The Mystifying Aphorism of Current Popularity

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

There is this one aphorism which is repeated over and over again these days, often by politicians and mental illness professionals who have frequently been trained to use them by ‘human potential’ type organizations. It is this one:

“There is no reality; only perception.”

When it rolls off their tongues, few seem to question it or waste even a minute thinking about it.
Think about it.
Changing one’s ‘perception’ of being targeted for a group attack will not change the reality of being targeted for a group attack, if being targeted for a group attack is reality.
Every time I hear that ridiculous aphorism come out of the mouth of someone who presents him/herself as a leader of others, I wonder immediately about the intent and the understanding of the speaker. (Sometimes I don’t have to ‘wonder’ as it gets demonstrated for me quite quickly. Other times it is not so easy.) Still, I think of the following questions:

1. Is the speaker trying to deny reality?
2. Is he/she using magical thinking?
3. Does he really believe he can change concrete reality after it has occurred by changing his ‘perception’ of it?
4. Does he believe he can change it by changing other people’s ‘perception’ of it?
5. Is it his fear that makes him want to believe that?
6. Does thinking, “there is no reality’ make her feel more ‘secure’ or more confused since she can’t then nail it down? Is this a false senses of security?
7. Is he TRYING to confuse others or is he just oblivious to the confusion he is creating by doing what he does?
8. Is he using this type of abstract talk to manipulate others away from the truth in order to promote his own hidden agenda?

You see, I find aphorisms and platitudes like these to be very dark in content much of the time (not enlightening’ as they are often claimed to be) and also very mystifying, often intentionally so. What anything really means has to be directly connected to the concrete specific detail and experience which is required to give it a more precise meaning. Abstractions which stand alone mean NOTHING, because they can mean so MANY different things which always require ‘interpretation’ by someone who can or who believes he can, connect the dots and find meaning in the way he wants to find it. Anyone who hears a ‘stand alone’ abstraction can then project his or her own meaning into that abstraction. Nevertheless what it means to HIM is not going to be exactly the same as what it means to someone else hearing the same thing and DOING the same thing.

If the individual judging it assumes that his/her CONCRETE experience has a universal application, he or she is an idiot, a blind fool, or perhaps an accomplished con artist with a domination agenda which others do not recognize.
I go on special alert when I hear anyone speaking in aphorisms and platitudes almost all the time. When he or she does this, I suspect either an attempt to cover up something or else an attempt to run and hide from something, done either by the one speaking or perhaps by someone else. Which side of the line at the nexus of meaning the individual stands on is what remains to be discovered and then dealt with after that discovery.

My Own Case

By Patricia Lefave, Labeled, D.D.(P)

I don't kid myself that my own "case" is particularly unusual. I've been talking to labeled people for years now and I hear the same things from them, over and over again.

There are only two points about my own case that make it a bit different from that of most others. One difference is that I actually managed to find concrete proof that what I said was happening, which was judged as my paranoid delusions, was, in fact, true. It has made little difference though allow me to escape further "treatment" up to now.
The other difference is that I was not first psychically assaulted by one group (like family, co-workers etc.) and then disbelieved by psychiatry. I was psychologically assaulted by members of my workplace and then THE SAME PEOPLE denied the event, and proclaimed my complaints about THEM to be my paranoid delusions and hallucinated conversations. I was working in a psychiatric hospital as part of my job assignments with a health care agency. They kept calling me a "volunteer" despite several attempts by me to correct that perception. Perhaps, that is why they felt it was all right to force me out and cover up their own behaviour.

So, despite the fact that they KNEW what they caused, long before I broke down as a direct result of it, they chose to keep silent about their role in it , let it continue in public, and have even added to the damage to me for more than a decade since it all started.

When any of those involved, either directly or indirectly, see me now, they either ignore me or they put on that phony facade, pretending to innocence, often asking me in a tone usually reserved for use in telemarketing, "How are YOU doing"? This is done both by those who don't know I have told Homewood everything and also by those who KNOW that I know what they did!

Robert Whitaker and others are right about this. The hypocrisy which exists WITHIN the mental health system boggles the mind. A manufactured double standard of the definition of "mental illness" is alive and well, protected by those who are in control of the system itself.

