or unintelligent. I am writing a research paper this semester about the rights of the mentally ill and examples of the social and even academic stigmas associated with mental illness are many and varied and not difficult to find. My ACLU membership card is probably expired but it’s in my wallet that’s the important thing.
Anyways, I have this severe mental illness but I don’t feel like I am any worse off or better off than anyone else. You’ve been given the tools to deal with whatever life throws at you and so I have I. I may have more problems or more complex problems but I may have more tools or more complex tools. It all evens out we are all on the same playing field. I don’t want o r need anyone’s sympathy. But it is part of who I am, a big part. When you are talking about your mind being under the control of anything other than your mind, you are either talking about mind altering substances or mental illness. It’s difficult and I take a lot of medication but I function just like you do. I work, I go to school, I am in a functional communicative serious committed relationship, all those normal things, but one conversation with me and I may be described as anything but normal. I was once told by a woman, “Don’t call me anymore and I can’t see you anymore because you are sensory overload for me.” I was a little bothered by this woman leaving me, but hey she was paying me a really big compliment. When my ex-wife said I made a good housebitch she meant in the most endearing way.
I like people who have never seen me off my meds, they always tell me how normal I am and how normal I seem and that I don’t need the meds. Hello! I SEEM (all perception) that way because I am on the meds. So many people just don’t get this. Why is that?
My schedule of course is completely erratic, I don’t go to sleep or get up at the same time two days in a row, I may sleep 1 hour I may sleep 8 or 9, I never know. When I get out of bed in the morning I just don’t know. Years ago I heard that from a woman, “When you get out of bed in the morning I have know idea where you are going to be or what to expect from you.” I was amazed, someone else that understand, “Hell I don’t know either honey, that’s part of the fun.
Whey you are crazy you can get away with all kinds of fun things, indulge in all sorts of deviousness that inevitably are attributed to your mental illness. If you want to believe my kitchen table is really a large clump of industrial grade sulphur then go ahead. I am not going to try and talk you out of it or convince you that you are wrong.
It’s like a psychiatrist with a malingerer, it’s a lot easier to write them a couple of scrips and send them on their way than it is to try to convince them nothing is wrong with them. Hypochondriacs too, these people have said or rehearsed or thought about these things so extensively that THEY believe that these things are true so it would be really hard for a general practitioner to convince that person that nothing is wrong with them. And if I am that doctor I’m thinking, this is a psych issue, not my problem. I’d d the right thing though, pass the buck to some mental health professional and let them try to talk the hypochondriac out of being sick. But how does that work really? They’ll let an illness go, as soon as they find one to replace it.
I was talking with someone about Munchausen’s Syndrome the other day (I’m not sure on the spelling). If you aren’t familiar with it basically a mother causes injury or illness to her child intentionally and knowingly and she gets lots of attention because her baby is sick or hurt or in the hospital. It is a somewhat rare phenomenon. Children learn to talk pretty young, once they can talk you can’t do that anymore, the kid will tell the doctor or the social worked or the random stranger in the ER waiting room what his or her mommy did to him, can’t risk that, means jail time. But there has to be some hard-core sickness at the root of all that, injuring another (your own child) to bring attention to yourself. I suppose these people lack much self-confidence and don’t feel loved and appreciated, and see this as a rational method to get the attention or perceived validation they require. There are other ways.
I was physically abused like many people growing up, but at some point you possess the physical capability to fight back and I did, very young, the abuse stopped abruptly when I fought back. I’m not saying it’s right, but with a child’s mentality I figured if it was okay for them to hurt me it was okay for me to hurt them. I could just stand there and take it, and a lot of kids do. Afraid of losing the validation or approval of a parent they will tolerate horrible atrocities. The stay quiet out of ‘loyalty’ to these people who abuse them.
What a horrible world we live in? What do you think?
Anyways, I have this severe mental illness but I don’t feel like I am any worse off or better off than anyone else. You’ve been given the tools to deal with whatever life throws at you and so I have I. I may have more problems or more complex problems but I may have more tools or more complex tools. It all evens out we are all on the same playing field. I don’t want o r need anyone’s sympathy. But it is part of who I am, a big part. When you are talking about your mind being under the control of anything other than your mind, you are either talking about mind altering substances or mental illness. It’s difficult and I take a lot of medication but I function just like you do. I work, I go to school, I am in a functional communicative serious committed relationship, all those normal things, but one conversation with me and I may be described as anything but normal. I was once told by a woman, “Don’t call me anymore and I can’t see you anymore because you are sensory overload for me.” I was a little bothered by this woman leaving me, but hey she was paying me a really big compliment. When my ex-wife said I made a good housebitch she meant in the most endearing way.
I like people who have never seen me off my meds, they always tell me how normal I am and how normal I seem and that I don’t need the meds. Hello! I SEEM (all perception) that way because I am on the meds. So many people just don’t get this. Why is that?
My schedule of course is completely erratic, I don’t go to sleep or get up at the same time two days in a row, I may sleep 1 hour I may sleep 8 or 9, I never know. When I get out of bed in the morning I just don’t know. Years ago I heard that from a woman, “When you get out of bed in the morning I have know idea where you are going to be or what to expect from you.” I was amazed, someone else that understand, “Hell I don’t know either honey, that’s part of the fun.
Whey you are crazy you can get away with all kinds of fun things, indulge in all sorts of deviousness that inevitably are attributed to your mental illness. If you want to believe my kitchen table is really a large clump of industrial grade sulphur then go ahead. I am not going to try and talk you out of it or convince you that you are wrong.
It’s like a psychiatrist with a malingerer, it’s a lot easier to write them a couple of scrips and send them on their way than it is to try to convince them nothing is wrong with them. Hypochondriacs too, these people have said or rehearsed or thought about these things so extensively that THEY believe that these things are true so it would be really hard for a general practitioner to convince that person that nothing is wrong with them. And if I am that doctor I’m thinking, this is a psych issue, not my problem. I’d d the right thing though, pass the buck to some mental health professional and let them try to talk the hypochondriac out of being sick. But how does that work really? They’ll let an illness go, as soon as they find one to replace it.
I was talking with someone about Munchausen’s Syndrome the other day (I’m not sure on the spelling). If you aren’t familiar with it basically a mother causes injury or illness to her child intentionally and knowingly and she gets lots of attention because her baby is sick or hurt or in the hospital. It is a somewhat rare phenomenon. Children learn to talk pretty young, once they can talk you can’t do that anymore, the kid will tell the doctor or the social worked or the random stranger in the ER waiting room what his or her mommy did to him, can’t risk that, means jail time. But there has to be some hard-core sickness at the root of all that, injuring another (your own child) to bring attention to yourself. I suppose these people lack much self-confidence and don’t feel loved and appreciated, and see this as a rational method to get the attention or perceived validation they require. There are other ways.
I was physically abused like many people growing up, but at some point you possess the physical capability to fight back and I did, very young, the abuse stopped abruptly when I fought back. I’m not saying it’s right, but with a child’s mentality I figured if it was okay for them to hurt me it was okay for me to hurt them. I could just stand there and take it, and a lot of kids do. Afraid of losing the validation or approval of a parent they will tolerate horrible atrocities. The stay quiet out of ‘loyalty’ to these people who abuse them.
What a horrible world we live in? What do you think?
posted by Schizoid at 8:13 PM
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