You Crushed My Foot You Big Oaf

A Psychiatric Parable
By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

Once upon a time there was a lovely older woman whose turkey neck was not yet in full development, who had been staying within her own personal boundaries, minding her own business, when along came a strange man (and I DO mean strange) who decided he was going to have him some oafish fun conning this woman about himself. He considered her to be ‘stupid’ because she wasn’t ‘friendly’ like all the other gals around and because she tended to assume people like him were sane until proven otherwise. He thought this assumption very foolish so he decided she deserved just what he was intending to give her for being such a fool.

So, he set her up to appear to be a moron or a crazy woman in the eyes, and very noisy opinions, of everyone else. Then he watched her and everyone else as they tried to make sense out of what was senseless right from the start. He especially enjoyed watching her as the victim though, and the distress he caused as she tried to explain her point of view to all of those he had manipulated to believe was something quite different. The harder she tried, the more ‘amused’ or abusive the mob involved tended to become.

Eventually, under tremendous pressure, and the non stop invalidation of her thoughts, feelings and experience of the event, the woman broke and the strange man who had set her up for the attack, smiled with great satisfaction. The woman tried to tell the other people that this strange man had caused this and that he was clearly pleased about the outcome. Of course, they did not believe her, since the strange man had led her away from the truth right from the start. Besides, the reasoned, it would not be reasonable for someone like the strange man to DO such a thing.

Instead, since SHE was the one who was upset and since no one else in the mob of observers could see anything wrong with the strange man, (only she saw that. He seemed like a really decent guy to them) they all decided, by group consensus, that she needed to se a psychiatrist for an assessment. They just ‘knew’ she was ‘mentally ill’ since she claimed to have been ‘set up’ (Diagnostic Trigger Words) was being ‘watched and followed’ (DTW) and was being ‘abused’ by a ‘mob of people’ she ‘didn’t even know.’ (DTW)

Why would people she didn’t even know behave that way? It made no sense. Therefore, it could not be true. If it wasn’t true, then clearly, an alternate explanation needed to be found. So they found one that fit their needs: ‘mental illness,’ a ‘perception/reaction’ problem in the complainant. By defining it this way, everyone else involved could see him or herself as ‘outside’ the problem which was now neatly contained within the semantics of the definition.
Soon, staff members from the local psychiatric hospital began following the woman around, just to keep an eye on her, in case she might decide to do something the others did not like or understand. Local bus drivers began noting all of her movements and reporting to all of their friends and relatives on staff at the psychiatric hospital and visa versa but, this had to be done in ‘secret’ of course, since it would be against the rules of ‘CON-fidentiality’ to discuss this with any ‘outsiders.’ None of them noticed the split in reality they were creating at the nexus of meaning. They were too busy ‘following her and reporting on her’ (DTW) because she ‘thought’ (DTW) she was being followed and reported on. She ‘thought’ they were helping the strange man who had ‘set her up’ (DTW) to get to her, even in her own home. She had started to feel there ‘was no safe place for her’ (DTW) since no one would listen to her, take her seriously or give her any concrete help (DTW) with her real problem. As far as they were concerned, there was no ‘real’ problem since they did not see it and they believed themselves to be well ‘hidden’ in plain sight, from an ‘inferior’ who was not as ‘sane’ as they were.

One day, as she was leaving her home, feeling more and more threatened and unsure of herself, and confused about what was actually going on, a psychiatrist pulled into the driveway, very casually, just to ‘chat’ with her. He asked her what she ‘thought’ the problem was. (He was sure she had one of those ‘brain diseases’ that cause people to ‘think’ they have problems they really don’t have.) Being naïve and a rookie with psychiatrists, she actually TOLD him. He the indicated to her very plainly that he did not believe her. At that moment she knew she was trapped in the mirror. He was reflecting on a reversed image of her and he had all the power. Her fear began to grow. The psychiatrist saw it on her face and ‘interpreted’ it to be part of her ‘illness’ from which he was now positive she ‘suffered.’ (DTW)
‘I am going to get you the help you need,’ he informed her; now certain he was the messiah of her troubled life. I will back out onto the road and you can get into the van and I will take you right to the psychiatric hospital for ‘treatment.’ He then backed up over her foot and crushed it.

She screamed with the agony of de-feet!

He ‘interpreted’ that as hysteria. ‘No need to make so much noise,’ he told her. You don’t want to disturb your neighbours do you?”
“I don’t care about my neighbours,’ she squealed. ‘I am in agony.’
The psychiatrist was very concerned about the woman’s lack of concern for her neighbours but then that was so common in these poor sick people. They all had boundary problems you know. She was also now exaggerating her pain as they so often did just to seek attention.
‘I know it hurts,’ he told her, ‘but there is no reason to exaggerate the pain.’
I am not exaggerating, she told him, ‘you aren’t the one feeling my pain so how do you know how much it is.
‘We all have pain in life, ‘he told her believing everything was an abstraction or a metaphor, ‘we must learn to live with it.’
This confused the woman. ‘Why do I need to learn to live with it’? she asked him. ‘I want to go to the hospital and have my foot looked at right away.’
‘What does this have to do with your foot’?
‘You ran over it. You crushed my foot you big oaf!’ she yelled at him.

