How Dysfunctional Groups/Cults Think and the Love of Denial

By Patricia Lefave,
Previously published in another version under the pen name, Krystal Klarity

The group denial of dysfunction is vital to the maintenance of dysfunction.

Now let’s move to my own experience of this.
It has been really hard to accept the total silence about all the community acting out which is still going on after 15 years of being the target of denied abuse (as of 2008) and which is still done by people who want to continue to believe their acting out all day is still somehow ‘hidden’ from me. It maintains the surreal type aura but not at the extreme level it once did, because I am no longer either shocked or confused by it. I have accepted the group delusion now fully and completely, so it no longer is so fear inducing. My problems with these people now are strictly concrete.

How do all these pillars of the community justify their silence towards me? How do they rationalize it for themselves? When they know, that I know, that they know, I know, (deep breath) how do they manage to keep up all the plastic smiling as if they did not know? Worse than that, how do they manage to keep those phony smiles plastered on their faces when they see me? Many of them still try to say 'hi’ to me even after knowing that I know what they did, and even after knowing that it has cost me so much and it is still going and that they are STILL mouthing off about it almost daily. What do they tell themselves that makes this group behaviour acceptable to them? How far do you have to reach to try to justify the shifting of blame and the shifting of responsibility?

Well I think I know a lot more about it than I did before it happened to me and I also think it is important to talk about this in a very open and straightforward way, even though I know I could still very well be ‘medicated’ for saying it. We have to keep saying it. I do believe the world’s well being is going to depend upon breaking this collective dysfunctional group trance. This is a group problem, a problem for sociology much more than personal psychology and there is no doubt about that to me at all.

“Schizophrenia” is a contrived term created long ago, and used to explain away the results of group madness. It is sometimes also used to describe psychosis or just ideas that an individual has which others don’t like, especially if there is any ‘blaming’ of others involved. It is also used to deny abuse by reframing the complaints of a victim as ‘disease’ process within the victim and without relevance to external reality. Now when I use the term ‘madness,’ I use it in the metaphorical sense and not in the bio medical sense, which is a usage that is way off centre in my opinion. My opinion is based on some deliberate research, but more on my own personal experience of the dysfunctional system as it relates to both my own case, and that of other psychiatrized people, as well as the system’s own bizarre beliefs. Often the labeled person is the least mad member of the group; at least until the point is reached where he or she is broken under constant pressure. After that, it all becomes the self fulfilling prophecy as pre defined by the expectations which are mapped out in the DSM. By then of course, if the identified patient has realized the truth, it is already too late, for this diagnosis really comes from the accurate prediction of an outcome of a group dysfunctional event. Of course it is not recognized as such but is seen instead as all neatly contained within the identified patient. That way everyone else in the group gets to be perceived together as the ‘sane’ ones.

A big part of the maintenance of the group delusion is the group denial of that delusion. If you pay attention to all of this you will notice how frequently every attempt to state the truth is instantly pathologized or automatically invalidated in order to make the group right and ‘superior.’ “Superior’ is also a big part of this. Usually there is one person who starts this with another one who is unaware of a hidden agenda of domination. If that was as far as it went, it would not be such a problem but it is the involvement of a group of people that turns a disagreement or dispute between an original pair into a ‘madness’ in one of the pair. One is destined to break down under enormous pressure applied by the whole group.I can’t help but still wonder why adults have to deny the reality of life that is played out all around them all day. What is the majority so afraid of that they can’t just tell it like it is. I mean even the simplest things get ‘interpreted’ to mean something other than what they obviously do. Much of it is done simply because that is the way dysfunction works; by long entrenched habit.

Stimulus-response machines as I like to call the extremely dysfunctional. The more dysfunctional they are, the more they have to get everyone around them to go along with the ruse or they get really angry with those who don’t, or who won’t, even question that.

Dysfunctional people love ‘the veil.’ They love to hide behind the veil (A personality construct) and the greater the dysfunction the more important the veil becomes. We are all affected by this to some extent. I think it is just that the psychiatrized often tend to be those who did not swallow the lies as ‘well’ as the rest, so we struggle with what we see and hear which the rest claim they do not see or even is not there. We look at them puzzled by their denial and they see in our puzzlement a symptom, in us but never in them. It’s about judgments. It is about whether or not someone decides or even admits there is really something to be confused about. If they don’t’ see it, or admit to it, even though it is obvious to us, then WE get to be presumed ‘mad’ for ‘seeing something that is not there’ so those who deny it won’t be mad for NOT seeing it. I suspect that more often then not the wrong people are getting to be presumed mad and that this diagnosis is based on group consensus as to the nature of anyone’s reality. Evidence rarely seems to enter into the diagnostic proceedings.

I often think now that psychiatrists are often like another species altogether, with only very rare exceptions. I can’t help but wonder where they have been living that they don’t know the most obvious truths of everyday life. It seems impossible for this to be so, yet there it is, repeated over and over again in such a bizarre way that we often think they either MUST be kidding or else they must be trying to drive us mad on purpose for who could live on this planet more than ten years or so and manage to remain so strangely naive abut how so many people have to live? Can it be wishful thinking on their parts? Let’s look at parts of this article below.

