<Moved to a new thread by MetaKron>

Too much of what is described as schizophrenia is pure fantasy on the part of the observer. They might as well be "witch smellers" to whom everything smells like, looks like, acts like, and squawks like a witch. That's how they can make diagnoses without brain scans or even primitive EEGs. The confusion lies in the fact that schizophrenia exists as a projection of what certain people think they know. It seems like, just as it was in the witch trials, only the schizophrenic knows that the rest don't know anything.

Once someone came up with labels, and decided that schizophrenia would be considered a negative thing, it was a lot easier for people of low intellect to jump on the bandwagon. I have to be frank here because in a very real way I am fighting for my life and the recognition of my right to live. The people who refer allegedly mentally ill people to any kind of therapist don't let go of anything that they consider theirs, including the person they accuse. The perception that one is accused is very accurate, too. He finds himself under the arbitrary control of people who behave very strangely and who take advantage of that situation to hurt and humiliate him, even to the point of breaking their own rules of moral behavior, even to the point of breaking the law. When the one witness to their behavior is not credible, a lot of people who are allegedly moral will lie, cheat, steal, bully, and even commit rape. A non-credible witness learns a lot about humanity that he would rather never know. People who would enforce any code of morality, decency, legality, or perception of reality are not fit to do so when they are like this. It would in fact seem as if someone deliberately places unfit people in charge for whatever reasons they might have. Such actions describe the people behind them pretty well.

A "schizophrenic" or whatever I am has no good or rational reason to bend before any kind of human entity who has behaved the way my "therapists" behaved, and of course, when I declare this to be true, and I am in a bad position, these people will use brute force against me. They will sully my reputation, grind it into the dirt, under the guise of "treating" me. They will do or say anything that it takes. I witness a real shift of personality to reveal something cold, calculating, alien underneath. It is not animal. Animals aren't like that.

So metakron how does one help a person who appears to be suffering some sort of serious mental trauma?

It IS true that sometimes if not most times society acts to protect itself from what it fears might be the actions of someone who has a tenuous grasp on reality.
So in this sense society is acting paranoid ....yes?
If I was dressed in army fatigues and wore a bomb wraped around my waste and walked into a shopping center, would I not expect society to get concerned even though the bombs may be foney?
To announce that I am only kidding does nothing to stop society from locking me away as insane. Not because of the false bomb but more because I was crazy enough to expect that society would understand the joke.

The point I am attempting to make is that society also has to deal with it's own paranoia and will of course react to protect itself from a loose gun.
There is not much more scarey that having to deal with a person in the throws of psychosis as their behaviour is no longer predictable enough to be comfortable. A heightened sense of physical threat from the patient manifests itself in most often what is later seen as an over reaction. [ like needing 5 policemen to arrest the person instead of one or two.]
So as you are suggesting Schizophrenia is also a societal problem and not just an individuals probem as persons suffering can't seem to keep their problems confined to themselves and nearly always involve the society they live in with their insanity.

Thus society also suffers paranoia from a different perspective.


BTW good thread....and thanks for the opportunity.

<Moved to a new thread by MetaKron>

Too much of what is described as schizophrenia is pure fantasy on the part of the observer. They might as well be "witch smellers" to whom everything smells like, looks like, acts like, and squawks like a witch. That's how they can make diagnoses without brain scans or even primitive EEGs. The confusion lies in the fact that schizophrenia exists as a projection of what certain people think they know. It seems like, just as it was in the witch trials, only the schizophrenic knows that the rest don't know anything.

Once someone came up with labels, and decided that schizophrenia would be considered a negative thing, it was a lot easier for people of low intellect to jump on the bandwagon. I have to be frank here because in a very real way I am fighting for my life and the recognition of my right to live. The people who refer allegedly mentally ill people to any kind of therapist don't let go of anything that they consider theirs, including the person they accuse. The perception that one is accused is very accurate, too. He finds himself under the arbitrary control of people who behave very strangely and who take advantage of that situation to hurt and humiliate him, even to the point of breaking their own rules of moral behavior, even to the point of breaking the law. When the one witness to their behavior is not credible, a lot of people who are allegedly moral will lie, cheat, steal, bully, and even commit rape. A non-credible witness learns a lot about humanity that he would rather never know. People who would enforce any code of morality, decency, legality, or perception of reality are not fit to do so when they are like this. It would in fact seem as if someone deliberately places unfit people in charge for whatever reasons they might have. Such actions describe the people behind them pretty well.

A "schizophrenic" or whatever I am has no good or rational reason to bend before any kind of human entity who has behaved the way my "therapists" behaved, and of course, when I declare this to be true, and I am in a bad position, these people will use brute force against me. They will sully my reputation, grind it into the dirt, under the guise of "treating" me. They will do or say anything that it takes. I witness a real shift of personality to reveal something cold, calculating, alien underneath. It is not animal. Animals aren't like that.

If you are being treated as you say, MetaKron, that is indeed a shame.

And it's also true that far too many people are labeled falsely with the disorder.

However , if an individual is truly suffering from it, they pose a high degree of risk not only to themselves but to the general public. It's a serious brain-damaging condition and does need proper treatment to stop it's progression - and hopefully, to reverse it as much as possible.

Light, I never even heard of the theory of loss of brain matter until you talked about it. Would you like to provide us with some links? Do you have any clue how many cases of "schizophrenia" are real? How would we even define this and why?

QQ, do you actually think of a typical schizophrenic as someone who would strap on a bomb and commit murder-suicide? Is this even a schizophrenic response? We should and must examine the idea that the few people who have done this may have been experiencing a completely normal human reaction to their situation. Labelling someone as mentally ill or socially unacceptable or just "strange" alters their situation in life. I think it leads to society creating the thing that it is afraid of, as if we haven't heard of that theme before.

QQ, do you actually think of a typical schizophrenic as someone who would strap on a bomb and commit murder-suicide? Is this even a schizophrenic response? We should and must examine the idea that the few people who have done this may have been experiencing a completely normal human reaction to their situation. Labelling someone as mentally ill or socially unacceptable or just "strange" alters their situation in life. I think it leads to society creating the thing that it is afraid of, as if we haven't heard of that theme before.

