There has been some talk around the "mental health" community over what those of us who have been diagnosed with a mental illness should call ourselves since every label we've ever been designated with has come from someone outside our community.
Currently we are labeled as "consumers".
I detest this label.
I think it comes from an overly capitalistic society where the corrupt pharmaceutical companies view us as a marketing demographic with their prime interest being to make money off us rather than finding a cure that would make their services no longer necessary.
The bastards.
Anyways I have a suggestion for what "we" should call ourselves.
Crazy.
Yes. You heard me. Crazy.
But only we who have been diagnosed with a mental illness can use that word.
It's like what the african-american community did with the "n" word.
They reclaimed it from the white man and made it their own.
That's what mentally ill people should do with the word "crazy".
The other day I got in a dispute with my brother over whether or not an event happened the way he said it did or whether it happened the way I was arguing it did.
His exact words were "interesting how you can't face reality so much that you've turned your reality into delusion".
He will never no how this made me feel.
He knew what he was doing.
He's my brother. He knew what button he was pushing.
I said, "sure. Call the mentally ill guy delusional"
How easy.
My viewpoint no longer becomes valid because I've been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder.
In a court of law his opinion would be held in higher esteem than mine and if I testified the lawyer could always argue to the jury that I have a documented history of being delusional and everything I said would be thrown out of consideration in the case.
If I had called my brother "delusional" it would not have carried the same weight as him calling me it even though I think in this case he is the one with the delusion and not me.
By invoking that word he has psychiatry on his side and my history working against me and when arguing his case to others he can frame my position in his favor simply by saying, "oh, and by the way, he hasschizophrenia, and anyways, like I was saying, he thinks...".
There's this internalized stigma a mentally ill person can experience which makes them feel like their viewpoint is less valid than those who have not been diagnosed with a mental illness.
But this is all moot because people who have been diagnosed as being psychotic at one point or another in their lives can and do recover so they should also gain back their dignity in their recovery along with their trustworthiness.
I believe mentally ill people lose touch with their intuition -that fountain of inner truth and knowledge within- while psychotic and a part of recovery is getting back in touch with this part of ourselves.
If we are stigmatized to the point that we feel our perception of reality is forever called into question and seen as less valid than those who have not enjoyed a stay in their local psych hospital then we begin to rely on others for our interpretation of reality and not ourselves.
If you ask me this makes you crazier and you will never leave a delusional state unless you get back in touch with that part of yourself that can discern the truth for yourself.
And if you ask me again I would say that most everyone is delusional it's just more obvious with mentally ill people because their delusions are often so bizarre and not something you hear repeated daily on the television and radio.
We look back at what people believed a few hundred years ago and even sometimes just a few years ago and laugh at the people back then for having believed what they did. We feel superior to them because we do not share their faulty disproven beliefs with a sense that we in our present time have advanced to a point where we are in the know.
Ha! They believed the world was flat!
Delusional.
Ha! They believed Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction!
How delusional they were back then.
But the Government and media outlets are more reliable today then they were then.
Right?
Yeah, right!
If you believe that your delusional.
I arrived at the conclusion the other day that my therapist is a crackpot who is more delusional than me.
Why do I say he's more delusional?
Because he doesn't think he's delusional.
I know I have delusions and I actively work on removing them from my brain.
Socrates said it best, "wisest is he who knows he doesn't know".
I don't trust anyone who puts forth the appearance of knowing everything there is to know about mental illness.
I think mental illness is the great mystery of our time but it's treated by so called "experts" in the field as an almost open and shut case.
Okay doctor I hear voices because I have too much of this stuff called dopamine in my brain.
Right.
Believe that and you're not delusional.
But if you believe it in 10 years you probably will be.
So, brother, it's easy to call me "delusional" when you dispute my perception of reality.
Too easy.
It dismisses the argument all together by marking my perceptions as less valid than yours because of my having been diagnosed with a mental illness in the past and saves you from having to come up with a factual argument for why you are right and I am wrong.
I would like to say your delusional but it wouldn't pack the same punch because you have never had the scarlet letter of being labeled as psychotic branded on your forehead so instead I will present my case through reasoned argument.
People have this way of overtaking other peoples minds with words.
Look at how people repeat a line of propaganda they heard some pundit on TV repeat all day to someone in a conversation about what they themselves think even though it's not something they originally thought up themselves.
They repeat what they heard repeated to other people who repeat it to other people who repeat what they heard repeated until an idea that originated in one person's head is in everyone's head.
It gets to where beliefs are seen as more valid the more there are people who believe them.
Something's true if a lot of people believe it and the less people believe something the less true it is.
Do you believe that?
I don't.
But I'm crazy.
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