By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)
‘Us’ is a word that means community and belonging. ‘Them,’ especially when discussed in 'their' presence, in the third person, means psychological exclusion, isolation and rejection. The idea that there IS a 'them' that actually exists, apart from the idea of ‘us,' is a powerful notion. The moment the idea is even suggested, something fundamental has changed. I think that those who like to consider themselves to belong to the superior ‘us’ in that case, (the ‘normal’ people) don’t really SEE that. I have said often to those who have been psychiatrized that we are giving the others far more credit for brains and awareness than they really have. Conversely, they are giving ‘us’ far less credit for brains and awareness than we really have.
This mutually delusional reversal lies at the heart of the ‘schizophrenic’ relationship. It is the relationship that is ‘schizophrenic’ not the individuals chosen to carry the madness of the whole group. Those who drew that line dissecting reality itself, become blind and deaf to the truth about them and the truth about us. Is it too subtle for them? You wouldn’t think it was subtle at all would you? I am afraid this is much more about the groupthink as shown in my own protagonist’s special training.
There is an unspoken benefit to that blindness. As shown, there is a group catharsis which takes place after an individual, who generally starts to question the beliefs of the authoritarian leader and his system is ‘chosen’ by the group as a whole to fulfill the role of one of ‘them.’ All the negative emotions, long suppressed in their own relationships because of refusing to, or being prevented from, admitting the truth about them, can now be safely and spontaneously dumped. If he or she who is the one dumped upon, reacts negatively to that group dump, the reactions to it will be instantly invalidated by the group.
Being on the receiving end of the group dump is a lot like having to swim in a cesspool of ridicule without letting the distress show on your face since all that would do would be to get yourself a little deeper swimming hole.
Why don’t the ‘normal’ notice the doublethink, doubletalk, double standard; the vague ambiguity of those who work so hard to avoid questioning anything or being faulted? Why do those who accuse us, of needing them to be ‘perfect,’ not understand that we are NOT the ones who need that? They are. They are the ones who can never admit they are wrong about anything. That is their attitude towards their own lives. It is not our attitude towards them. This is their own subjectively projected attitude.
If they feel anger, it is REAL anger, but if ‘we’ feel anger it is only bad brain chemistry, or feigned anger, for attention seeking purposes. But they cannot even imagine it is in direct relation to the way they obviously perceive us. So is there a ‘perception problem’ in this? Oh, you bet there is and it is a very big problem but I don’t think the point of origin is in ‘our’ defective little brains. Nevertheless, if we do dare to show the ‘negative’ emotions like anger, fear, or resentment, it will be judged to be ‘inappropriate’’ responses to nothing at all.
If the ‘normals’ were told they were not to react or complain about ridicule, or verbal abuse, or being harassed all the time in their daily lives, would they co-operate with it. Would they be ‘good’ compliant people, following the instructions of those who were telling them what they would be allowed to think, say, and do? Would they hold only the conversations they were told were acceptable and talk to only the people with whom they were told they were ‘allowed’ to talk? Would they object to that kind of control? Why do so many place such a high value on compliance? Who was on the judgement committee that decided that trait, as an abstraction, was good for some but not for others? Don’t psychiatrists and others yet understand the principle of enablement? They claim they do.
Why then do they keep supporting duplicity and boundary violating behaviour for some citizens, including themselves? Do they not know that aggressor and victim are the two dysfunctional opposites that desperately need to be separated not supported? For as long as the majority do not see the problem in the convoluted thinking, the ‘mentally ill’ will remain an absolute necessity to the ‘normal’ people’s way of life. We all have to be told that we DON’T see what we DO see, so the cathartic group release of pent up emotion, so normally covered with a practiced veneer of nice manners and politically correct ‘social skills,’ can continue for the masses in some way that is made to appear justified. For if society does not have that release, it’s members may be forced to face some very difficult truths, about who we all really are behind the plastic smiles.
For as long as we admire domination, power and control over others, we will need to create and reinforce the submissive role , by force if necessary, in order to show ourselves exactly who it is that we have bested, and against whom we have prevailed in the contest of life we apparently believe we have no choice but to enter. If ’we’ so designated for the assigned roles of ‘inferior’, resist, disagree, or react in distressed ways, the ‘normals’ can tell themselves ‘we’ do so because ‘we’ are inferior to them and that is what ‘inferiors’ DO. They will not see it as a perfectly predictable response to an obvious stimulus.
It is because they have bought into their own delusional belief that they are superior minds, with superior understanding, of both themselves and us, and that their view is purely ‘objective.’
This is why I have created a new blogspot called The Object Speaks. What could startle the objective observers more than hearing an object tell them about what it is that they are wrong? It is going to be very hard for all of us to penetrate the group delusion created by the Spin doctors. They have been well trained, and have trained others, NOT to hear a word we say.
Right now, I am reading a book written by a psychiatrist. He has changed his mind about the ‘disease’ bit but he still can’t fully hear either himself or ‘us.’ Mainly because he still hears in them and us mode. Nor does he seem to be aware of even the possibility that his interpretations of his patient’s’ questions, feelings, and confusions are as much, if not more, about him, as anything else. There is a definite tone of psychological deafness in what he writes, so when finished reading the book, I will write an answering essay to it for the ‘Box’ blog as if I were talking to him in person. If I were talking to him in person, I would never get to talk that much as we all know who have experienced the ‘help.’
While ‘they’ work so very hard to silence ‘us,’ they don’t seem to understand their own fear of what we REALLY think of them, or why. My overall impression is that like ANY dysfunctional group, they just don’t want to hear anything that will cause them to have to know that they are just the same as us, no more and no less. I think for many psychiatrists, and others in the mental illness field, their greatest unadmitted fear is about coming to terms with the fact that they have been incredibly pompous asses all along.
The feeling, the sense I have, in relation to most of them is that of being an object, not a person. I’ve had the same sense of that in other relationships with dysfunctional people who also don’t like to ever question themselves and their own motivations. Staying focused externally gets them off the hook and makes them feel better. They often claim that when ‘we’ doe what ‘they’ are clearly doing themselves, it’s a sign of our inferior status as human beings rather than what it really is; the same thing. When they see ‘us’ as their externalized problem, while claiming that when we do that it is ‘sick,’ why don’t they notice their own irony?
I have actually pointed out something like this to people in dysfunctional groups before, stating, ‘I know that I am just a prop to you in a relationship you are really having with yourself. I don’t even need to be in the room for you to use me in this way.’ With psychiatry of course, we are often FORCED into the room with them so that they can keep believing they are our saviours, whether we want them to fulfill their self-appointed role or not.
Since I am apparently destined to live the rest of my life defined as a "them,' a permanent object of observation, I decided to add another blog to my group as a daily expression of my observations and assessment of those who are still observing and assessing me.
It is called:
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