Fair question!.

Keeping in mind that the scenario is actually an insane joke, no I don't consider this as typical.
I did however attempt to show that society has a great fear of persons that unfortunately are not sensitive enough to their concerns.

It is true I have tried to sensationalise the point using an extreme and this is also a typical repsonse of how society sees the situation.

Fear is and always has been the underlying emotion or instinct that drives most of our problems not just in the area of an individuals mental health but also in the area of global mental health as well.

When a persons behaviour is extreme and obvously there is a lack of self awareness people get frightened. When they see a man standing in a mall screeming abuse at every one as they pass it is to be expected that they get a little scared of that man. It is also expected that society will protect it self even if the behaviour is not intended to be scarey by the person yelling the abuse.

Ok...I have just used another extreme example of eratic behaviour.

But this is what fuels the fear in society that Schizophrenia creates in society.

A person suffering Schizophrenia does no hold a monopoly on paranoia. This is quite evident in a very fearful wold.

It is quite crazy is it not to inspire fear [ there fore paranoid reactions] in society when society holds the keys to your future.
And the reality is that when living in a community we all have certain obligations towards that comunity. If we fail in those obligations then that community will take action regardless of justice or injustice or fairness or unfairness. To think that it is other wise is not facing the reality of what is required when living in a community.

My youngest brother had a terminal case of Schizophrenia [ death by suicide ]
He was often quite unthreatening to others but I can assure you he created an awful lot of confusion. [ he had this desire to sell spring water to every one he met, so he would sit with a box of spring water and attempt to sell the bottles of water, [illegally I might add] And in between his profound sobbing and tears he would sell bottles of spring water. Of course the police when they saw this debarcle had no idea how to arrest him. Paranoid based thoughts as to my brother violent potentials forced them to call me in to assist in his removal and eventual hospitalisation. No threat was really present but society is not knowing of this so reacts as if the threat exists.
So shop keepers and people that would really like to offer assistance stand back and watch in hopeless despair as they can not get past their own fear of my brothers unpredictable state.

This is such a sad aspect when he woke up after being forcably sedated he had to deal with the fact that for over two hours he was sobbing and crying trying to sell water in a busy public place and no one could help him.

So how did my brother deal with this connundrum do you think?

In my life time, I have known several intelligent individuals diagnosed as having some mental disorder.

I often wondered why they could not use their intelligence to avoid unwanted consequences of their behavior.

Suppose you think that all about you are crazy because they do not know you are Napoleon. Everybody says you are John Smithey. Suppose you really are Napoleon reincarnated. However, you discover that when you claim to be Napoleon and try to assert your authority, you end up in a straight jacket and are hustled off to a padded room.

Why not lie and say you are John Smithey, and avoid being put into a straight jacket?

Why not observe the behavior of people who are getting along okay and imitate them, even if their behavior seems strange to you?

I never had serous emotional problems, but I remember a time when I felt I had no clue about how to deal with people, especially females. I started to study the behavior of those who seemed to be socially successful. I thought of the study as an additional course requiring some work to get a good grade.

I never felt that I understood the dynamics of dealing with people, especially women, but I soon started getting along very well by rote copying of the behavior of others who seemed to have more insight than I did. After a while, I was able to innovate a bit and invent some new behaviors that worked. I never really came up with anything original, but merely managed to reinvent behavior already known to others.

For many years now, I have been viewed as a person who socializes very well and makes friends easily. I still do not have any understanding of social dynamics and the thought processes of most people mystify me.

I wonder if there are some who would be considered psychotic if they did not disguise and/or suppress some of their opinions and behavioral tendencies? I wonder if mimicking what is considered normal behavior can be a first step in curing neurotic/psychotic behavior.

In my life time, I have known several intelligent individuals diagnosed as having some mental disorder.

I often wondered why they could not use their intelligence to avoid unwanted consequences of their behavior.

Suppose you think that all about you are crazy because they do not know you are Napoleon. Everybody says you are John Smithey. Suppose you really are Napoleon reincarnated. However, you discover that when you claim to be Napoleon and try to assert your authority, you end up in a straight jacket and are hustled off to a padded room.

Why not lie and say you are John Smithey, and avoid being put into a straight jacket?

Why not observe the behavior of people who are getting along okay and imitate them, even if their behavior seems strange to you?

I never had serous emotional problems, but I remember a time when I felt I had no clue about how to deal with people, especially females. I started to study the behavior of those who seemed to be socially successful. I thought of the study as an additional course requiring some work to get a good grade.

I never felt that I understood the dynamics of dealing with people, especially women, but I soon started getting along very well by rote copying of the behavior of others who seemed to have more insight than I did. After a while, I was able to innovate a bit and invent some new behaviors that worked. I never really came up with anything original, but merely managed to reinvent behavior already known to others.

For many years now, I have been viewed as a person who socializes very well and makes friends easily. I still do not have any understanding of social dynamics and the thought processes of most people mystify me.

I wonder if there are some who would be considered psychotic if they did not disguise and/or suppress some of their opinions and behavioral tendencies? I wonder if mimicking what is considered normal behavior can be a first step in curing neurotic/psychotic behavior.
I totally agree with you Dinasaur, but the problem is in the doing unfortunately. It is common for persons suffering to be so sensitive to their individuality that the idea of mimickry is totally repulsive. An afront to their sense of identity etc....

Light, I never even heard of the theory of loss of brain matter until you talked about it. Would you like to provide us with some links? Do you have any clue how many cases of "schizophrenia" are real? How would we even define this and why?

QQ, do you actually think of a typical schizophrenic as someone who would strap on a bomb and commit murder-suicide? Is this even a schizophrenic response? We should and must examine the idea that the few people who have done this may have been experiencing a completely normal human reaction to their situation. Labelling someone as mentally ill or socially unacceptable or just "strange" alters their situation in life. I think it leads to society creating the thing that it is afraid of, as if we haven't heard of that theme before.

