As a schizophrenic myself, I have learned “behavioral health” and I appear normal, but I have symptoms that I hide on a daily basis. This world that humans have created is not a world we can live in and remain sane. I try to get back to Nature as much as possible and I practice mindfulness and living in the present moment. I’ve learned coping skills, and I do take some medication, but I spent a good part of 30 years being over-medicated. I have finally climbed out of the abyss and am trying to keep my symptoms at bay. It’s a struggle but life is good for now and I don’t take that for granted.
The split between soul and body is a big factor in diagnosed “disorders.” We have so much to work through, particularly in the Western world, to educate and invite people back into their own embodied, creative, fiery and alive connection.
I think of David Bowie and his schizophrenic brother. Bowie could’ve been labeled in that way, perhaps, but he channeled his energy and visions into his art. His brother did not. They ended up experiencing life very differently. Thank you for this. ❤️
"We have so much to work through, particularly in the Western world," and a lot of that work has to do with transforming grief that grew up and 'solidified' around trauma.
Absolutely! Unprocessed grief stored in the body is so real and has a large impact on our ability to be present, embody choice, and allow room for more experiences. Thanks for this reflection!
I have a step-daughter in Switzerland (trained as an art therapist) who works in a fantastic 'creative arts' place where people rehabilitating go to express themselves through pottery, printing, painting, wood-work, textiles, and more besides. It's not considfered 'therapy' but by learning a creative skill and working with it, it acts as a stabiliser for people with otherwise social and mental problems.
That’s beautiful, Joshua! I’ve done a couple of art therapy sessions with a friend specifically focused on grief as one of the communities I support is to honor grief as a threshold for spiritual transformation. The friend is one of our community tenders. The sessions I attended were so powerful! Kudos to your step daughter for embracing such powerful work. 🌹
I like this final bit: “Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.” This reminds me of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
I have immense sympathy for anyone with serious - or even minor - mental illness. The problem with asserting that schizophrenics are the new normal is that they can not function in our society and probably could not function in any other society, including hunter-gatherer (unless they were considered shamans, which is a stretch.) I haven't known many schizophrenics, but those I have known have been tragically troubled and incapable of forming lasting relationships of any kind. To hold them up as heroes is unfair to all of us.
My wife and I met in a class featuring R.D. Laing and his iconoclastic truths re navigating an insane society have sustained us through the decades.
In fact, she (Dr. Manya Magnus) and I and our friend poet Cathy Eisenhower are developing a performative, poetic "installation" based on Laing's works to be debuted in Washington D.C this late spring.
His views are neither scientific nor helpful and by muddying the waters between true organic psychosis and neurotic responses to society he condemned the minority who recover from serious mental health problems to a future of misplaced anger, grief and uncertainty. Very poetic though.
Exactly the charges leveled against him by the psychiatric profession when he was alive and taking on cases no one else could deal with. Fortunately his legacy, difficult man though he was, is established and secure. Hurling the word "unscientific" like an epithet doesn't do it any more.
Whether or not he had evidence, he bought in and fed in to myth about mental illness. I'm not intending to say that there isn't reason to blame societal structures and nurture within the nuclear family for things like depression and neurotic anxiety, however to reduce serious mental health problems like bi-polarity or psychosis to being caused by social 'knots', can create more problems than it solves for individuals. He may have taken on a lot more cases than he resolved by blaming mothers and fathers. Most medics, doctors and psychiatrists do have to employ scientific methods.
We are bio-fodder for the money-as-debt-capitalist-machine. Staying centred enough to be able to negotiate this mad world is our challenge. My sympathy is with those who barely cope, or who can't cope at all. They're all around me.
However much I dislike being Sour Smurf I feel obliged to share some of my experiences from 35 years of working in mental health services:
The mental disorders are for an overwhelming majority true disorders with a biological component that is very significant. Believing that a serious and often lethal disorder like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder is a healthy reaction to a sick society is at best rooted in a fundamental lack of knowledge of the field and at worst a an serious lack of empathy for the suffering of those with mental disorders.
Plenty of studies shown that the prevalence of these health issues are the same across both time and space. There is very little variation across very different cultures.
