Sane Privilege
Posted on June 1, 2015 in Authoritarianism Class Psycho-bunk Stigma
For Larry Drain.
The sane are not like you or me, nor, understandably, do they want to be. But they also don’t want us to be like we are and they have the power to thwart and make our lives more difficult, power that they exercise to protect their own status, power that they strive to deny us at every turn. Being sane frees them from the burden of stigma (which they don’t want to admit exists or harms so that they can use it to control us) and gives them access to special privileges, jobs, privacy, etc. which are denied to us.
Observe the way they identify themselves. They call themselves “human beings” “people” or “just plain folks”. They do not mention whether they are afflicted or unafflicted, abled or disabled; they decline to state their social class, their race, their gender, their sexual preference, their sex. They think they are being inclusive, but their actions speak otherwise. They refuse to recognize the unique perspectives that those of us with mental illness bring to the table. What sounds like a language of inclusion is actually one calculated to exclude the expression of our views and needs.
When one is privileged, one gets to set the rules. Police officers in Abilene, Texas, instead of trained medical professionals, for example, get to decide who needs to go to the hospital or not. Courts get to decide whether our mental illness plays a part in the crimes we sometimes commit. Police departments are allowed to declare whether shooting a suicidal man is justified or not. Input on these rules from the people who most affected by such rules is seldom solicited or taken seriously among the privileged. They can do what they want and they see nothing wrong with the hegemony of their views.
Dreams
Posted on May 31, 2015 in Dreams
In the first dream, I have a job at a radio station playing music. It’s almost my time slot, so I go to look for something to play. Everywhere I look, I can only find a few records if any at all. I run around the station — which is very large and filled with shops — but I can’t find the kind of music I like to play for my show.
In another dream, I remember being on a bus that stops in Louisville, Kentucky (where I have never been except in a dream). I am in some kind of aquarium/zoo when this memory comes to me. I am on a platform overlooking a swimming pool, watching the water with Lynn?, and a couple of girls, one a teenager and another younger. The little girl fixates on a seal which comes to the surface for a breath. It goes underwater and she loses it, but I see where it has gone and point it out to her. I turn my back and when I look back, she has jumped off the platform and jumped into the pool to pet the seal. There is an alarm and a panic. The operators of the attraction turn the platform away so we are looking at what people standing in line are doing. I briefly wonder if we are going to get a refund.
A Mental Health Advocacy Manifesto
Posted on May 29, 2015 in Authoritarianism Caretakers Hospitals and Prisons Psycho-bunk Stigma
In the course of Mental Health Illness Awareness Month I have shared my perspective on many issues involving those of us who live with organic brain dysfunctions. Now that we approach the end of the time of the lime green ribbon, I think it behooves me to share with you where I think mental health advocates should and shouldn’t go at this time.
The following planks are given in no particular order; though I have striven to put the most important near the top, all should be considered.
Meet the Duggars: The Sane Get a Free Pass
Posted on May 28, 2015 in Authoritarianism Clueless Oafs Hypocrites Stigma
More powerful and dangerous to the Mind than mental illness is Ideology. That is the lesson we are learning from the recent scandal involving the reality television show stars, The Duggars. You can mark The Duggars as vehement as one can be: a family of 21 ruled by an autocratic, “Christian” father who expects his wife and children to honor his every command. They are politically conservative — in 2002, Jim Bob Duggar advocated the death penalty for incest. But like presidential candidate Jeb Bush — who advocated severe penalties for drug users but treated his own daughter to rehab — Jim Bob Duggar is a hypocrite. When his fourteen-year-old son, Josh, molested his sisters, the patriarch was lenient. Because he feared the injection of ideas into his son’s head that he did not want there, Duggar sent his son off to work on the floor in a friend’s house for a few months instead of to a therapist. When the son returned, Duggar had a police officer friend — who has since been convicted for child pornography — give the boy a stern lecture. Josh Duggar grew up and got a job with a faith-based family values organization, a position he held until his predilection for “dating” his sisters was revealed to the world. Nothing was done for the violated daughters.
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The Police War on the Mentally Ill
Posted on May 26, 2015 in Accountability Authoritarianism Stigma Violence
I believe that the mentally ill — like all other Americans — have certain basic civil rights, among these being the right of security from harm by those charged with enforcing the laws. I am against forced treatment except when there is a clear danger to self or others as proved in a court of law. Time and again, I have read about times when cops have been called out to handle a suicide and ended the incident by killing a mentally ill man. That some people who claim to be advocates for the mentally ill explain away these shootings as justified and declare that the police are our friends should disturb us all.
It is not surprising that prominent forced medication and mental hospital advocates are jumping to the defense of the police: they must make mental illness the villain at all costs. They don’t care about who dies as a martyr to their cause, just so they gain the upper hand. Control is their aim.