Sure, glad to help. Here's a very reliable source, also look through the whole thing for a lot more information.

http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/disease.htm#significant

Humm... Don't know why it truncated it like that, but immediately after the word family it should be /disease.htm#significant

QQ, a person who hasn't been abused is likely to be a lot healthier. I will respect your privacy if you don't want to talk about abuse, but I automatically believe it when I hear about people like your brother. I consider schizophrenia to be a stress-related illness, and a bad reaction to a violent society. It's like lung cancer. Prevention is the best thing. Don't smoke and stay out of the uranium mines.

I don't believe that "society" has any rights. Individuals have rights. When we have our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, most of us are pretty unlikely to do anything to compromise the rights of others. Those who want to use the excuse of "society" to take away the rights of others are criminals and neurotics. They are unhealthy for society as a whole. If we learned anything during the 20th century, one of the most important things was that individual liberties are the most important contribution to the maintenance of the health of that society. Teaching people to attack each other over things that are no one's business sickens a society and individuals.

am So glad there is a real person here who knows what he is talkin about...you MetaKron. it isreal and human. i just hope people listen to you, and your experience, cause so much crap is believed about 'schizophrewnia'......the other night i watched this drama series...it's about this woman whose psychic and can see ghosts. well this episode was about this guy who was violent schizophrenic. as soon as i found that out i was thinking how fukin typical. the only ONLY evber time they ONLY ever time the depict 'schizophrenia' they make it violent. tis is so for othe media too. in the papers we here only of people doing violence and then hear the are 'schizophrenic'. tis is really bad for people who Do have experiences classed under this all-embracing nonsensical term that means actually nothing ....
here' a bit of an interview wit Perry someone who isagainst forced medication on people who have experiences feared by the ones indoctrinated in stutifying conformity to the State....:

O'C: So you are saying that te reason we have so-called "chronic schizophrenia" in our soceity - where a person is medicated, distressed or hospitalized for decaes - isreally cultural? A society which refuses to understand the healing nature of the phenomenon?

Perry: Yes, it seems so...I really do feel
"chronic schizophrenia" is created by society's negative response to what is actually a perfectly natural and healthy process. hate to think of what happens to people who go into mental hospital...

http://global-vision.org/dream/dreamch1.html

am So glad there is a real person here who knows what he is talkin about...you MetaKron. it isreal and human. i just hope people listen to you, and your experience, cause so much crap is believed about 'schizophrewnia'......the other night i watched this drama series...it's about this woman whose psychic and can see ghosts. well this episode was about this guy who was violent schizophrenic. as soon as i found that out i was thinking how fukin typical. the only ONLY evber time they ONLY ever time the depict 'schizophrenia' they make it violent. tis is so for othe media too. in the papers we here only of people doing violence and then hear the are 'schizophrenic'. tis is really bad for people who Do have experiences classed under this all-embracing nonsensical term that means actually nothing ....
here' a bit of an interview wit Perry someone who isagainst forced medication on people who have experiences feared by the ones indoctrinated in stutifying conformity to the State....:

O'C: So you are saying that te reason we have so-called "chronic schizophrenia" in our soceity - where a person is medicated, distressed or hospitalized for decaes - isreally cultural? A society which refuses to understand the healing nature of the phenomenon?

Perry: Yes, it seems so...I really do feel
"chronic schizophrenia" is created by society's negative response to what is actually a perfectly natural and healthy process. hate to think of what happens to people who go into mental hospital...

http://global-vision.org/dream/dreamch1.html

You have GOT to be kidding! Try telling that to someone who is hearing voices and banging their head against the wall trying to make them shut up.

Pity. Not only do these people need compassion and understanding, now we have people saying things like "the healing nature of the phenomenon" and "actually a perfectly natural and healthy process."

Dang, Duendy, I know you don't have all your marbles in the same basket but you don't have to go around spreading garbage like this !

You have GOT to be kidding! Try telling that to someone who is hearing voices and banging their head against the wall trying to make them shut up.

Pity. Not only do these people need compassion and understanding, now we have people saying things like "the healing nature of the phenomenon" and "actually a perfectly natural and healthy process."

Dang, Duendy, I know you don't have all your marbles in the same basket but you don't have to go around spreading garbage like this !

hmmmm. for all othrs reading tis understand that i take tis ubject very seriously indeed, and i dont want to disrail the thread by beginning aslanging match with this utter fukin moron 'Light' whatever his name is...who keeps followin me about aiming his abuse at me. i cant knock him out in this medium so i am not even going to take the bait. as far as him saying anything intelligent..well. look
so i am not sulkin. i'll sort the fker out at another thread, tho he'll keep poppin up no doubt. they tend to
anyway. count yer silly self ignored for now fool

I took far too much acid when I was a kid and was sectioned because my thought processes had a massive impact on my ability to function according to what society deemed 'normal'. I was labelled schizophrenic and pumped full of drugs. Eventually after I responded to the drugs they reduced the label to 'temporary psychosis'.
The real hard thing for me at the time was that my state of mind was always questioning societies version of 'normal'. It was a lose lose situation. If I agreed that there was something wrong with me, I would be locked up, if I questioned what 'normal' was I would be locked up.
All I can say is that societies version of 'normal' does not appear normal but 'sick' to the sufferer. 'Normal' peoples response to you seems incredibly perverse and unloving and their fear exposes their weaknesses and they appear to the sufferer to be in a much worse position overall but with all the support and power. Paranoia quickly establishes itself in these circumstances because it appears to be a grand conspiracy against you. It is a horrible sufference as well because of the loneliness of living in an isolated reality. The medication prescribed allowed me to accept societies version of normal again but I still cannot negate the alternative reality I experienced because there was nothing distorted about it at the time.
My advise to anyone diagnosed is to 'submit'. There is no point being alone in your alternative reality no matter how valid it seems to you.

peace

c20

The medication prescribed allowed me to accept societies version of normal again but I still cannot negate the alternative reality I experienced because there was nothing distorted about it at the time.