I cite this one as it is pretty straightforward and even includes some of my own experience. It is not unusual for these things to happen and we know it is not, as there are real police reports on it all over the world and yet, they manage to dismiss it all as ‘delusions’ and will go to extraordinary lengths to deny the evidence an manipulate it all to MEAN something else; preferably something that blames the victim instead of the aggressor. This ‘switch’ in identities is what is keeping this blaming the victim and excusing the guilty paradox going. I can’t help but wonder who started this one in the fist place and managed to do so in such a way that it seemed logical to the MAJORITY? Maybe if I do a commentary on a real article from the news, and do it with enough pedantic detail, something will cause someone, somewhere, to snap out of the group induced trance and get real. I am going to keep trying at any rate as I must. No doubt that too, will be psychiatrized by those who must deny it all to justify themselves.
The title of the news article is: "Extreme" victimisation of people with mental health problems

And the full article beyond the excerpts addressed here is available at the link in the title above. It starts, “Most people with mental health problems have suffered theft, been attacked, harassed, sexually assaulted or raped by people in their own community, according to a new report.”

I have been robbed myself post psychiatrization. I have also been frequently lied to, harassed, called names, threatened with death, with beatings and with rape (‘so she will know what sex is like,” if you can imagine anyone equating rape with sex) by men I do not even know. I have been openly scorned and ridiculed by old women. I have been called names by teenaged girls and laughed at by fellow workers as well as called stupid and crazy in public by employees of the psych hospital.

“Mind, (in the UK) the charity which published today's report, said it exposes the "extreme" harassment and victimization committed by people towards neighbours who have diagnoses such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”

What gets me about all of this stuff is the denial of scapegoats. Psychiatry DENIES this exists and therefore denies the complaints we make of being used as scapegoats for a sick society.Its chief executive Paul Farmer said: "People with mental distress feel unsafe in their own communities, unsafe in their own homes and have even come to expect harassment as part of living with mental distress."

I have told psychiatrists and other that I have never felt LESS safe in my life than I have since this psychiatric hospital staff decided they were going to ‘help’ me and meant mostly ‘help me’ cover up what they did to me themselves. It is this covering up that allows society at large to jump into the event with all of its opinions and judgments at the ready and participate, making it a make it a mob scene disguised as ‘help’ with lovely manners. (As long as no one is looking that is)

“Mind surveyed 400 people with mental health problems and victim support workers. It found 71 per cent of people with mental health problems had been victimized in the last two years.”

That does not surprise me. When I have not been harassed myself, I have often watched other psychiatrized people having similar things done to them. It is treated like ‘entertainment ‘or ‘fun.’ The ‘funsters’ are always smiling, their eyes glowing brightly with amusement (or the lights of hell depending upon your point of view) as they stress someone targeted by them to the point of breaking. Breaking us is ‘fun’ to some. Psychosis (someone else’s of course) is a real kick to them. It is like the hangings and beheadings of old (and that still exist in some places today) when treated like sporting events. It is something very dark in the human psyche that allows presumably ‘normal’ people to smile with delight at someone else’s extreme suffering and psychiatry has to deny all of this a real. That is the most surreal part of all. We tell them what happens and sometimes they even appear to accept the reality of it yet they can make no connection between what we are saying and the fact they are calling it a perception problem in us because they have been trained to do that. Don’t they ever wonder about themselves? Don’t they ever say, Hey…wait a minute here…this is just what the patients tell us happens and there it is happening? Why are we all denying it? What’s going on with all of us? How did we get so blind to the perfectly obvious?

“The survey also found 22 per cent were physically assaulted and 41 per cent suffered ongoing bullying. Nearly 90 per cent of respondents living in council housing had been victimised.”

Bullying those considered to be ‘less than’ is extremely common; even more so if the individual is psychiatrized since it is more likely the bully will get away with it. Who is going to believe the nut after all? “Council housing” equates to our Housing Authority in Canada. Let me tell you a little story about someone in our own Housing buildings.She was constantly harassed by her fellow tenants for the ‘fun’ of it. I often heard them talking about harassing her for ‘fun’ when they were on the buses and talking about how upset she got with them for it. (har har).

I want you to keep in mind that those of us who have been labeled have often already been put through some trauma or abuse that was not believed and many of us have really had mental breakdowns because of it, so many of us are in pretty rough shape because of it and the last thing we need is more abuse or stress. Yet that is exactly what we get.