The ''Subject''

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

The first ‘subject’ any psychology student should observe and assess is the one looking back at him/her from the mirror.A good heavy dose of introspection causes a large increase in both internal and external understanding of the human race.

The next ‘subject’ the psychology student needs to therapize is one from his/her own student group. This will allow exploration of some interesting new material on the I/thou relationship.

The third ‘subject’ the psychology student needs to observe and assess is their own peer group as a whole. This will enable the individual members of this group to observe and assess the group dynamics and to determine how it is that ‘reality’ tends to materialize according to the beliefs and understanding (or lack of it) according to the group as a whole.

The next subject the psychology student needs to observe and assess is him/herself when she tries to disagree with a group consensus and to see, hear and feel what happens to him or her as a result. It is also important at this point to observe and assess the group as a whole in order to determine the elements which begin to affect a group when its beliefs are challenged by any individual. The student should be able to extrapolate from this point, the variables that go into the creation and growth of the mob mentality.

When the psychology student can easily assess his/her own perception/reaction problems, those of the closest friend/peer as an individual, and also those of the group as a whole, then and ONLY then should such a student be permitted to talk WITH, not ‘at’ or ‘about,’ anyone who is in a state of psycho- spiritual/emotional distress. The LAST thing someone in such a state needs is more ignorance, mocking, ridicule, humouring or condescension. All too often, that is the reason we have landed in such a institution in the first place. Please don't use 'us' to act out YOUR frustrations with the people in your OWN lives who can never be 'blamed' for anything either. We are people, just like you; not 'objects' of observation.

Anyone, graduate or not, who still believes ‘them’ and ‘us’ is anything other than a firmly entrenched dysfunctional illusion should be considering looking for another career choice. Such people are more suited to work ON abstract ideas or things than WITH living breathing human beings. Auto mechanics and plumbers make very good money and neither one requires you to take an oath to do no harm above all else.

If you see ‘harm’ in what you do and ignore it, deny it or worse still, support and enable it, after taking the Hippocratic Oath, then that makes you a Hypocrite according to your own definition. Better you should move on and away from all of us ‘subjects,’ than to add to our overload of chaos and confusion while calling it ‘help.’

Turning It Back Around

In The Right Direction:

I believe the act of writing our truth will ultimately prevail over the power of those who are A.C.T.ing out their desire for unquestioned power and control over others.

It's just that the non-violent way takes so damned long, doesn't it? Still we MUST do it that way or we play into the hands of those who define us the way they do. Use your talents, especially with all those "writing behaviours" from which we are all proclaimed to 'suffer.'

Our Own Choir: Singing To Our Own Tune

I think we nuts should create a list of ''crazy'' songs with ''hidden meaning'' and perhaps keep the list with Mindfreedom International, Massachusetts Freedom Center and, any other groups in the world concerned with radically changing, or abolishing, the mental illness system.

All survivour groups could use the list all over the world for public performances. Can't you just hear the applause from the ''normals'' as they tell each other how ''amazing'' and exceptional we are to be singing about our own troubles? We could call ourselves: The Voices.

Has a nice sound to it don't you think?

I think we also need to get into the stand up circuit as comedians. Comedy is a powerful force for change, for creating awareness, and a pretty nifty vehicle for the non violent expression of legitimate anger too.

We must all get involved in turning this around and de-mystifying the whole ''mad'' myth. As an exercise in awareness, let's all try turning the judgements of 'illness' around one hundred and eighty degrees and see how it feels to be the person on the other side of it. It is the lack of genuine FEELING that is keeping everything static in many ways. So, those of you who are not psychiatrized, talk about being confused for any reason as if you were psychiatrized and imaoine what it would be like to have everything you say heard as a symptom of your defective brain.

Those of you who have been psychiatrized talk about your 'confusion' as if it was going to be accepted as the perfectly normal emotional reaction to circumstances that it usually is; just as it gets accepted when those who are NOT psychiatrized express the same emotion and are considered to be perfectly normal.

Then we can compare the two new views of the SAME emotion from our NEW opposite points of view. Doesn't this sound like fun?

A Common Trigger

By Krystal Klarity

One of the most common triggers for a ‘schizophrenic’ reaction is this psychological premise which is actually a mutual delusional reversal:
1. The individual in the relationship with LESS awareness, projects that onto the other,
and
2. The individual with the greater awareness projects that onto the other as well. Two delusional beliefs, projected in opposite directions, at the same time.