The antipathy towards mental disorders may stem from an ancient believe in the perfect soul of man. But, alas, the brain, like any organ, can malfunction and be unbalanced - not as a response to society, but because disorders are and dysfunctions are rather commonplace in a highly complex organism like man.
So let’s us not romanticize the people with mental health issues
“…neurosis is…a defense…or an attempt, somewhat dearly paid for, to escape from the inner voice and hence from the vocation…Behind the neurotic perversion is concealed his vocation, his destiny: the growth of personality, the full realization of the life-will that is born with the individual. It is the man without amor fati [love of fate] who is the neurotic; he, truly, has missed his vocation.”
"Normal" is a standard imposed by society to ensure we fit in and align with its expectations, often discouraging us from deviating too far from the accepted norms. But how "normal" were individuals like Vincent van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya, Martin Luther, etc. for the society of their time?
Those commenters do have a point, who say clinical mental illness should not be equated with "mere" non-conformity. Yet while chemical imbalances in humans certainly exist, when people feel alone and/or without a responsible role in society they are also likely to develop neuroses. Different cause, same result?
This post makes me think of Ian McGilchrist and his book , The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World. He has a website and his book is a 4.8 on Amazon. He basically thinks we and the modern world has made us too left brained and the left brain is too dominant and we need not to forget the Right side and the function of the right side. I think he covers schizophrenia. It’s worth checking out. He shares poetry on his website.
That photo of the people in boxes is the way I felt before fleeing from my home town and its theocratic normalities. So glad I freed myself, but other forms of normal, as Laing describes, were certainly awaiting my conformity. It's difficult, although not impossible, to create spurts of productive rebellion in the quest for sanity. Another psychiatrist, whose name is lost to me, said, "people in graveyards are permanently well-adjusted."
As a schizophrenic myself, I have learned “behavioral health” and I appear normal, but I have symptoms that I hide on a daily basis. This world that humans have created is not a world we can live in and remain sane. I try to get back to Nature as much as possible and I practice mindfulness and living in the present moment. I’ve learned coping skills, and I do take some medication, but I spent a good part of 30 years being over-medicated. I have finally climbed out of the abyss and am trying to keep my symptoms at bay. It’s a struggle but life is good for now and I don’t take that for granted.
Rooting for you, Magnolia! You are awesome!
Well done you. Sending hugs...cause that small physical action is SO powerful! Xx
Oh such a great pressure for you, thank you so much for sharing. Love and cwtches to you 🤗💜
The split between soul and body is a big factor in diagnosed “disorders.” We have so much to work through, particularly in the Western world, to educate and invite people back into their own embodied, creative, fiery and alive connection.
I think of David Bowie and his schizophrenic brother. Bowie could’ve been labeled in that way, perhaps, but he channeled his energy and visions into his art. His brother did not. They ended up experiencing life very differently. Thank you for this. ❤️
"We have so much to work through, particularly in the Western world," and a lot of that work has to do with transforming grief that grew up and 'solidified' around trauma.
Absolutely! Unprocessed grief stored in the body is so real and has a large impact on our ability to be present, embody choice, and allow room for more experiences. Thanks for this reflection!
I have a step-daughter in Switzerland (trained as an art therapist) who works in a fantastic 'creative arts' place where people rehabilitating go to express themselves through pottery, printing, painting, wood-work, textiles, and more besides. It's not considfered 'therapy' but by learning a creative skill and working with it, it acts as a stabiliser for people with otherwise social and mental problems.
That’s beautiful, Joshua! I’ve done a couple of art therapy sessions with a friend specifically focused on grief as one of the communities I support is to honor grief as a threshold for spiritual transformation. The friend is one of our community tenders. The sessions I attended were so powerful! Kudos to your step daughter for embracing such powerful work. 🌹
Yes. I wonder if R.D. Laing and David Bowie ever met? The course their mingling energies might have taken is impossible to imagine.
Same with Stanley Turrentine and his alcoholic brother. Probably many other sibling pairs as well.
Yes, so many relatable experiences. Sadly.
Normal is just a setting on a washing machine
I like this final bit: “Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.” This reminds me of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
Yes Bradbury, or a translation of Vonnegut.
Really liked your post today.