In any case, she told her psychiatrist, ‘the ten minute wonder’ about the trouble she was having where she was living. Naturally, he humored her but secretly of course, he just knew that this was nothing more than an attention getting device on her part. So he decided what she needed was more ‘treatment.'
(Obviously those drugs weren’t working if she still ‘thought’ she was being harassed by her neighbours who all claimed to housing they knew nothing about it all. Would her neighbours in Housing, (many of who were psychiatrized drunks and addicts still using while on their pensions) lie about anything? Why would they? It wouldn’t be reasonable would it? So that became her perception reaction problem too. (har har har)
Those funsters sure managed to fool her didn’t they?
(No. they didn’t, but they DID manage to fool housing and the psychiatrists)
The other thing she complained about was that they were watching her all the time on their TV'S so they could come out of their apartments and harass her as she went in and out.
(Can’t you just hear the ‘symptoms’ in that?) She even explained to the Ten Minute Wonder that there building had a TV channel set up so they could watch the entrance doors. (This is true. I have personally worked for several clients in these buildings and I believe there are at least three of them to which this applies. There is a camera installed at the entrances and they can turn on a specified channel and watch the door. Some of the tenants have the front door channel on all day and watch everyone coming and going as if it were a TV show in itself. Many of them have told me that directly. Then they speculate with each other about who is who, and where they are going, and many of them pop their nosy intrusive heads out the doors to see for themselves so they won’t miss anything. Later, they go and have a group gossip session about other people’s business. It is referred to as ‘socializing.’
Of course, life lived like this is all a complete mystery to psychiatry because THEY don’t have to live this way so it all seems pretty fantastic to them.

In this case, ‘the Ten Minute Wonder’ decided no such thing could occur so this complaint became yet another of her supposed ‘symptoms’ and she was sent to another hospital for more ‘help’ with her ‘delusional beliefs’ that she was being harassed by her neighbours. When she returned she was so drugged and brainwashed she had lost all signs of her former personality. She had become the automaton of psychiatry’s’ preference. They told her she was ‘all better now’ and she delivered that message in a monotone, like a good compliant patient, and with her face barely moving. I thought as I heard her, ‘At last she has internalized the psychiatric agenda. They will be pleased no doubt.’
I have not seen her since that day and that was about a year ago from the time I wrote this. At one time I saw her every day. I expect that one day before long I will hear somewhere that she has died; so many of us do after we suddenly ‘disappear’ from every day life. The last I heard she was in a group home setting where she is considered to be ‘cured’ from her delusional beliefs about her taunting, harassing former neighbours.

Do the people involved connect their own behaviour to her treatment? Not likely. But that is what it is all about. But it is full of ‘secrets’ all being kept from the various factions involved so rarely does the complete picture of the event get seen by anyone. I am sure they are sorry she is now in such bad shape that they have lost their object of ‘fun.’ They need to be ashamed but they aren’t because psychiatry allows them to continue to fool themselves most successfully and they do so by giving the truth a alternate meaning. Blaming their victim allows them to keep the group delusion going. Keeping the group delusion going allows them to keep acting out their own character flaws and claim those flaws belong to the ‘other.’

Common complaints included being pestered, chased, and having items thrown at them. Others were spat at, received prank calls and hate mail. Some received death threats.

With the exception of the spitting and the items thrown I have had all the rest and some others as well. I was not taken seriously by ‘authority.’

The report, entitled “Another Assault”, also claimed police “harden” their attitude and have a “loss of sympathy” to victims of crime after they disclose a psychiatric diagnosis.

Or sometimes they just smirk and laugh and pass along all the latest complaints to their buddies and family members as more entertainment.

Six of ten victims said the authorities, particularly the police and crown prosecution lawyers, did not take them seriously, the report states. Mind says that with so many service users “being brushed aside” when trying to report harassment, police officers may not identify a case as disability hate crime. Mr. Farmer said: "Time and again we hear stories of people with mental health problems being discriminated against, but what we have uncovered here is evidence of bullying, harassment and victimisation on an alarming scale."In an added blow, people with mental health problems are having to fight for justice when crimes are committed against them, as all too often, criminal justice agencies simply don't believe them."

We who have been psychiatrized have always known this. It is only amazing to those who cannot see because it has not yet been done to them.

“Of course those with obvious mental health problems are victimised more commonly than "normal" members of the public. They are identified as weak and vulnerable and are therefore targets of those who enjoy tormenting vulnerable people.”

Why doesn’t it occur to anyone (or to very few anyway) that this behaviour of others can be the CAUSE of the psychiatrized person’s ‘mental illness’ in the first place? People enjoy tormenting vulnerable people and sometimes (not always or never) the ‘people enjoying they tormenting’ are members of the victims own family. Where did you think such ‘people’ come from? Mars?

“The issue is that society as a whole shuns these people and their problems are perceived as less important than those of others.

Take a guess as to why that might be? Go ahead. Guess. For many, their problems were ALWAYS seen as less important than the problems of those around them.

Dysfunctional groups deny the dysfunction because doing so allows it to continue. Those who enjoy tormenting others don’t want anyone ruining all their ‘fun.’ At least that is what one of my own tormentors once announced in my presence and he should know; he was one of the local bullies who knew who I was from being pointed out by one of his relatives who works at the local psychiatric hospital and was involved in all the ‘fun’ there with me as the target.