That explains a lot, thanks, I understand now. There is no further need to question your beliefs.

The medication prescribed allowed me to accept societies version of normal again but I still cannot negate the alternative reality I experienced because there was nothing distorted about it at the time.

That explains a lot, thanks, I understand now. There is no further need to question your beliefs.

This was a very long time ago (Q). It doesn't bear any relevance on what I have come to believe since. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist the opportunity though. I guess I could have kept my mouth shut to avoid being undermined by you (and I considered it) but I thought it may help MetaKron to know that someone else understands and frankly your put downs wern't important enough to keep me from posting. Make from that what you will.

peace

c20

Duendy,
You do do know of course that people are not usually hospitalised just because they hear voices or because they believe in unusual things.
Do you have any idea what it takes to recieve hospital treatment and how under resourced these hospitals are with long waiting lists of people not considered acute enough to be admitted as an emergency.

You do realise the number of persons that commit suicide due to the lack of hospital beds?

You do realise that the mental health systems all over the western world are chronically understaffed and unable to keep up with demand for their services?

Have you ever really bothered to do the actual research in person and visit an acute psych ward. Have you ever seen the actual trauma involved with this condition?

No.....is the only answer you can give as your post clearly indicates.

You probably can not possibly understand just how devastating this condition is to the patient, the family and all their friends. Nor are you aware of the intense desparation involved in finding treatment. Doctors do not normally force their attention on someone, and in most cases are extremely hard to get help from.

Have you ever been to a Schizophrenia fellowship meeting and seen the sadness and tragedy of this condition?

Do you know of any of the formalities a Doctor has to go through before making a diagnosis?
If an when you have the answers to all the questions above I will start to take your concerns seriously.

Do the walk as well as the talk......

Possibly we are discussing at cross purposes.
When talking about Schizophrenia I usually refer to acute cases that usually involve many emergency admissions to hospital. Persons that simply can not exist with out significant community support. In the form of accomodation, medications, state trustees [ handlng their finances], food and clothing.
I am not refering to those borderline cases that are borderline because they are not severe enough to warant hospitalisation.
Maybe in discussing this topic we need to clarify just how severe the condition is that we are talking about.

I get the impression that you deundy are referring to those persons that are not so obvious where as I am talking about the persons that are very obviously sick.
Duendy,
Maybe you would like to provide a classification system for this thread so we can talk about the same thing.??

C20, i cant tell yu invaluable it is what you share.....i donthave that much time right now but i certainly will repond more in ull oater....just to say for now;

i am well aware thatsome people have abused pychedelics. remember Sid Barret from Pink Floyd....i'd love to listen to his tale....i have known peopl and heard of pople--many very young too who 'blitz' on assorted drugs including psychedelics. really stupid, crass, and straight influenced by this commodified instant ignorant culture....which generally has nothin to say about psychdelic expericne but to rethe wage fukin war pon it etc. all of shich glamourizes it and pushes it underground and meanwhile creates a pranoiaic oppressive environemnt.....a frieh of mine knew THE dude who jumpd off a building after haven taken magic mushrooms which has caused them to be made illegal...the story is he was in a car wit his gorlfriend and was reallyworriedby aploice search.....ooops have forgeot te particulars for now, but will probably re-ask an get the detials at a later time. small world hey

will be back later to give mosre of a reponse to your very interesting contribution.........

I don't understand what you are saying, MetaKron, do you think your therapist is trying to kill you?

The people who refer allegedly mentally ill people to any kind of therapist don't let go of anything that they consider theirs, including the person they accuse
You are mistaken. It's not an accusation, it is a sign of love that they try to get their friend some help. While it is often true that people try to take advantage of a schizophrenic person, it is illegal, and a therapist has a responsibility not only to heal, but to protect. It is also true that schizophrenics do not percieve reality correctly, and your complaints are most likely the product of your psychosis. I know what I'm talking about, as I tried for two years to help my friend with schizophrenia. In the end, his mother was a bigger problem than his illness, since she was enabling him to continue without treatment or medication. She payed his rent and allowed him to refuse to get a job. She would move him to a new apartment every time he wore out his welcome with psychotic behavior. A certain amount of NOT letting a schizophrenic to do anything they want is necessary to convince them that they MUST change.

The alternative is much more unpleasant. When the police get involved, they aren't so sensitive to the problem. My friend made a scene in the middle of a street in Seattle, and resisted the police. He was tasered repeatedly, and spent time in jail. Before that, he threw most of his stuff away in a dumpster, and homeless people took it. He stayed up all night playing loud music and ranting endlessly, and was kicked out of his apartment again. He had a showdown with the police and was ready to smash them with a hammer. Only my intervention prevented his arrest that time.

It doesn't bear any relevance on what I have come to believe since.

If you say so. ;)

You have GOT to be kidding! Try telling that to someone who is hearing voices and banging their head against the wall trying to make them shut up.

Pity. Not only do these people need compassion and understanding, now we have people saying things like "the healing nature of the phenomenon" and "actually a perfectly natural and healthy process."

Dang, Duendy, I know you don't have all your marbles in the same basket but you don't have to go around spreading garbage like this !

Light, I think that you are objecting to statements about the healing nature of schizophrenia, or, and I may be presuming too much, the way that the syndrome can lead to healing, and there is a difference, worth a lot more words. Even when there is head-banging going on, and the hearing of voices, yes, I can buy that. It's part of a process of release of anger and tension. So it's dangerous. The drugs are dangerous and mess with natural processes in ways that can and do make it worse.

<Moved to a new thread by MetaKron>

Too much of what is described as schizophrenia is pure fantasy on the part of the observer. They might as well be "witch smellers" to whom everything smells like, looks like, acts like, and squawks like a witch. That's how they can make diagnoses without brain scans or even primitive EEGs. The confusion lies in the fact that schizophrenia exists as a projection of what certain people think they know. It seems like, just as it was in the witch trials, only the schizophrenic knows that the rest don't know anything.