The psychiatrist wondered why she was accusing him of doing her harm. Perhaps he reasoned, she had trouble accepting authority. He tried to distract her saying, well I am sure you think your foot hurts and I believe that you believe that too, but for now, let’s just go to the psychiatric hospital and get you a little something to help you calm down. You have to admit your voice is kind of high and strained and you are feeling quite upset.
She did have to admit to that so that was a point of agreement at least. She decided to humour him and go with him to swallow a tranquilizer if it would get her the help she really needed. He decided to humour about her ‘foot pain’ if it would get her the help she obviously needed but was resisting and denying. That was the beginning of a long and arduous journey for this woman who was destined to spend an enormous amount of time, with an endlessly aching foot, trying to break the psychiatrist’s resistance to hearing her, and attempting to get him to just accept what she was saying at face value. Of course, later on she would learn that psychiatrists are trained NOT to accept anything at face value which the people THEY have designated as patients say to them. Had she known all of this from the beginning it would have greatly lessened all the confusion she was going to face, but at the time, she had no idea how crazy was the thinking and reasoning of psychiatry itself. Things got so crazy that eventually she broke down completely at which point all the people who had followed her and diagnosed her from the start felt justified about their beliefs, judgements and behaviours. It was a self fulfilling prophecy but none of them would realize that until decades later.

When she finally escaped from psychiatry, she went back to the general hospital where she had told them the psychiatrist had run over her foot and asked them to look at it as it was now causing her a great deal more pain than it had before.
The attending on duty then decided to take an X-ray to see if anything was going on in there and there he saw a mess that had healed without any treatment and was all out of alignment.
He went back to tell the woman the cause of her pain.
The X-ray shows that you had a compound fracture of your foot at some point that was never set properly. ‘Why did you not get that looked at, at the time when it happened?’ he asked her.
‘I tried, ‘she told him, ‘but no one would believe what had happened.’
‘What happened,’ he asked her.
‘A psychiatrist backed his van over my foot.’
‘You don’t expect me to believe that do you?, he asked her.
She had long ago stopped expecting that. Time had taught her well. ‘No,’ she said, ‘if you don’t believe that, than I don’t expect you to and I don’t think any amount of explaining it will change that.’
The attending decided to check her history as she seemed to be trying to reverse things on him and discovered she had a psychiatric history and once had complained of being injured by a psychiatrist. Some delusions are so entrenched, he thought to himself, that there is no point in trying to discuss them with the patient, so he went back out and told her, ‘Well whatever it was that happened to your foot, it does need some attending to now.’
‘So you don’t believe me, right’? she asked.
‘Well’, he said, ‘I believe that YOU believe it.’
(The statement, “I believe that YOU believe it” is psychiatrese for, “I don’t believe you.” )
As she left the hospital, clutching an appointment card to see a surgeon arranged by the attending, she saw her old psychiatrist backing out of the space in front of the psychiatric hospital, (which was across the street from the General) and right over a garbage can.
‘That garbage can could have been my foot you big oaf!” she yelled across at him.
He just smiled condescendingly. He also knew there were some people who had such firmly entrenched delusions that there was no way you could talk them out of them since in truth, reason had nothing to do with it.

The woman actually knew the same thing but of course neither the psychiatrist nor the emergency room attending had any idea that she knew the same thing that they knew. They understood that she was genetically different to them and so words did not mean the same thing to her as they did to them. They both lived in the alternate reality of their own invention and she could not get them out of it no matter how hard she tried or for how long she kept up the effort. She decided she was going to have to leave them there until hopefully, it would one day dawn of them, that the whole relationship was nothing but an extravagant illusion based on an extremely elegant CON.

If it wasn’t for the pain they were causing her and to others, she might even feel kind of sorry for them.

Moral:
When you run over my foot with your van, my foot is just as crushed and the pain just as real, whether you accept it or not, and also whether or not you deny that you did it, or don’t believe that you did it, when you are told about it, or were unaware that you did that.

If you don’t accept even evidence of that, or refuse to look at the evidence (mashed foot under your wheel, X-rays, blood etc.) because you don’t want to be responsible (get blamed) you are them responsible for adding MORE damage to that which you have already done. So I might just respond to that in psychiatrese this way: For some of you, “I believe, that you don’t believe, that you actually do harm.’ (picture a condescending little smile with that; a sort of attitudinal pat on your little pointed head.)
If you then spend years, or decades, denying what you have done and/or justifying yourself, then blame the patient for expecting integrity from you for ‘too long’, then perhaps you should seek some professional help. Try a psychologist who has NOT been trained by psychiatry and who perhaps may be able to help you reconnect to the reality of living in the world instead of living inside your own programming.

Talking At Psychiatrists

First posted October 6th, 2005
While They Plug Their Ears And Hum Loudly

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


Boundary Problems:
Psychiatrists tell us whom they label, (when they bother to talk to us at all) that we have ''boundary problems.'' Yes. We do. That's abstract statement at the nexus of meaning. Our original abuser (and then psychiatry itself) is constantly violating our personal boundaries and because we don't know how to penetrate their self delusion or how to make them stop doing that, we do indeed have boundary problems.