Both parties fail to understand what is really going on in both self and other, as both parties are making their judgments based on false premises; opposing false premises.I took on the role of the second one in my own breakdown which was based on previous relationships with others in very similar circumstances. I was aware of the similarity and the familiarity of it all, even though there were a couple of points I had yet to understand about this relationship dynamic. Though my own protagonist(s) still believes he understands more, when in fact, he (they) understand less, I am no longer confused by what is going on in his head, or in the heads of the others he has involved. ( huge group) since I am no longer projecting my own level of understanding onto him or the rest of them.

For complete essay click on link in Title

Who Exactly is it Who is Being ‘Fooled’?

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D. (P)

I once asked my own protagonist and his group of supporters and enablers this very question:
“Since I know what you’re doing and you know what you’re doing, who exactly is it that is being ‘fooled’ here?”

I was looking for a logical answer from them all for an illogical act, based on illogical thought and action. “Logic” has nothing to do with this. Dysfunctional programmed relating has a whole lot to do with it though. It was probably the most difficult point I have ever had to try to bend my own mind around. In fact, resolving the chaos and confusion in myself DEPENDED upon my being able to do it and to be able to do it, I had to fist be able to see it. If that description sounds impossible, imagine the act of doing it! It was tremendously difficult, made more so by the insistence of everyone around me that I ACCEPT their interpretation of both the event (which none of them could even see) and MYSELF, on THEIR terms. The pressure applied to me to get me to ‘look away’’ from the truth the others could not, or would not, see, was unrelenting and another problem ADDED to what I was already experiencing.

I now know however, WHO it is who is being fooled, and also how, and why. Since these questions no longer need to be answered in my case, I am no longer confused by the thinking and behaviour of the others involved.

Once I knew that and just got away from them physically, for enough time every day, I re-integrated and got myself back. So the answer to the question is: Those who are being fooled in their attempt to fool me, (assigned the role of their ‘inferior’) are the people who are attempting to do the fooling. Zen-like isn’t it? It’s like negative Zen instead of positive Zen. Like an infinite loop of the dark side or ‘Shadow.’ That’s the answer.
It starts with a protagonist whose goal is really to fool himself into believing he is superior to all other and that his targeted victim won’t understand anything about him, even though a great deal of what he says and does is perfectly obvious. He does not know that, and does not WANT to know that, no mater how obvious it all is to me. After this starting point, everything he says and does AFTER that is a combination of self appointed tasks used in an attempt to prove to himself how smart he is which he does by means of deceit or by trying to cover his own tracks after dong the deceiving. Basically, he is only in a relationship with his own deluded mind. I am just a prop in his mental movie.

The others he involves are deceived by him too but he does a better job of deceiving them than he does with me. I did not understand that either until I figured out what was going on with him. They, however, also believe they are my ‘superiors’ in this and that THEY understand what is going on between me and my protagonist far BETTER than I do. They don’t. That is their ‘delusional’ belief. I understand it far better that they do and have even said so, but they don’t want to believe that so they decided to be offended by it instead.

All of them re-invent my reality and the reality of the situation as a whole, in their own terms, including who they need ME to be, and what they need me to know or NOT know. To this end, the ‘interpret’ everything I say as though I were speaking a foreign language, and they do this in a way that allows them to make it fit in with their own erroneous beliefs so they can keep themselves fooled and believing they are right. They split cause and effect as though they had no relation to each other at all. They don’t want to believe that what they are doing is the cause of anything and that it is having a very specific and frequently very predictable effect on me and my life. So they deny that I have any awareness of them and their motivations and behaviour. They then ‘observe the effects of their own behaviour in me, ‘as though’ it had nothing at all to do with them, and was taking place in a relationship vacuum. They see the effects of what they do as totally contained within me, without any relationship to them at all.
Since that is the case, in THEIR minds, they then look for some OTHER cause for the effect on me, preferably something originating in me so that their will be no risk to their own deluded state which they define for themselves as ‘normal.’
It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that for as long as this problem is denied, as what it is, and then redefined as what it isn’t, it is not ever going to be resolved. It’s quite impossible to resolve any problem that does not get acknowledged as existing.