Once someone came up with labels, and decided that schizophrenia would be considered a negative thing, it was a lot easier for people of low intellect to jump on the bandwagon. I have to be frank here because in a very real way I am fighting for my life and the recognition of my right to live. The people who refer allegedly mentally ill people to any kind of therapist don't let go of anything that they consider theirs, including the person they accuse. The perception that one is accused is very accurate, too. He finds himself under the arbitrary control of people who behave very strangely and who take advantage of that situation to hurt and humiliate him, even to the point of breaking their own rules of moral behavior, even to the point of breaking the law. When the one witness to their behavior is not credible, a lot of people who are allegedly moral will lie, cheat, steal, bully, and even commit rape. A non-credible witness learns a lot about humanity that he would rather never know. People who would enforce any code of morality, decency, legality, or perception of reality are not fit to do so when they are like this. It would in fact seem as if someone deliberately places unfit people in charge for whatever reasons they might have. Such actions describe the people behind them pretty well.

A "schizophrenic" or whatever I am has no good or rational reason to bend before any kind of human entity who has behaved the way my "therapists" behaved, and of course, when I declare this to be true, and I am in a bad position, these people will use brute force against me. They will sully my reputation, grind it into the dirt, under the guise of "treating" me. They will do or say anything that it takes. I witness a real shift of personality to reveal something cold, calculating, alien underneath. It is not animal. Animals aren't like that.


i think everyone is schizophrenic.i have arguements in my head,i have another voice but the one that is the "me" me is just far more dominant and luckily its the rational one.

Also, it's typical of schizophrenics to not think there is anything wrong with them, and to think the problem is with those who make a fuss about it.

Some individuals are sicker than others, QQ, and I think that bullying is the sickest. The bullying that the children did led to abuse by the teachers and by my mother. What am I to believe is real? Were the punching and kicking and beatings real, or were the repeated denials that anyone hurt me real? Even if they had hurt me, my mother and the teachers said that I deserved it. To me this is absolute conclusive evidence that society is very very sick and that I should not be required to adapt to it.

No, Spidergoat, that wasn't what I was saying. What I was saying was that even though my mother and others demanded that I take therapy, in no way were they going to allow the therapist to actually perform therapy without interference. If they didn't like what the therapist said, they weren't going to listen. They would keep me within their system of pain for as long as they felt like it, no matter what professional opinion was. The therapist wasn't working for me. Perforce, he was working for them, no matter what he thought he was doing or wanted to do. I could even hear it in his voice. Every time he said something to the effect that he was working for my best interests, I could hear him say that he meant the school's best interests and the best interests of "society." It was definitely health care fraud.

So it is typical of schizophrenics to think that there is nothing wrong with them. It is typical of witches to deny their obvious guilt, too. It is typical of bullies to deny that they beat the little punk who really needed to be beaten.

Even online, people play the game of seeing if they can break me, drive me to that final psychotic range after which I am dead or confined. Then they turn around to the audience with all too wide-eyed innocence and say "Who? Me? I have three friends, I mean witnesses, who will tell you that I was somewhere else when that toolshed was broken into, I mean, when that liquor store was robbed, I mean, when we all put on masks and beat that man and trashed his house.

Well, I have sympathy for your experiences with the health care industry, it is certainly far from perfect. I don't think any therapy can be effective without anti-psychotic drugs. You need to be able to trust the person trying to help you.

Tell me, do you think you need help? Are you able to function day-to-day? Or do you think, as my friend did, that you will always be provided for somehow? Are you a minor? Do you trust your mother? I think it's possible but unlikely that your mom is working against your best interest. Perhaps you need to find a new environment entirely.

I'll get back to you in a minute, Spidergoat.

Something I just read reminded me that our allegedly moral and ethical behavior is forced upon us, using threats of death and destruction. Literally, the reason for "good behavior" that has been forced on me is because if I don't behave, someone will destroy me. It wasn't acceptable to certain people that I accepted the rules of society because they were good and right. They also had to put the fear of God in me. They made my God a thing to be feared, the very basis of my being into something to cause heart and mind-destroying fear. The more I submitted the worse they made it. I think that some people go off their nut and go amok when they realize that they have been screwed this way. It's a meat-grinder.

Spidergoat, there is one person who has expressed an interest in helping me leave the place that I am existing. I haven't even asked him if he has the means to move my stuff. To tell you the truth, I don't want him to be saddled with caring for me. I don't know that I can work. The last three days I tried to work were like having three heart attacks in a row, at almost exactly the same time each day. I have to admit to myself that it is entirely possible that I am physically unable to work until I have a bypass operation. I haven't been to the doctor because I have no medical insurance. I can sit here and write. I can walk a few miles without tiring but if I run I see spots. If I try to work hard and fast, I get chest pains.

I can function day to day if I limit myself to a desk job, walk five miles a day or at least every other day, and I can even cook, clean house, and wash my clothes. I have a book in progress that promises to be good. I can emulate sanity for as long as someone doesn't ride my back. I can barely carry my own weight, but I can do it for another thirty years.

What's your problem with someone wanting to always be provided for? It's like a mantra. A real parent would move Heaven and Earth for her son. She could at least move her ass. She works hard to impress me with the fact that to her, I am only rarely worth her making an effort for, and she has to excuse that effort by saying that she was going to do something else anyway. For a son, she can't make a special effort once in a while? Is it wanting to be waited on hand and foot to ask for a little bit here and there that is just for me? And when I need help to get to a job interview, she just tells me in advance that I can't work there if it's too far to walk. This is not a refusal to provide for me for the rest of my life. It's a refusal to move her ass to help her son to help himself. No, I don't trust her.

I have my own inhibitions against being helped, and when I had someone to help me for a few years, that very inhibition destroyed me. It may do it again. It seemed wrong to capitalize on the help that I was given, and way too late I realized that if I had capitalized on it, he could have stopped giving me help sooner. It would have fulfilled his purpose in helping me. What would I want someone to do if I had 10,000 dollars to give him? I would want him to make himself a millionaire. By not capitalizing on what I was given, I hurt and insulted the man, although he knows that I did not do so intentionally and would rather die than hurt him on purpose. All that I gained during that ten years was the ability to drive in heavy traffic.