I Am The Turtle:

What Psychiatry today reminds me of is my childhood relationship with a small turtle.
I would take my turtle out of his litle round plastic home, complete with plastic palm tree on a plastic island, and with my forefinger on theback of his shell, push him around the florr for awhile. I was "helping" him to "go for a walk."

I really liked that turtle too. It did not occur to me, in my childish mind, that what seemed like "help" to me would seem more like torment to the turtle I liked.

The Collective Spirit:

I believe in the collective spirit of humanity. I also believe that perfect justice exists beyond the human. I believe there are two "Pi's" which are indeed separating the "sheep" from the "wolves." I believe that perfect justice is delivered by a God-head who KNOWS the gift of free will means the individual MUST be allowed to choose his/her own ultimate fate.
I also believe in cause and effect and that each person acts upon, and is acted upon, by other people. I believe in the end, the "wolves" among us, often dressed in "sheeps' clothing", will actually get exactly what they "think" they want.
When they finally understand that while they focused on blindsiding the sheep with thier covert acts of aggression, they were actuallly blinding themselves to their own predictable outcome, it will shock them beyond anything they could imagine. For in the end, perfect justice means the "wolves" really WILL have created their own reality as they saw fit to do.
As the sheep, there is nothing we need to do other than expose the truth of our experience to the light of day, like the Musketeers...."All for one and one for all!" For that is the nature of "reality" to those of us who live in the pacifists PI. The state the aggressors see as "weakness."


Two Kinds Of People:

There are two kinds of people who claim they aren't guilty when accused of wrongdoing:
Those who aren't guilty; and those who are guilty.

Speaking Psychiatrese

By the way, when you translate the dysfunctional family's excuses and covering up into "psychiatrese" it is important that you don't leave anything out of that or it alters the meaning of it.
Example: "seeking fame."

You are missing a vital part of the translation because you have left out the most important word. That word is "just." The original version is; " She/he is just seeking attention," so it should be translated into psychiatrese as "just seeking fame."

"Just" in dysfunctional speak means; "Really, nothing happened and everyone in the group is innocent of any and all wrong doing. He/she (the victim who in dysfunctional speak only "says" he/she's a "victim," or "thinks" he/she's a "victim", when really, there ARE no "vicitims") is only or "just" saying she/he is, as an attention seeking device. But really, officer/doctor, we are all just completely 'mystified' about her "false" accusations against us and we think she is just stupid, or crazy.

As you can see, "just" is a very important part of the meaning of it all, so, perhaps you could amend that "symptom" in the D.S.M. to reflect that by stating; the fact that you think bus drivers and Homewood nurses are talking about you when tbey aren't shows that you are "Just seeking fame."

Filtered Hearing

Trying to talk to psychiatrists is often an exercise in futility. It is even worse, I think, than trying to talk directly to the "heads'' of dysfunctional families.

Psychiatrists now have a concrete powerthat is the envy of every manipulative dominator outside of psychiatry as well.

It has struck me often that it is like talking to any loyal cult memeber. They cannot hear what we are saying in any way other than through the filter they have been trained to use as the way to reframe our experience in terms of ''disease process.''

That's why it is like talking to the wall. The psycho-spiritual wall is SET UP from the start to protect the True Believers and their unquestioned Faith.
Invalidating anyone who does not accept The Faith is built INTO The Faith.

276% ?

It was on the news here in October that the results of a study on child abuse indicate there has been a 276% increase. Perhaps you should all be reminded of your frequently repeated corrections to those of us who have "whined, bitched and complained" of such things in various forms and degrees for centuries now and who have often received psychiatric labels for doing so. The usual one goes something like;

"You don't mean to blame your parents, ( or the family) do you? We can't "blame others." if we are normal (like you) "we come to acept that our parents aren't perfect, we overlook it and above all we must "let it go... After all they are STILL your parents! One must never be disrespectful and insulting to one's parents by suggesting they do what they in fact do. If we do then clearly, we deserve just what they are getting from them. (dysfunctional Pi)

Now you people with those statistics (which I am sure you just made up to seek attention/fame anyway) get back on that news channel and apologize to those falsely accused people, right now, before someone finds it necessary to drug ou into submission for your own good.

Nietzsche

"The irrationality of a thing is not an argument against it's existence but rather a condition of it."

Perhaps he also was told there was no abuse as the abuser would have no reason to abuse him. Psychiatric Pi

What Is it Then?