Let me give you a very specific example so I can show you what I mean.
Scenario:
A man doesn’t think his wife is living up to his expectations as a party host which is something he wants her to do every Saturday night and she does not want to do it.
As she continues to resist this desire of his, he feels frustrated with her and begins to tell her he thinks she just may have a personality disorder. (There is so much psychiatrized jargon out there that the public in general has begun to talk in those terms very frequently) The husband has a goal. He wants a party every Saturday night and he wants his wife to cook for it and to act like she wants to do it too. He tries to enlist the aid of many his potential guests by getting them to pressure her into it. He also suggests, mildly at first, and ‘covertly’ that he is ‘afraid’ there may be something wrong with her, something perhaps inherently defective about her (that she can’t help of course), which is evidenced by her failure to do what he is telling her she should WANT to be doing.
She starts to get angry as he starts to push.
He tells her she is angry for no reason.
She tells him HE’S the reason.
He tells her that ‘blaming others for your own feelings’ is a character flaw in her.
He then goes and tells others that his wife is angry all the time for no reason.
They suggest to him that she probably needs some medication; Prozac for instance or one of those other feel good drugs so popular now.
She hears about the opinions of her he is expressing to others and tells him angrily to stop suggesting she is mentally ill because she does not want to cook for his parties.
He responds by telling her that ‘mental illness’ is nothing to be ashamed of and it is thought to be a bio chemistry problem. He suggests her shame may be an inappropriate affect that is also caused by this imbalance.
She tells him she feels no shame in what she says, what she feels is anger and that is growing.
He tells her that being unable to feel shame is also a problem but that can be dealt with now too, along with her bio chemical anger. He also suggests he may be wrong and that she really DOES feel ashamed, that she is just denying it because she feels too ashamed to ask for ‘help.’
She denies she is in need of any ‘help’ other than finding someone to impress upon him that she does not want to cook for a party every Saturday night. She tells him he is invalidating and controlling and he needs to stop this.
He tells her she is in denial and realizing that his wife is getting ‘crazier’ by the day, goes out to find those potential party guests in order to convince them to help him with an ‘intervention”
When she finds out from one of the neighbours what he had been doing behind her back, she breaks down sobbing. The next day the intervention group shows up at her home and her husband invites them in. Looking very solemn he tells her they are there to try and help her.
She all but yells at him that she does not want any help and pleads with them to PLEASE just leave her alone and mind their own business.
They talk amongst themselves in the slightly hushed tone usually reserved for funerals or coma victims, and remark that together that the poor wife seems to have suffered a Change of Personality. (You could hear the way they capitalized it in their own minds) They agreed together that this could be serious.
They point out to her how ‘upset’ she is and suggest she should ‘admit’ to that for her own good.
She does ‘admit’ it.
They tell her that ‘wanting to withdraw from others’ is another ‘sign’ that she needs ‘help.’
At this point she is unhappy and so agrees to see a psychiatrist, believing she is finally going to get to talk about her real life problems to someone who will listen. When she sees the psychiatrist though, the first time she is there, the psychiatrist tells her she has a ‘mental illness’ and just needs medication and a short stay in the psychiatric hospital to ‘rest’ and to get her medication levels monitored to be sure they are at the correct dosage.
They never discuss the original problem as identified by the woman at all. The psychiatrist does not even see that there IS a problem and he tells the woman all about the chemical imbalance problem that he believes exists in her brain which is causing all of her distress. When finished with his prescription pad, he picks it up and takes it with him to talk to the next patient on his list.
The woman feels completely trapped now inside a circular argument that makes no sense at all, in relation to her real life and her real problems. Just then, her husband walks in the door. He walks right past her to have a few words with the doctor first. The doctor assures the husband that his wife will get better soon.

“Do you think she will want to host parties again soon doctor?” he asks him.
“I don’t see why not,” the doctor tells him. “She should be herself again in no time.'' (The doctor is quite favourably impressed by the husband’s concern for his poor, sick wife.)
End of story.

When the woman overhears this exchange, she then knows that NEITHER of them have any idea who she actually is as a person and they don’t really CARE either.
Her husband wants her to cook for a party for him every Saturday night If she doesn’t want to do that, then, as far as he is concerned, she must be ‘crazy.’
The psychiatrist apparently agrees.
Fortunately, we now have some really good drugs and diagnoses that allow those who like to control others to force them to be whoever those controllers WANT them to be. There is no longer any need to ‘waste our time’ talking about anything.