I fooled myself into thinking that I could get a job in this town and keep it. I made myself so that the only thing that drove me while I had my last job was the job itself. I showed up on time. I volunteered to work harder to keep the place in shape to work in. I like keeping my work area clean and as functional as I know how to make it, and I know how to take initiative to keep things working smoothly. This worked well until someone decided to interfere with enough to keep it from working at all. Now, like I said, I don't feel like I have what it takes to try again here. I need out. I abandoned my luggage when I left another situation, just minutes away from moving in with a crack whore, literally. How many people who have associated with crack whores have gotten away even that cleanly? She got a clunky old car and more tools and electronics stuff than she will ever know what to do with, and my laser printer. I got to miss out on the pleasure of receptive anal intercourse with someone named "Bubba."

My mother has usually worked against my own best interest. Not every time, but most of the time, she has done this. She could if she made the effort buy me a car to use to drive to towns that have jobs. This would be a good investment of her money. I do think she owes me that much. She lent me money to get home and I paid back every penny of that, so she knows that I'm good for it. But now it's like, she can't come up with money for a cheap car so I can drive to work? It's the end of the world if she gets stuck with paying $50 a month for the next two years?

Hell, no, I don't trust her. I haven't trusted her since she used me for a punching bag when I was 2 years old.

Ordinary reality is somewhat of a meat-grinder, and people like MetaKron only reveal what a strange, awful, soul numbing situation it is. It reveals the failure of society to adequately care for the mentally ill, and the conformist forces that recoil in horror at anything different and new. The stress of dealing with these kind of people can make the situation worse. It's true that normality is forced on schizophrenics like it's somehow a fault in their personality. I wouldn't want schizophrenics to act normal, I think the ideal is simply that they live a happy life and aren't too much of a burden on their family. In my friend's case, his mom had the best intentions, but the burden was almost literally killing her.

I don't think there is an easy solution. I ended up abandoning my friend because there was nothing I could do. He plays guitar on street corners when the weather's nice.

I want to say again what my purpose is in writing about this. My purpose is to provide information that can help others who are in my position. If it were just feeling sorry for myself I could do that without an Internet connection. Maybe I have no "duty" to do this, but others who are sick from being bullied are human beings too, and they're a lot more the kind of human beings that I want to live with and associate with.

Ordinary reality is somewhat of a meat-grinder, and people like MetaKron only reveal what a strange, awful, soul numbing situation it is. It reveals the failure of society to adequately care for the mentally ill, and the conformist forces that recoil in horror at anything different and new. The stress of dealing with these kind of people can make the situation worse. It's true that normality is forced on schizophrenics like it's somehow a fault in their personality. I wouldn't want schizophrenics to act normal, I think the ideal is simply that they live a happy life and aren't too much of a burden on their family. In my friend's case, his mom had the best intentions, but the burden was almost literally killing her.

I don't think there is an easy solution. I ended up abandoning my friend because there was nothing I could do. He plays guitar on street corners when the weather's nice.

That's what my friend wound up doing with me. He threw me out. I guess he had to. There is a bit more to the story, but it didn't have anything to do with alcohol, drug use, or violence. It had a lot to do with a third person being there who we decided to help, and so far he's making it. He's had the same job for over a year and is doing well at it. During the effort I sunk. I don't know the state of my physical health, which may be far more important than my mental health right now. I may have at least two life-threatening conditions going on, and it could be four. Without access to medical care, I don't know if I have cancer, diabetes, a heart condition, a bad liver, something else, all of the above, or none of the above.

One thing I want to jump up and yell and wave my hands about is the fact that the diagnosis of mental problems causes people to ignore physical problems that aggravate or even create the mental conditions. I don't have three centuries to wait until someone can wave their Palm Pilot over my body and read the condition of every cell and give me a magical pill that can repair my kidneys and everything else. I have to figure out a lot of this myself, like the probable fact that my mental condition in the morning is due to acidosis, brought on by poor circulation while I am sleeping. Too much of any acid in my system drives me nuts. "Psychosis" brought on by a simple acid condition of the blood is something that few doctors recognize even exists, and what do I do right here and now? Depend on someone else who is going to fiddle-fart for the rest of my life, or actually do something right here and right now?

The scary thing is that alcohol doesn't make me violent or scary, but orange juice does. It takes a lot of orange juice, so I don't go off my nut when I drink one or two glasses, but it's a good idea to stay away from it for a week after drinking one or two glasses. But right here and right now, if I am to get a doctor to find out that my system is overloaded with CO2 in the morning, I would have to get a blood gas analysis done every morning at the same time. There are devices that can shine a light through the earlobe and read the blood gases now, but around there they probably still tap arteries for blood samples. Hell, try to even convince them that it needs to be done.

I contend that society doesn't know how to care for people who are not mentally ill. It drives people crazy who have no inherent mental instability. In fact, the crazy ones seem to be able to adapt better. Either that or it's not crazy to target weaker people and beat on them.

I contend that society doesn't know how to care for people who are not mentally ill.

Well, they did back in the old days! And if you'll check historic figures, you'll also see that such "illnesses" weren't so widespread as they are now. Ones genetic traits are, you know, transmitted to their offspring. Since society quit "caring for" the crazies, that craziness has been spread to more and more offsring ...and it'll continue, too.

Baron Max

Amazing. I didn't realize that the board used automated subscripting on common chemical formulae.

Possibly we are discussing at cross purposes.
When talking about Schizophrenia I usually refer to acute cases that usually involve many emergency admissions to hospital. Persons that simply can not exist with out significant community support. In the form of accomodation, medications, state trustees [ handlng their finances], food and clothing.
I am not refering to those borderline cases that are borderline because they are not severe enough to warant hospitalisation.
Maybe in discussing this topic we need to clarify just how severe the condition is that we are talking about.

I get the impression that you deundy are referring to those persons that are not so obvious where as I am talking about the persons that are very obviously sick.
Duendy,
Maybe you would like to provide a classification system for this thread so we can talk about the same thing.??