"Mental illness" is often the result to individuals, and, by extension, to society, of taking a simple obvious problem and transforming it into a complex mess which serves one main purpose: to get the guilty, the ignorant, the deceived, and the opportunists off the accountability hook. This is often done by hanging the group's victim on that hook to suffer any losses in their place, because she has an accurate awareness of reality which the group denies and wishes to keep on denying. So yes, "denial" exists in this group perception problem.
There is always at least one, (and sometimes MORE than one) person who is as aware of the truth of the situation as the victim, right from the start. The guilty one sets out to do the victim harm. The deceived ones act out of their false beliefs based on information supplied by the guilty one. The ignorant ones act out of a lack of knowledge and understanding. The opportunists act out in overt support of the guilty, for no other reason than that the opportunity to abuse someone and get away with it has been presented to them. They often like the power rush as much as the original aggressor. When a group like this gets together and is of one mind, the denial of the truth about the aggressor and his victim CAUSES the victim's ego structure to break down under enormous, and ususally non stop pressure.
The whole group then uses the end result to justify it's assault, which is based on it's perception of it's victim as "mentally ill." This predictable result is seen as an inherent condition, apart from his/her concrete experience of others or events. The philosophy at work here seems to be something like< "No man is an island"....except for the psychiatric patient of course....
If you psychiatrist try "treating" people like human beings, nothing more nor less, you just might be surprised by the results you get. I will tell you a big secret...all of life is based on Pi....whether it turns out to be like fresh baked apple pie or a cow Pi depends upon the attitude use in the making of the Pi. It is the premise of reasoning that brings the predictable result into concrete reality, for when you are making Pi, the premise and the goal rest on the same point. Everything in between the Alpha (beginning) and the Omega (the end) is only the route you take to get there. Many of you seem to prefer Route 666 because it pays better in the short term.
Your premise is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you prophesy helplessness, hopelessness and doom, that's what you get. Wake up to the reality of your own creation before it's too late. Humanity has the ability to "fix" metaphysically, what will will never be able to "fix" physically.

Suicide in the System:

Many labelled people are commiting suicide and/or murder, NOT because a disease is making them do it, but because they cannot escape from a system, or immense pressure, which reduces their experience, feelings, humanity and personal identity to a chemistry problem, trapping them in a horror of control by others, constant invalidation and abuse from which there is no escape possible other than death, of one kind or another, at some time or another.

This you do in the name of help, or family, or medicine, or religion or sometimes ''love.'' For this result we are expected to ''comply'' and even to show ''gratitude'' for your ''help.'' If we do not, and instead persist in the attempt to own our own reality, the attempt itself may well be further pathologized and we will usually be silenced for good by being declared ''chronic.''

''Chronic'' generally indicates someone who will not let their own version of reality go and accept the alternate one provided for them. For those of you who recognize the trap, understand there is at least, a psychological escape from this and once you understand it and are strong enough, you can work with all of the rest of us to change, or abolish, a system that no longer sees human beings in the faces of it's "customers."

It was once ''alleged'' that one of the office staff from Comcare, Guelph, posed the question in 99 after I was forced out of my job for the second time;
''How can he say he loves her and allow this to continue?" (don't know which of the ''hes'' she was referring to or even if the rumour itself is true, but it is a good question) Six years past that time, it is still going as if I have never told anyone involved that it was. It boggles the mind. The whole event is still being denied, ''kept'' from my awareness, even as it continues....

Dr. Phil:

The topic of a recent Dr. Phil was an experiment based on appearances. Dr. Phil's son Jay and another woman got themselves made up in a way that made them less attractive physically, then went out into their usual world to see if they were treated any differently. than they normally were. They tested it afterwards by returning to the same places and engaging in the same transactions with the same people as their legitimate selves.
Both stated they experienced lack of eye contact from others, dismissive attitudes, and being talked about by strangers a few feet away.
I think both are very fortunate they did not complain openly about this treatment to psychiatrists. It may have well earned them the same psychiatric label bestowed upon me for having very much the same experience after being labelled ''mentally ill,''by the same people who did it to me and then denied the whole thing.

Numb3rs:
I was watching the season premiere of ''Numb3rs'' last night (September 23, 2005)
The mathemetician employed to help solve crimes pointed out to the detectives that the infinite number Pi appears in everything and they don't know why. (infinite loop of being OR non being.) Interesting isn't it?

The X-Files:
The X-files was actually about the experiences of psychiatric patients. It was presented in symbolic form. Abstract concepts were sometimes concretized:
(like punching the sheriff in the stomach only to discover he ''had no internal organs'' = the sheriff was ''gutless'' or ''had no guts.'' )
Or sometimes, the concrete was presented as metaphorical. When Mulder, straight faced, spoke of ''the rocket scientists'' he was talking about YOU folks in psychiatry. Bet you didn't pick upm on that did you? Probably too busy to watch such a silly show.

For those of you reading this who are the psychiatrized: Warning!

If you are recently recovering, still psychologically unstable, just off, or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs, beware. Watching this series may trigger you as it utilizes the same concepts which may have disconnected you from concrete reality in the first place. The series does this in order to make this point to the masses of ''normals'' who have not had the experience and who don't understand it. So proceed with caution and awareness of the possible triggers if you watch it. This is the sort of series which will seem like ''messages'' to you because the concepts are similar to your own experience and your right brain is making the connections, even if your left brain can't quite see it in your personal concrete details. It is very much like getting a message from the symbolism in a dream, but psychiatrists don't really understand that as anything other than a ''symptom'' in you. Most of them don't believe our experience means anything at all. It is important that you know that. It will be much less confusing for you if you do.

Why...What Do I Mean By That?
When we nuts tell you that ''everyone'' by mocking, ridiculing, threatening, pounding on our walls or windows, robbing us etc... we don't literally mean; every single person we see everywhere, everyday. We mean "everybody" in the same generalized sense that YOU mean it when YOU say "everybody knows the truth." Do you believe that? That ALL people hold the same truth to be self evident? Yet when you say this, it is not seen as a "symptom" of yours is it?