I have immense sympathy for anyone with serious - or even minor - mental illness. The problem with asserting that schizophrenics are the new normal is that they can not function in our society and probably could not function in any other society, including hunter-gatherer (unless they were considered shamans, which is a stretch.) I haven't known many schizophrenics, but those I have known have been tragically troubled and incapable of forming lasting relationships of any kind. To hold them up as heroes is unfair to all of us.
R.D Laing is someone to read, and remember and read again when life seems too much to bear.
My wife and I met in a class featuring R.D. Laing and his iconoclastic truths re navigating an insane society have sustained us through the decades.
In fact, she (Dr. Manya Magnus) and I and our friend poet Cathy Eisenhower are developing a performative, poetic "installation" based on Laing's works to be debuted in Washington D.C this late spring.
His views are neither scientific nor helpful and by muddying the waters between true organic psychosis and neurotic responses to society he condemned the minority who recover from serious mental health problems to a future of misplaced anger, grief and uncertainty. Very poetic though.
Exactly the charges leveled against him by the psychiatric profession when he was alive and taking on cases no one else could deal with. Fortunately his legacy, difficult man though he was, is established and secure. Hurling the word "unscientific" like an epithet doesn't do it any more.
Whether or not he had evidence, he bought in and fed in to myth about mental illness. I'm not intending to say that there isn't reason to blame societal structures and nurture within the nuclear family for things like depression and neurotic anxiety, however to reduce serious mental health problems like bi-polarity or psychosis to being caused by social 'knots', can create more problems than it solves for individuals. He may have taken on a lot more cases than he resolved by blaming mothers and fathers. Most medics, doctors and psychiatrists do have to employ scientific methods.
So much is known, recognized and understood.... it seems as if Status Quo constantly tries to crush self-conciousness....
We are bio-fodder for the money-as-debt-capitalist-machine. Staying centred enough to be able to negotiate this mad world is our challenge. My sympathy is with those who barely cope, or who can't cope at all. They're all around me.
However much I dislike being Sour Smurf I feel obliged to share some of my experiences from 35 years of working in mental health services:
The mental disorders are for an overwhelming majority true disorders with a biological component that is very significant. Believing that a serious and often lethal disorder like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder is a healthy reaction to a sick society is at best rooted in a fundamental lack of knowledge of the field and at worst a an serious lack of empathy for the suffering of those with mental disorders.
Plenty of studies shown that the prevalence of these health issues are the same across both time and space. There is very little variation across very different cultures.
The antipathy towards mental disorders may stem from an ancient believe in the perfect soul of man. But, alas, the brain, like any organ, can malfunction and be unbalanced - not as a response to society, but because disorders are and dysfunctions are rather commonplace in a highly complex organism like man.
So let’s us not romanticize the people with mental health issues
There is no noble savage and no noble insanity
“…neurosis is…a defense…or an attempt, somewhat dearly paid for, to escape from the inner voice and hence from the vocation…Behind the neurotic perversion is concealed his vocation, his destiny: the growth of personality, the full realization of the life-will that is born with the individual. It is the man without amor fati [love of fate] who is the neurotic; he, truly, has missed his vocation.”
—Carl Jung
"Normal" is a standard imposed by society to ensure we fit in and align with its expectations, often discouraging us from deviating too far from the accepted norms. But how "normal" were individuals like Vincent van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Goya, Martin Luther, etc. for the society of their time?
I really love this post!
Those commenters do have a point, who say clinical mental illness should not be equated with "mere" non-conformity. Yet while chemical imbalances in humans certainly exist, when people feel alone and/or without a responsible role in society they are also likely to develop neuroses. Different cause, same result?
This post makes me think of Ian McGilchrist and his book , The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World. He has a website and his book is a 4.8 on Amazon. He basically thinks we and the modern world has made us too left brained and the left brain is too dominant and we need not to forget the Right side and the function of the right side. I think he covers schizophrenia. It’s worth checking out. He shares poetry on his website.
That photo of the people in boxes is the way I felt before fleeing from my home town and its theocratic normalities. So glad I freed myself, but other forms of normal, as Laing describes, were certainly awaiting my conformity. It's difficult, although not impossible, to create spurts of productive rebellion in the quest for sanity. Another psychiatrist, whose name is lost to me, said, "people in graveyards are permanently well-adjusted."