Once the cause of this woman’ problem (which was quite simple and obvious to start with) has been defined as her own ‘defective’ brain, she will be seen heard and understood in those terms by everyone around her. If she tries to protest this, she will most likely be ‘corrected’ for it by virtually everyone she knows, many of them having been trained to do just that by the system itself. They all accept the diagnosis of the experts in this.

This wife is no longer a person who does not want to have a party every Saturday night and who can choose to say, “No.” She is now a patient who is manifesting signs of illness by refusing to ‘socialize.’ Just saying no to anything is no longer an option; it’s a ‘sign.’
That folks is how reality gets ‘interpreted’ and redefined by others who want control and who have no sense of personal boundaries. This utter lack of boundaries, often furiously defended by those doing the violating, by blaming those they violate, is the essence of dysfunctional relating. They simply twist everything around and declare it to be its opposite. The violator is not demonstrating a behaviour problem; the violated is simply declared to be having a REACTION problem.

Dysfunctional relating is constantly promoted as the ‘norm’. Enmeshment is mistaken of intimacy. Those who disagree with those who believe they represent the ‘norm’ must be abnormal since they are different in their thinking. Dysfunctional people are usually very GOOD ‘team players.”

For as long as cause and effect are separated and never meet again, the chances of resolving any real problems of relationship are precisely zero. Beyond that, we will create more and more problems which are being born out of the strenuous attempt to just ignore them just as quickly and efficiently as a psychiatric label will allow us all to do so.

Those who cast themselves in the role of our ‘saviours’ and of our ‘superiors’ do not ever want to acknowledge that they are not who they pretend to be and that the error is their own. So they create a complex mess out of what is a relatively simple and obvious problem, and that problem is always about the ignoring or the blurring of personal boundaries between people in ways that impose, by force if necessary, someone’s personal views on another, or that some accept the views imposed upon them by others with little or no, questioning of those views or resistance to the imposition.

The people who most poorly ‘fit in’ with dysfunctional relating are generally those who are not interested in EITHER imposing their personal views and experience on others, nor having others impose their views and beliefs on them. Since these people represent the few, rather than the many, they are perceived as ‘odd’ and those who represent the many want to ‘fix’ us so ''we'' will be more like ''them,'' and less threatening to the status quo of the group belief system.

In this topsy-turvy way of thinking and relating, the ones LEAST interested in imposing the views on others, are also the ones MOST likely to be declared ‘mentally ill’ by those supposedly ‘normal’ others. It is often fighting against this tsunami of public opinion, vigorously defended by the many, that causes the ‘illness’ (psycho spiritually speaking) which is predicted by those who CREATE this self fulfilling prophecy.

Reveal and Heal: Proverbs and Observations: One

BY Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

Proverbs:

Am I, or the others crazy?
Albert Einstein

We learn backwards but must live forwards.

No one can "fix" what they cannot (Or aren't "allowed") to see and trying to "fix" something (or someone) which was not 'broken" in the first place just doesn't work. If you try either if those, you make a mess of your own creation.

(but, at least it will keep you busy with a full time very secure job)

Observations:
If you have been taught to take nothing I say at face value, and to hear metaphors (whether deliberate or from an altered state) as meaningless, in what way is it EVER going to be possible for me to really communicate with you? Why do you not know or care about this? ‘Alienists’ is a very good term for this profession. I think you should have kept it.

One of the most interesting things about chronic gossips is their belief that those they engage with are NOT gossiping about them in just the same way they are gossiping about others. Instead, they all tend to think they are operating ‘covertly’ and all present a plastic ‘façade’ intended to ‘fool’ those others about whom they are all gossiping including each other. It is quite the comedy to behold. However, it stops being so 'amusing' when the same behaviour, denied, becomes the 'schizophrenic's 'hallucinated conversations.'

Psychiatry is probably the only profession on Earth that has managed to gain enough concrete power to dismiss anyone who challenges it’s beliefs simply by legally defining the challenger as ‘crazy’ and in doing so giving itself the right to totally control him or her, and justify itself, as a result.