Let me put it to you this way. How many times per day of being mocked, ridiculed, threatened, verbally abused, talked about in the third person, and "interpreted" by others etc. do you think would be enough to make it seem like "everybody" was involved in your invalidation and vicitimization? 10 times? 20 times? 40 times? Do you think the stress would be a problem for you? Also, do you think if that was ongoing, month after month, year after year, and you were not "allowed" by the mental health profession (or perhaps a "loving" family member) to complain about it, ( since that also is a "sign") that the unrelieved stress and pressure which continued, more so because of the enforced silence about it, might actually CAUSE a psychotic episode to occur?
If the coercive tactic used to silence your complaints was more "treatment" how would you feel about psychiatry? Grateful? How would you feel knowing that if you were to break because you can't get out from under the load of never ending, and increasing stress, that those who have caused it are likely to use the fact that you broke as justification for 'treating" what they caused, and that there is no possible way out of the metaphysical trap? For they also say that the cause is NOT stress. What would you say or do to change that situation?

Cause And Effect:
Fear, which is prolonged by the denial of the patient's reality; the non stop invalidation, reductionism and head games that follow, is the cause of the schizophrenic reaction to the ''diagnostic'' event.

It is NOT an effect related to nothing but the patient's supposedly ''defective'' brain, nor is it the ''cure'' as psychiatry has spent much of it's time imagining it to be.

Mysterious Message
Will the old horse win, show, place, or lose?
If given odds, what do you think the chances would be that you will ever understand the human being assigned the role of "patient" whom you will not "allow" to tell you anything you'd rather not know, nor ask you any questions that you don't like?

I think they are slim to none.
My two protagonists however, are most appreciative of that trait in you, since it keeps both of them in control of me, and everyone else they have manipulated to accept the 'reality' of THEIR definition and "interpretations." That is what It is about you know. Creating and defining reality itself for all others.
You are supporting a very REAL and effective metaphysical power for BOTH of them. Congratulations on accepting a role you did not know you were playing. You must be so proud to be in a position to help those altruistic souls who only want to "help" horrible, ungrateful ME.

What Are We Forgiving Exactly?
Before there comes a need to forgive someone it is necessary to recognize that your boundaries have been violated in some way. if there is no violation, there is nothing to forgive is there?
So, why do you keep telling us we must "forgive" those who claim they have done nothing, and that we are "crazy" because we 'think" they have? Are you encouraging us in our "delusions"? Are you promoting our "grandiosity?"

We inferior minds find this quite confusing.

Drugs Are The Answer?
Drug addicted people swallow things so that they won't have to feel any negative emotions nor work their way through, what is often, very painful growth, and "crazy" people try to resist swallowing things so they can feel their emotions, negative ones included, and work their way out of the numbness and through very painful problems and growth to acceptance of their personal realities.

The addicted are generally much more co-operative with psychiatrists and much easier to handle than the non compliant resistant ones like myself.

How Does Psychosis Feel?
I am glad you didn't ask me that. I will tell you anyway.
Psychosis is like having a suddenly clear, full view of the nightmare reality all around you while knowing you are the only one at the time who really sees it. It is like suddenly being all alone in a dark and empty universe. It is like sitting on the razor's edge of sanity/insanity and both have lost any true meaning.
Unfortunately, those who "help" you, seeing nothing, work very hard at pulling you all the way over the edge in the wrong direction, so that you will deny the Fantasy World we have all created together in our denial of what is.
These are the people in charge of your assessment. You will be assimilated into Groupthink. Resistance is futile.

On Being Cost-Effective
It is not considered to be cost-efective to waste time talking to people you have labeled so that you don't have to waste any time talking to labeled people.


Well Oiled Machine
You are trying to run the system like a well oiled machine.
As one who's head has been caught in the gears, I fear your efforts will be completely successful.


Less Than Human
If you consistently treat people as if they were less than human, eventually, you are likely to get a less than human response.
If that response then validates your subjectively projected expectations and beliefs, they will be reinforced for you.
If you and your beliefs are continually reinforced, it is unlikely that you will question yourself.
If you don't question yourself, you will not "allow'' those you consider to be less than human to question you either.
If those you now control can't ask you any questions, nor tell you anything that would give you the information you need to solve the problem, neither you, nor they, can find any answers.
The failure to ask any questions that allow you to find the answers you need, makes you less than human.
When you are less than human you can't relate to human beings and human beings can't relate to you and expect to be heard.

My Question:
Why do psychiatrists wonder why their patients won't talk to them?


Costing or Saving?
The personal lives and experiences of individuals cannot be defined with abstract concepts used for cost-effective convenience. What you ''save'' now is costing us all, both now and in the future. (for as long as we still have a future anyway.)

End the co-dependent dance marathon. Simplify. It is the basic premise of relationship that matters, not sorting out the complex chaos created by those spending their lives dancing away from the perfectly obvious just as far and as fast as they can.

Invisibility/Inaudibility Disorder

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

This is the disorder which allows the sufferer to be verbally/psychologically abusive to others based on the belief that he or she is ‘superior’ to the other and has therefore been rendered invisible or inaudible. This ‘disorder’ frees one to act out in contempt and disdain and excuse oneself for it, by projecting one’s own character flaws onto the other.

