Everyday Pathology

By Patricia Lefave, self diagnosed' Monophrenic

next stop: Talking At My Psychiatrists

I would like you to try something.

Pay attention to the ideas and topics of the psychiatrized just as if you were hearing them for the first time, but which you currently think of as 'symptoms' of pathology.

Write them down as you hear them but at face value and with no psychiatric 'spin' placed on them.

Separately then, include below each one the psychiatric 'spin' you have been taught to put on what you are hearing as part of your diagnosing.

When you have written it down, keep it on your person as if it were a list of reference notes...ideas of reference you might say.

Now when you go to lunches or conferences or social gatherings with colleagues, or friends, or family members, I want you to look at the SAME ideas and topics on the list, as has been expressed by those you define as 'mad,' (such as myself) and keeping that in mind, listen to what comes out of the mouths of the non- psychiatrized.

Can you hear them OK?

What sort of response will you give to your colleagues, family members and friends when you hear that?

Also do you ever actually hear university students talking amongst themselves about other university students or their teachers? Some of it is pretty bizarre. I wonder if you heard a mental patient say exactly the same kind of things if that would result in an A.C.T. Team member checking up on them?

Will you help everyone who says the same things with their mental illnesses or will you find a way to spin it so that it won't be the same thing? Where is the line drawn exactly?

I am going to repeat myself here again: This is not really about 'what.' It is about 'who.' When you get right down to it , it is not really about 'who' either, except as about the 'who' as defined by 'others', most often from a 'hidden' place, which allows those 'others', including 'others' like you, to treat the one being assessed by the groups as an object.

That is a major part of the delusion of the “objective observer.”

The objective observer----is NOT.

S/he only 'thinks' s/he is.