QQ i am aware of the degrees of so-called scizophrenia.
What we have now in what Thomas Szasz terms the 'pharmacracy' is the legalized abuse o the cartel of government-pharmaceutical-psychiatric establishment deciding what is and isn't menal illness, included of course 'schizophrenia'. this sitution has and still is te cause of severe abuse of peoples, who--when have gotten into te hnds of this authoriy--will lose teir very human rights!.....and tis 'legalitiy' is based on a so-called science which preends to know what schizophrenia and mental illness is. Ie., it states that schizophrenia is a biological disease. but tere is no proof os this.
'i am not saying tis off trhe top of my head. checkout http://www.mindfreedom.org and look for the archives about te 'hungerstrike' where psychiatric survivors actually went on hunger strike to force the APA to presnt proof that mental illness is a biological disease....go check it out. it isvery interesting story

Also contact Dr Fred Baughman. i will give you hisprivate email address if you want. ask him as he is more expert than me. he seems fairly apporachable, and you may transfer his repplies to here

checkout Thomas Szasz...he wrote a book in te 60s titled TheMyth of Mental Illness his website, if i a remmebering rigtht is http://www.szaszmaterials.com there are some articles about 'schizophrenia'

YES. i am aware that some peoples behaviour does seem very odd and unaccepatable. and not understood. toughthe menta health people are telling us they DO understnad it, and their answer is to medicae it withighly toxic drugs that do more harm than good

So, we NEED to really explore WHAt i going on. not only with the pseudoscience behind it all. but also what it means when people manifest visionary experience etc

btw, Fred Baughman also very redenly challenged the head of APA to prve that ADHD etc qas biological disease and he was ignored-last i heard!

A lot of people do things in private that would be unacceptable if revealed. A lot of people are called crazy after their private doings are revealed.

I read in New Scientist or Discover that new research with vitamins and fish oils are proving effective in treating mental disorders.

Helping the physical body helps the mental body. Simple pain and dysfunction are bad for the mind.

Quantum Quack, consider this thought: Schizophrenic or not, there is a very rational reason for the occasional explosions of anger that can cause a lot of violence, and it makes it so that the tower shooter isn't so different from the people who monger and then prosecute war.

People are tortured into allegedly correct and socially acceptable behavior. Maybe I am repeating myself, but the reasons to appear to behave correctly are not love or rationality or any connection with what constitutes society. The reasons are death threats, fear of further torture, fear of loss. Every attempt to tighten up on human behavior makes this worse, by punishing safety valve behaviors and forcefully preventing any outlets for tension, whether it is sex (even virtual sex), the gentler forms of recreational drugs, or eventually, anything at all. This makes a person willing and eager to go out and kill gooks.

Quantum Quack, consider this thought: Schizophrenic or not, there is a very rational reason for the occasional explosions of anger that can cause a lot of violence, and it makes it so that the tower shooter isn't so different from the people who monger and then prosecute war.

People are tortured into allegedly correct and socially acceptable behavior. Maybe I am repeating myself, but the reasons to appear to behave correctly are not love or rationality or any connection with what constitutes society. The reasons are death threats, fear of further torture, fear of loss. Every attempt to tighten up on human behavior makes this worse, by punishing safety valve behaviors and forcefully preventing any outlets for tension, whether it is sex (even virtual sex), the gentler forms of recreational drugs, or eventually, anything at all. This makes a person willing and eager to go out and kill gooks.
Firstly MetaKron, please accept if you may that any comment made here by me or any one else is never the final word or the "Truth" so to speak. The comments made are not a thesis that hopes to be published as a "final solution".
I agree and I also disagree with your post.

In some ways it is true that ALL human behaviour can be rationalised in some way. This does not necessarilly lead to a truth but more a convenience to asuage our fears of not knowing and our fears of irrationality. [ fear of insanity]
If I subscribe to your thesis then of course what you say makes perfect sense.

Secondly,
What is most prevalent in sensitive persons is a sense of personal injustice. In a person whose sensitivities are made extreme by abuse or in persons that are born inherantly sensitive to abuse, these manifest in certain behaviours that are primarilly defensive in nature. In extreme cases offensive behaviour is evident as a defensive measure. Strike first as a way of defending oneself from percieved injustices.

In persons I have had experience with and I might add this runs into many hundreds of interviews and discussions, all persons that are suffering severe mental trauma have in common the need to assert their rights as human and demand justice for their complaints.

So the sense of self determination and freewill is acute, in fact so acute that behaviour reflects this actute awareness of freewill oppression.

When someone is raised as a child in abusive situations such as those described by yourself it is to be expected that your sensitivities concerning abuse be heightened and enhanced. It is when this amplification of focus on a sense of injustice causes societal dysfunction and physical problems that the person is exhibiting behavioural issues and inhibiting the assistance that others may be abe to offer. So defensive are they that not one can help.

I think most people know damn well that it is a hard lesson of life to learn just how aggressive and manipulative society is and can be towards it's members and there is no doubt that most people adapt their behaviours accordingly. This is a fact of life.
Ask any attractive young woman about how fear of abuse tempers her behaviour in public and even private situations and she will tell you something that most people don't normally talk about. With men it is the same thing but the defensinve behaviours anre possibly more subtle yet probably more strenuously applied as men know damn well just how nasty other men can be. [ they only have to look at their own tendancies to see that]

So suffice to say that living in a community of strangers is an exercise in fear. Most people cope quite well, and can manage to hide most of their discomfort and defensive inhibitions. Others however have greater difficulty coping with this aspect of living in a community.

Mental illness is so often defined purely on the basis of societal function. Thus mental illness is most often defined arbitarilly by that society. Insanity is a floating concept. What is sane for one society is insane for another and so on.

It is also true that if you want to create someone to be sensitive to abuse you would simply abuse them until they are.