This is a disorder that has reached epidemic proportions, especially in A.C.T. communities where involving the dysfunctional masses has now become the pretty much the norm. It is sustained through group reinforcement. That reinforcement is based on a ‘righteousness’ generally accompanied by indignation if the behaviour is challenged, or if someone should suggest that the group members are wrong for doing what they do.
What is ‘right’ in such groups is defined by the agreements reached by the majority of members of the group, as if reality could be defined for others by means of a democratic vote.
This is, of course, also how the mob mentality is enabled and supported.

However, if the language used to describe it is tailored to fit the emotional needs of the mob members, such a reaction can be made to seem ‘normal’. They aren’t a ‘mob’ if they are a ‘social club,’ or religions, or a family, or mental health professionals now are they?

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.

I/Thou Communications

Personal Responsibility and Inclusion in Groups
By Patricia Lefave, Labeled, D.D.(P)

When you read the title of this do you tend to think this is about you or about "them"? If it is one or the other to you, you don't yet understand the topic or the principle needed to integrate these "opposites."

I have been talking to several people recently (Synchronistically?) about the same often repeated problem. How do we behave responsibly as a member of a group, without sacrificing our individualism, or dealing with our sometimes profound differences without resorting to exclusionary methods to do it? What principle do we use to create an atmosphere of inclusion without letting everything go to the point of creating chaos or or meaninglessness at the same time?

What I think a lot of us are really trying to do is recreate community, without belonging to a commmunity which overshadows or negates us as unique individuals. That can seem like a pretty trick balancing act much of the time.Shall there be rules of procedure or not?



This can be a particularly touchy topic for those who have been controlled by others and "ruled" into a state of near non being. Still, we also know the tendency of some individuals (often those creating the rules too) to try to take over completely and invalidate any point of view that questions of disagrees with his or her own.
So for me, I believe the community playing field must be levelled from the start so that all participants know exactly what they can, and cannot, do in such a community. I believe there must be minimal rules but very clear and concise. If not adhered to, the results must be the same for one and all, for only under such circumstances can true equality exist, grow and thrive.

Perhaps such groups which desire this kind of integration of opposites (for we are one AND we are many) should start the process with a simple statement.

"There IS an "I" in this Tieam."

This team includes: Thou, I, Each, All Members.




So, how do we act on that idea?
here are the rules:

Each member on the team must or may:

1. Offer abstract ideas to the group when they have one and/or
2. Question abstract ideas offered by others and/or
3. Offer his/her own FEELINGS and/or
4. Speak at all times when offering specific examples in the first person singular only.

When responding to the offering of another, and when not in full agreement with the ideas offered, the individual responding must offer his or her own experience as the example by speaking while using exactly the same rules.

We keep the words "you" and "they" out of the communication completely. Using this communication style in a group is hard to get used to at first but can accomplish two things simultaneously.

1. The speaker hears and self validates his or her own experience apart from the details of that of others, just by the act of speaking it. It also leaves some room for the speaker to change his or her mind on any or all of the narrative without any pressure from, or obligation to, others to do so.

2. It freely offers information to other group members which each one of them can also accept or reject without any pressure or obligation to do so either.

3. It leaves "debating" out of the presentation and keeps the flow of ideas going. In this way we come together as one unit since we all accept the same principle, at the same time that we are all protecting the rights of the individual to perceive his/her own reality from a unique and valid point of view. It also will keep the individual from being overwhelmed by the group, or pressured into acceptance of something he or she does not really want as the price of "belonging." It creates intimacy rather than enmeshment.

How is this enforced?

A facilitator removes any communications that are outside the stated parameters of inclusion based solely on communication STYLE, not content, personality, or status etc. The same few simple rules apply to all.
The person whose communication has been removed but who wants to continue in the group can do so at any time, without censure or even comment on any previous communications, simply by adopting the simple rules and contributing again by using them. He or she may be saying basically the same things and presenting the same ideas as far as content goes, but only be changing the form of presentation to a non threatening, mutual respecting one.

We could think of it like cooking up a new plan of action. As with cooking, it may not be any real difference in ingredients that makes one dish more popular than another. It may only be the presentation.

The greatest changes in the world are not brought about by those who lecture to others from a 'superior' position about how those others should be and what they should do, but rather by those who have offered themselves as examples for others who are looking for new ways of BEING in the world, while fully acknowledging the right of all others to do the same.

Same Geometry: Different Equation

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

“Want to feel better? Take a pill.
Want to get it right? Face the truth.”
FBI Psychiatrist to Agent Don Epps on the series “Numb3rs”

Messages off the T.V. just for psychiatrists. This piece is about the meaning of two very different points of view on the same geometrical shape; the Box.
(It is no accident that I named one of my blogs using this shape)

In the world we live in, in this time and in this place, all centres (the nexus) of meaning have two possible outcomes and all boxes have four sides. Boxes can be protective packages or claustrophobic containers. The difference in the same shape of things (like boxes) depends upon the principles used by both those INSIDE the box, and those OUTSIDE the box.

What do I mean by the nexus of meaning?
This is something many of the psychiatrists and psychiatrized don't really understand. In this example, a box is a box right?
Well, not really. Let me give you another very concrete example so that you can see it and hear it better.