This is one of the commandments used by dysfunctional groups of all kinds:

“Thou Shalt Not Be Aware”
We who are psychiatrized must agree to pretend that we do not know, what we DO know, so that those who already agreed to do that before us, without making such a big ‘fuss’ about it, like ‘we’ do, won’t have to be made to feel uncomfortable, by being forced to look at their own splitting off, in the mirror of our accurate reflections about it.

On Them and Us
We often get to hear this one after we describe to a psychiatrist what has happened to us, usually at the hands of others: "I believe that YOU believe it."

That's a convoluted way of saying, "I don't believe you," but without the honesty. The patient hears you very clearly even if you delude yourself that it is nicer that way. As the child in the movie the Sixth Sense would ask you,

"How are you going to help me if you don't believe me"?

More than that, why would you expect a patient to trust you after you demonstrate for us that you can't be trusted since what you say and what you believe frequently have no relationship to each other? Whose split consciousness is that?

If one is truly concerned about others in an integrated and healthy way, one is also concerned with Self.

If one is genuinely concerned about Self, then one is genuinely concerned about the other as well. They go together; they are not really opposites.

How Does the Mental Illness System Really Work?
Instead of altering the system to accommodate new understanding and legitimate evidence, it alters reality to accommodate the desires of the system, frequently by denying or suppressing any evidence to the contrary. This is so similar to how all dysfunctional groups do it that we often cannot believe what we are hearing.

Delusional Reversal:

Sometimes, this occurs in opposite directions at the same time.

The aggressor does not give his victim credit for the intelligence she actually has AND the victim gives the aggressor too much credit for an intelligence he does NOT have. When this is the case, reality is transformed into utter chaos.

On Being Somebody

It should be obvious to humanity that if we set ourselves up with a premise of needing to "make something of ourselves" which will affirm us as "successful" we must simultaneously create a definition of ourselves as "NOT successful" and NOT having "made something of ourselves." In doing so humanity turns life into a contest or adversarial relationship with others who, of necessity, must be included in either the "winning" group or the "losing" group, using the system of values it creates itself to determine that. This is the brand of judgement and the psychology which wars are built upon.

Calling The Psychiatrized:

You know when people stand a few feet away from you talking about you like you're not there? Or mocking, ridiculing, assessing you or spewing their undisguised contempt at you?

Well, most of the time, with the exception of the bullies who act out because they can get away with it, the people who do this have NO IDEA they are visible or audible to you.

I can hear you now muttering something incredulous at me.....I know; this is VERY hard to get your mind around because it is so obviously senseless and irrational. But, I am not kidding. That is what it is. The groups who do this suffer from what I like to call, "Large Group Stupidity Disorder."

It's Sign! A Sign!

I was riding on a bus last night when an S.U.V. pulled up alongside and passed us. On the rear bumper was a sticker which read:

''If the people will lead, the leaders will follow.''

I think that is just what all of us nuts need to do; lead the Leaders out of the mess they have made. Those leaders who don't follow will just have to get used to eating our dust as we leave them behind to the mental illness system's insane past.

I think we will have better luck with the psychiatric establishment if we can get as many people as possible to isolate THEM (the aggressors) for a change, until they decide to stop all that A.C.T.ing out and seeking of fame all the time.

Supported Talk:
From the comments of a dentist "Without Borders" speaking of third world people without dental or medical care:

"It's a wonderful thing to be able to do--to talk to people and be able to get the fear out of our bodies. There is nothing more helpful than being able to talk to other people about our problems and being supported in that."

Paranoid Patty's Commentary: As one of the psychiatrized I find myself agreeing with this dentist. Maybe we could ask him if he'd like to do a little Active Listening style counseling of psychiatrists on the 'side.'

The Double Standard:
It never ceases to amaze many of us how often those who create such rules of ''appropriate'' conduct like:

''What goes on inside these four walls, stays inside these four walls'' are themselves, constantly; talking about us behind our backs, manipulating others, frequently violating our personal boundaries and justifying it, complaining to others about our objections to it, and instructing others to keep the fact that they are doing it a ''secret,'' so as not to upset us, by ''allowing'' us to ''find out'' about them, even though our knowing about them, and what they are doing IS the problem about which we are ''whining and complaining'' in the first place!

This denial of the blatantly obvious is beyond human comprehension. Yet, generally, that is exactly what the majority which involve themselves, in what was never their business in the first place, support and enable with self righteous enthusiasm. This, while they continue to kid themselves that ''we'' are too stupid and/or crazy to be aware of them! It boggles the mind.