This sensitivity to abuse can actually become beneficial if the victim can find a way of utilising that sensistivity in a way that benefits himself. Notice I state "himself" and not others.
Unfortnately victims of abuse who are sensitive to abuse can lose themselves in fighting someone elses battles to the extreme of also losing not only their ability to function in that tough society but phyical health wise as well. Stress being the main contributor.

So yes I agree that there can be a way of rationalising All human behaviour but to achieve balance in this rationalisation a global perpsective is advisable. Other wise we lose sight of the fact that people can be just as abusive as they can be friendly.
If we focus too much on the sad fact about society we are unable to see the positive aspects of society, where abuse exists but is coped with better.
It is only when you can cope that you can actually make a difference beyond words and yelling.

If you want to change society there are methods for doing so and this takes real action and not just talk and anger.

It takes real "balls" to get out there and actually make a difference.

Back onto the topic......

Schizophrenia is not about insanity. It is about coping with what is percieved as insane.
Schizpophrenia is about extremes and over reactions, it's about losing context and most importantly perspective.
It's about tunnel vision and extreme focus.
It's about confusion and severe mental fatigue creating a break down in cognitive disciplines.

It is about not coping with the daily pressures of everyday life.
It's about hypersensitivity and ignorance of that hypersensitivity.
Mostly it's about balance......

A few weeks ago I was sitting having a coffee in a shopping center cafe.
A guy dressed only in pajammas, and obviously very ill went from table to table attempting to engage persons in discussion. He was univited but failed to see how this meant anything. Peoples reactions were to fall silent in their discussions and just sit there all awkward like waiting for the guy to get tired and move onto the next table. I could see that he was heading for a loud group of aggressive and potentialy violent youths. So, I called security.
he showed no signs of violence, and absolutely no sign of empathy or self awareness of his pedicament. However he was about to become the victim of abuse and possibly assault by youths who also had no empathy for his pedicament.
After about 20 minutes security arrived and guided him slowly out of the Plaza. Where upon 4 police were waiting for him and slowly he was manipulated into the police divi van. Manipulated because he was beyond being able to be rationalised with, so he was manipulated or negotiated into the police vehicle.
Now obviously he was confused and obviously he had no empathy or awareness of how others saw him. He had escaped form a local psych ward.

No violence was suggested but had to be considered as possible.
The security guards when asked stated that this type of event happens frequently, as the Plaza seems to attract this sort of patronage.


Was this mans condition caused by some extreme abuse in his childhood?
Possibly.... but even so it is more likely because he couldn't cope with his own confusion.

Actually MetaKron, yo asked me about my brother as to whether he was abused as child.
Funnilly enough abuse in the form of constant discpline beatings were more prevalent for his older brothers than for him.
In fact it was the lack of discpline given by my parents to my youngest brother that could be described as abuse.

QQ, there is a huge difference between real discipline and punishment under the guise of discipline. I think you're going to find that the brothers who received the beatings also, almost coincidentally, knew where they were coming from and where they were going. They had goals and some kind of appropriate help to achieve those goals. The one who was not disciplined so severely was without real support or structure. If he was the youngest he might have been a scapegoat or something happened that changed the way the parents worked with their children. I don't really like dissecting something that has to be uncomfortable for you.

I am not that kind of case. If you give me gas and food money and tell me to drive a vehicle from here to anywhere in the U.S., the odds are extremely good that I will drive that vehicle from here to there without a scratch and within a reasonable time. Trust me, I know. I am very good at preventing automobile accidents from occurring. I behave appropriately in public. I do show some absent-mindedness, but people seem to find it charming rather than annoying, thank God. At worst I may stumble over some words.

Mental confusion can become worse and worse with abuse, and there is a limit to how much a person can reasonably be expected to cope with. I have gone to unreasonable lengths myself to try to cope with. The attempts to stay with the job have damaged me. The abuse is part of it. Being trapped is what drives the victim insane. At the last job I had several of my coworkers behaved in ways that violated company rules and their own alleged rules of conduct. Which one is insane, the one who tries to do his job correctly and stay on the job, or others who do perverse things to try to damage him and prevent him from doing his job? "We're not insane. We're just acting like this to get rid of that faggot."

i along with oters call the situation we are in in this cultural mindset--straightjacket.....in that precisely because of tis disembodied 'objective' scientific eye zoomin in on any movement etc it considers 'weird' or whatever--usuallywhen lookin at poor people, or pople that may look different or be sensitive, etc

Further the mindest's institutional set-up can be te perfect stage for the potential or abuse of scapegaots. for people are literally forced to have to go to building--schools, jobs, etc whee they feel they HAVE to be.....I fact thre ismuch pressuree or them to have to be there. for kids it is fear their parents may be jailed if they dont go to school (UK).....and for many people, if rthey dont go to the jobs it measthey will be prsecuated by the State--loss of money, poverty, or the stigma of the'mental illness' label

meanwhile....peple who dont -conveniently- SEE tis stage, will blame the victims of it, and also justify te set-up as being the 'real world''...one that EVERYone MUS fit into if they want to survive...'cause thts how lif is'

NO. that is what you are choosin to acceptis what life is through conformity to it

What's driving me crazy is the mass hysterias. By any truly scientific analysis, the CFC situation is a mass hysteria. The drug war is. Bird Flu, BS E, and the hoof and mouth disaster either have been proven to be or will prove to be simply scams to ruin framers and help strip the Earth of its non-human inhabitants. AIDS science is so bad as to be totally farcical. They are mass hysterias, Chicken Little scams, lies told to further the agendas of social control, big business, intolerance of all kinds, just plain cruelty, stupidity, and the total destruction of the quality of life on Earth. Call me crazy, as some of you will, but I feel this when it goes on. I would think that anyone with half a brain and half the normal capacity for empathy would feel exactly what was going on. Knowing that your world is being driven down the shitter by everyone who you should be able to trust and work with, and I do mean my world, not just my little house and my little life, is enough to drive any sane being off his nut. It truly is as if, even if I were very wealthy, someone is disassembling my world and flushing it down the toilet piece by piece. There are all these little pea-brains who are so stupid and so arrogant, and when they find something that is truly good, they kill it.