If you and I are having a discussion about something, the first thing we tend to assume is that we are talking about the same thing.
Suppose the subject being talked about is an apple. We both visualize out of our own experience, what it is we are talking about as we understand it, don't we? But, what if we, in our training, were taught that an orange is an apple?
If I say ''apple'' then I mean apple but YOU may visualize an orange when you hear the same word. So, if I don't describe in more concrete terms what I MEAN by an "apple" you and I will keep to our own understanding. It is unlikely that I would describe an apple, as I would assume that it is so obvious that we both already know and I would also feel very patronizing to do so. In fact, it is unlikely that I would even consider the idea that anyone does NOT know what an apple actually is.




How do we usually discover, if ever, that we and the dysfunctional other are talking from different premises of belief and actually we are not communicating at all?
Let’s continue to use this simple problem of apple identification as the example.
One day, the psychiatrist who is determined to save me, whether I want his brand of ‘saving’ or not, decides that he and his patient should continue their sanity spot check chat on his coffee break.
(I know. I know. I can see all of you psychiatrized just rolling your eyes over this and saying,” Come ON lady. Get real. What psychiatrist would ever relate to a patient like that?” It’s my fantasy example for purposes of demonstration only so don’t you all get bent out of shape.)
Off go the great doctor and his poor, confused patient to the cafeteria for the coffee break together, where both pull out a brown bag for a snack. “Oh,” says the doctor, trying to sound chummy, “What did you bring for a snack today?”
“An apple,” she tells him.
“What a coincidence,” he says, “So did I.”
They then reach into their two bags and both pull out their apples.
Epiphany! All has suddenly become clear to Schizo Sally.
Unfortunately, the doctor remains quite puzzled. Of course, he does not communicate this directly to Sally as he doesn’t want to confuse poor Sally any more than she already is. Instead, he wonders to himself, “Why on earth would she think that onion was an apple? She must have some deep seated need to deny her own lack of understanding no matter how obvious it is to me. I think I should talk over this fascinating case with a large group of my colleagues. Maybe if we speculate about it long enough in a big enough groupthink session, we might be able to find a way to help poor Sally with her Fruit Identity Delusion.” (FID)
Of course to Sally, he just says, (while smirking slightly) “Well. That’s a very interesting apple you have there. Did you notice though that it looks quite different from mine”?

“Why yes,” answers Schizo Sal, “I finally see it looks quite different to both of us.”
Breakthrough! They both think to themselves simultaneously. Perhaps there is hope for change after all. Both smiling at the thought, Sally bites into her apple and the doctor begins to peel his own.


On the other side of this nexus of meaning, in which we are using the same WORDS, but do not mean the same thing, you sit and listen to me certain that you know an orange is an apple. Since that is obvious to you too, you don't explain it further or describe it either. Both of us believe, at least for some period of time, that we are talking about the same thing and communicating well. Before too long though, it becomes apparent that we really aren't communicating about the same thing at all; at least, we aren't understanding the meaning in the same way.

Now, if you want to see INTENT to create chaos and confusion by someone, you need to look past the two people talking about the apple, while believing they mean the same thing, to the individual who taught the child (secretly) that an orange was an apple.

Suppose that person who did the teaching was fully aware that he was creating confusion for the child and everyone else involved? Suppose he did that because he (secretly) enjoyed the rush of power he felt by knowing he was controlling everyone else's perception of reality by doing it. Would knowing that about him change your perception and the way you understood what was happening with everyone else involved?
Think about it. Then think about your judgements of the child who was taught an orange was an apple and didn't question that teaching because he or she could so no reason for the adult to teach him something that was all wrong. Now think about that child growing up, and still believing it, and perhaps becoming a psychiatrist in an honest and heartfelt attempt, filled to the brim with good intentions and motivation, to explain to those lost "others" the true meaning and nature of an apple. He would be certain he understood it better than those poor misguided others who were so obviously confused whenever he tried to explain it to them; the poor things. He would notice that some of them even believed that they understood the nature of an apple BETTER than he! Imagine! The grandiosity of them.

What manifests as reality in the world IS a matter of "perspective." To assume certain people have cornered the market on universal truth and therefore, should be granted the power to IMPOSE their truth on others is a very scary business, especially when you are one of those "Others" upon whom it is being imposed, and seeing beyond the assumptions being used as the foundation of those judgements.

If we decided we both had a problem with this lack of understanding, we might decide to explore our mutual confusion and get to the root of the problem.
If, however, one of us always assumed ourselves to be right and the 'sane' one, and the other to be wrong and the 'insane' one, the chances that we would ever learn the truth about the real source of the problem would be slim to none.
If the sure one was then given concrete power also over the one who saw things differently, a permanent imbalance of power would be created between the two and equality, the right and the obligation to Self control, freedom of thought and speech, would soon disappear. In such a case, the one that believed oranges were apples would soon rule the world. An alternate reality has now been born; a reality which is alien to the one we knew before. It is a political reality which promotes and supports the unconscious state as the desirable one.

Sanity and insanity, a split perception of one reality, used to defend positions and beliefs, and to control those "Others' who don't share them, is basically a human construct. It is often used to justify a ''them'' and ''us'' mentality. It actually CREATES what it invents itself and then needs to control. What it really controls though is the collective fears of humanity which do not then get questioned, faced or dealt with in any way that brings real resolution for all.