I remember telling my recovery therapist that some of the people in my life lied for ‘no reason at all,’ even when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.

I was wrong about that. There is a reason in what they do. The reason is to manipulate people. The reason is to manipulate peoples’ perception of reality to achieve their own ends. The reason is for the control and the defining of others in the definer’s terms.

I was looking for logic in people who are not operating on logic. But they ARE operating on anti-logic which is the reverse of logic, and is understandable in those terms. My failure to understand that before was MY error.

August 2005

"Movement"
I just heard something on a repeat "Oprah" which I decided we all need to think about. Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiologist, (the name was quite amusing to me as the locals are always comparing the search for a "cure" for schizophrenia to a trip to "Oz") stated that the two organs which are most alike chemically in our bodies are the brain and the bowel! He stated the chemicals in both are the same. I couldn't help but wonder if the expression "shit for brains" grew out of that knowledge? Perhaps my impression of myself as "the High Colonic", priestess to the Psychiatric Faith, here to bring the cure for psychiatry itself, is one of those mysteriously appropriate instances of psychic symbolism for which we nuts are all so well known....

If there is one thing I have learned it is that psychiatrists do not understand the absurdity of their own beliefs.

Point Of View

From the position of belief in inequality, what looks like strength from one side, always looks like weakness from the opposite side. It is very common for people to fail to see which side is which.

The person confined to a wheelchair who does not hate the one who taunts her, has strength which is a quantum leap ahead of the self deluded one who believes his need to invalidate HER and to try to get a reaction from her, "proves" HIS "superiority" to HER. It is reality that is very often beyond belief.

The System IS the Problem

The system is the snake swallowing its own tail. It feeds itself with itself, recreating over and over again the relationship it is trying to "cure." It does so because it does not recognize the relationship itself AS the problem. So, the more we talk, the less they hear....

Difficult?

What I find so difficult to understand about all of this is why psychiatrists find this so difficult to understand...???

The Good Consumer, the Bad Consumer, and the Ugly Reality
I once knew a man who suffered a psychotic break from the prolonged use of illegal street drugs and alcohol, which landed him in a '' health centre.'' (Previously known as psychiatric hospitals, sanitariums and insane asylums.)

Once past his crisis he was fortunate to find a psychiatrist who discovered for him an underlying cause for his psychotic episode and drug use; bad brain chemistry. To his further good fortune, his disease, though incurable, could now be treated successfully by taking certain prescribed legal drugs for the rest of his life.

The man was very relieved to get such a good diagnosis and to find a lasting treatment for it. He is a very satisfied ''consumer'' and frequently praises psychiatry for its help.

Unfortunately, there are many of us who don't get the same sense of satisfaction from our diagnoses. Our lack of satisfaction though is apparently a symptom, part of our denial, resistance and non compliance which proves psychiatry right to treat us for the aforementioned traits.

This type of consumer, like me, tends to be seen by psychiatrists as having ''no prospect of recovery'' as I was, and as my employer was informed was the case, after my eleven minute, cost effective, assessment in 99.

Circling The Brain Drain:
No one in their right mind wants to have their life taken over and be controlled by other people. There is nothing more invalidating to a human being than being totally controlled by other people. The "normal" people all know this. If we are then told by those normal people that we are out of our minds if we DO NOT want other people to take control of our lives and minds, and that the resistance to that is a "sign'' of our being out of our minds, than how do we show any "signs" of being normal, like those of you who think you would have to be out of your minds to want other people to have total control of you?

Ideas:

Creating Clarity in Language: The Mirror of TruthIt is too easy for everyone to confuse ''them'' and ''us'' so for the sake of clarity, I am going to start referring to these two groups of people as the ''psychiatrized'' and the ''normies.''--this latter group in quotation marks indicating it is THEIR assessment of themselves, not necessarily that of the psychiatrized, who may perceive them quite differently.

Stating the Obvious:

Some years ago I was telling someone that I was learning to state every detail of everything I meant when talking to ''normies'' and I gave her an example. Her response was, ''You sound like you're talking to idiots.''