That very small difference at the outset of communication, at the source or the nexus of meaning, can create a growing and complex chaos which completely obfuscates reality. To take a closer look at this problem and the power of what Robert Jay Lifton, M.D. calls "Loaded Language," please read his article posted here under Titled:

Thought Reform

...meaning the same thing. That mutual reality begins to 'split' the instant we begin to project our own separate visualizations of an apple into the same word used to name it.

What I have learned from my own experience is that it is not really anything complex that dysfunctional humans don't understand. It is most often the simple and the obvious. It also does not matter WHO the dysfunctional one is, or the role they play. Whether it's family members, workplaces, school groups or mental health pros themselves, the problem is the dysfunctional system itself, and in dysfunction, "insanity" is an equal opportunity possibility.

Here is a concise definition of the difference between the two identical shapes, the ''boxes'' by which we define ourselves and others; the "boxes" in which we pack up our psycho-spiritual ''apples.''

The Box that Disintegrates and Disempowers: creates chaos, power struggles, claustrophobia and confusion.

The Box offers those inside it a choice; that of individuality OR belonging to the whole. The four side of this box are built of these principles:

1. Choosing to accept being controlled by others

OR

2. Choosing to be the one doing the controlling.

3. Choosing to be an individual without regard for the rest of humanity as a group

OR

4. Choosing to have concern ONLY for others without equal concern for oneself.


The Box that Integrates and Empowers: creates individuality and belonging.
(Notice I said ‘and’ here and not ‘or.’)

The four sides of the protective box are these:

1. To choose giving up the attempt to control others
AND
2. Blocking the attempts of others to control you.

3. To place a high value on our individuality and self control apart from others
AND
4. To place an equally high value on the rest of humanity’s right to do the same while being a member ourselves of THAT same group.


The first one is frequently presented as a ‘choice’ between presumed opposites; between two ways of being, with nothing outside the choice being offered. That choice, being promoted as reality is just an illusion. The second set of choices stated is the same shape of reality but this one empowers the individual AND respects the right of others to be personally empowered in the same way.

Both of these boxes have four sides but one of them is roomy comfortable empowering and protective and the other is confining, controlling, chaotic and disempowering. As with all things of opposite meaning, it is not the fact that we are in a box that matters; it is of WHAT the box is constructed. That is the only part over which we have any real control, either from inside it, or from outside it. We have to be able to see that control before we can use it well.

Gone Fission: An Evolutionary Process

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

This is a little parable I once wrote in my recovery therapy in an attempt to
get through to the system. I had already learned that the truth was not being heard so I launched into metaphor, likely confirming the diagnosis in the process. Of course that was before I realized virtually everything I said was going to be psychiatrized. Now I know better.
Still I wanted to share this little analogy with my psychiatrized friends and
any others who might be able to discover the hidden meaning within it.
Hope you enjoy this little tale.

Gone Fission: An Evolutionary Process

Once upon a time there was a planet upon which lived a group of inhabitants who called themselves ‘Fish.’
They were a wonderfully caring group trying to make sure that everyone who lived there was as healthy as possible. They worked as a team to try to achieve this goal. They lived by healthy mottoes like:
“Our wellness starts with YOU!’ (Rather that ‘me’) and also ‘There is no ‘I’ in ‘team.”

One day, one of the Fish started to think unusual thoughts and told one of the other fish about it. He said, “I keep thinking I would like to get out of the water and go to see how those trees in the woods look from the perspective of standing beneath them.”
All the rest of the Fish were horribly alarmed when they heard about this.
“Oh my goodness” they said. “Something has gone terribly wrong with Fission.( for Fission the Fish was his name and powerful expansion was his game) “We’ve got to save him!”

No matter how much they all tried to reason with poor Fission though, he kept right on saying the same crazy things.
Next thing you know, Fission got an even WORSE problem. There were tow tumorous masses developing on his underbelly. So, the caring community all worked together to for Fissions’ own good and they never gave up hope. Of curse, Fission was so sick, he denied that he was sick but that did not deter this community, oh no. They searched until they found an answer for Fission’s problems.

Eventually they discovered a plant that when fed to fission dulled his mind enough to make him stop having those awful delusional thoughts about going to the woods and looking at trees. They also found a way to cut the tumorous growths from his underbelly. Still, there was more trouble to come and it seemed to them at times that God had sent a plague of ills to them. No sooner was Fission cured then many, many others began to suffer form the same afflictions.

The School (of Fish) decided in their group wisdom, that it was probably something in the environment or perhaps it was even genetic. Though they couldn’t find a way to cure it, they nevertheless managed to keep it under control and to find a way to ensure that everyone could have as normal a life as was fishly possible . They really were a marvelously caring community.
In time however, the oceans became polluted, terribly overpopulated, and their ability to sustain life was depleted. Life on the planet of the caring Fish ceased to exist.

However, at least before they all died together they could console themselves with the knowledge that they had managed to solve the problem of those awful tumours. Also, when they died, not one of those Fish suffered from those terrible and confusing delusions a bout walking around in the woods as a Fish out of water.

Thanks to their team work and their agreement to all work towards the same goal, at least they all died in perfect health.