That's how I've changed though. I have come to accept that I AM talking to idiots, but I also know that the ''idiots'' have convinced themselves they are the higher mind, and they have absolutely no doubts about that. It's the same as if I were talking to cult members trained to hear all words and platitudes in just the way the cult leader wants them heard, so that while the words mean ONE thing to me, they mean something else to the other. In this way, we can be using the same words while meaning the exact opposite of each other's personal understanding.

Who Is Aware and Who Is Not Aware?
Though this act is sometimes done in blindness motivated by self protection, it is very often the case that the primary aggressor is fully aware the victim knows what the aggressor is doing and also that it is a deliberate set up. In fact, knowing that the victim knows but cannot prove it is part of the aggressor's power rush...and it's a double rush.

Such people especially enjoy watching the group they have manipulated attack the victim on the aggressor's behalf. He can then just sit back and enjoy the "fun." The victim is helpless to stop them and often gives up all hope of escape or resolution.

This type of aggressor, usually masquerading as a "mystified" victim himself, or sometimes as a well intentioned rescuer, may very well have also enjoyed maiming small animals or destroying the property of others when young. This is the unseen side of the "boundary problem."

Messages off the T.V. for Psychiatry:

Topic: Psychic Ability

(Paraphrased) “Science doesn’t know everything there is to know. Many people believe human beings are still in the process of evolving.

“If we have a theory of something, and we hold onto it despite any and all evidence to the contrary, then that’s not science. That’s politics.”
“Larry”, on “Numb3ers”
Paranoid Patty: I concur.

Defense of the System

Keeping it Simple

By Patricia Lefave, Labeled, D.D.(P)

There are a lot of complaints about treatment, medical or psychological, by whiny people like myself who have been on the receiving end of it. These complaints are often dismissed through the use of, what is actually a very simple process once understood.
They are made to magically disappear by defining the complaining itself, apart from facts or evidence, as part of the disease process being 'treated.' It's a sort of flip it around 180 degrees, and pull it back INTO the diagnostic snare. The doctor, who is all too often very like the patient's original protagonist, is always right. (so he or she would have us all believe anyway) I wonder if there is a course module on that? What would it be called? "Escape Proof Diagnostics" perhaps?

No one should be surprised by this flip process as that is what medicalizing human problems, which started with a phenomenon called "schizophrenia" (psychiatry's sacred symbol...Szasz) is all about. Psychiatry's goal is total control of those it defines as "mentally ill." It is this belief and attitude that is causing more 'illness' than it is ever relieving. It is built on the basis of a "magical" circle; the metaphysics of the old Bait and Switch con game.

I would guess that most psychiatrists don't see it, would think the suggestion was complete nonsense, and that most would roll their eyes at the idea and dismiss it as the ravings of a lunatic. After all, that is what they are accustomed to doing. It is how they, and all controllers, including the family type, defend themselves.

It is a simple system. You just turn the complaint around 180, invalidate it, invalidate the complainer, and then pull the complaint made, back into the system, as another 'symptom" proving how right the system is, and the correctness of those who support the system without complaining about it. The redefining of the complaint, as such, keeps the system closed, and escape proof. After you realize this, you are to give up the idea of getting through to anyone and let the whole mess go. If you don't "let it go" and continue to expect that those "others" are going to start listening and accepting your truth, that will show you are unrealistic and obsessing, since the 'normal' people would not keep trying to get through to anyone as long as you have. Since the "normal" people wouldn't do that, YOU shouldn't be doing it either (obviously) If that is not obvious to you, that just shows how stupid you are that what is obvious to so many others is not obvious to you.



Since the system NEVER apologizes for error, admits to them, or makes amends, your expectation that they will eventually do that, and show signs of ethics and integrity, is just plain delusional. Therefore, they are right to give you treatment for your ongoing and unrealistic expectations. After all. if you are expecting them to apologize or anything you MUST be 'delusional' therefore, they were right in the first place to see you that way, weren't they?

Those who stop that whining, bitching and complaining and accept themselves as defective are viewed as the GOOD patient. These are the ones you usually see 'representing' the pro psychiatry patient groups. The goal is to get everyone who is labeled "non-compliant' like myself to become like them. They are the model to which I am to aspire.

Knowing my own experience though, better than anyone else, and despite the attempt to talk me out of it, I just can't do that. I am still in touch with my own reality. Sorry. Whoops. I guess I just set myself up for further treatment when I said that didn't I?

Damn that endless infinite loop.