Video: My Life with Bipolar Disorder: Part 1, Diagnosis
Posted on May 26, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Video
Playbuzz Petition
Posted on May 21, 2015 in Abuse Netiots Stigma The InterNet
I am deeply disturbed by the recent quiz on Playbuzz that purports to inform its takers whether or not they are bipolar. For this reason I have composed the following petition on change.org which I ask you to sign and circulate among your friends:
Is “It Does Something” A Reason for Supporting Murphy’s Law?
Posted on May 18, 2015 in Accountability Insurance Medical Ethics Psycho-bunk Stigma
The proponents of Murphy’s Law have been using mass murders to frighten people into a law that erodes HIPAA protections, requires states to implement forced medication, and politicizes the Federal agencies responsible for overseeing mental health concerns. I have watched as one of their leaders likened support groups to appendectomy patients performing the surgery on the patient on the next gurney, called for the return of mental hospitals, called nonprofits aiding the mentally ill “the mental health industry”, and urged that we should stop talking about stigma. This gives me every reason to distrust him and any program he endorses, but many have bought his argument that we should support Tim Murphy’s Families in Mental Health Crisis Act because “it does something for the mentally ill”.
Now I agree that the system is broken and in deep crisis. Even the best community mental health services are in constant danger from funding cuts and fail to deliver services to all the afflicted. Group homes are privatized and overcrowded. Patients end up in jail because they can’t get treatment through other channels.
Selected as a Bipolar Blog of the Year
Posted on May 15, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Gratitude
I am a little shy about tooting my own horn, but word came to me via Twitter that I was selected by Healthline as one of their top bipolar blogs of 2017. Bit of a surprise since I feel I struggle unrecognized much of the time and unread — at least if I go by the comments. Still it is nice to know that I am seen out there along with some of the best:
Pax Nortona is a blog penned by writer and bipolar sufferer Joel Sax. From the first post you read, you’ll see that this blog is different from the rest. Sax writes very personally on the subject of bipolar as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He also composes short creative pieces and philosophical musings.
Add Pax Nortona to your list of blogs to read for regularly updated and highly readable reflections from someone who knows what it’s like to live with mental illness.
Let’s hope that I forget this by the time that my next episode of grandiosity swings by. I’ll be unbearable.
Are Mental Hospitals Going to Be Better Than Jails?
Posted on May 14, 2015 in Hospitals and Prisons Medical Ethics Psycho-bunk Stigma
A rich fantasy life is said to be a good thing, but when that fantasy life becomes an vehicle for realizing visions of control and oppression should we celebrate it? One thing I will grant many of those who seek to take mental patients out of prisons and put them back into mental hospitals: prisons and jails should not be places where people with mental disorders are warehoused. Here, however, their mirage begins. They believe that their new asylums will not be snake pits like the old ones were. In support of this belief, they promote a false dichotomy — either we have mental institutions or we have nothing for the mentally ill. The third choice — funding community-based programs for the mentally ill — is a path they do not acknowledge. One thinks of the road not taken: do we follow the same hazardous trail, do we pass through a jungle that has already ruined the lives of many, or do we struggle to realize a third, more compassionate, path?
I often tell new people to the support group that if it were not for the medications, we would be committed for life in stark places. The meds let us go home, I say. There are some, however, who would send us back to the dismal day rooms, claiming that the present system has failed us. Indeed it has, but not because it is structurally unsound but because it has been constructed of cheap materials. Society has failed us by neglicting to provide sufficient capital for community mental health programs. These patient-friendly clinics let us live among our peers and live gainfully. The guarantee of coverage is key to their success. They fail where state governments have been too cheap to foot the bill. So mental patients end up where the money does flow: prisons and jails.
On Apologies
Posted on May 12, 2015 in Morals & Ethics Netiots Web Sites
I overreacted the other day and accused someone of meaning something they hadn’t. Today I apologized. When I did so, I mentioned the circumstances of being under attack by other people in the thread, but went on to say that I had wronged this person. Bringing up my tension was not an excuse, but an explanation. I try not to give excuses when I am in the wrong, but save them for when I don’t owe an apology.
People don’t like to apologize. I am one of these. It’s painful to come down, to expose oneself as a moral inferior, but it must be done for the sake of peace and truth. I give more apologies than I get, though I feel that I am owed a few. Jerks can be defined, in part, by never admitting that they are wrong. They blast you with names — the more rotten the better — and accuse you of crimes that you did not commit. I find them in all areas of my online life. Sometimes I block them, sometimes I blast them, sometimes after a few salvos, I declare that I want no more part of their game of “Someone is wrong on the InterNet” and just ignore them.
I have had people try to get me to apologize to someone when that person didn’t think I needed to apologize. The state of mind of my antagonists is surreal under such circumstances. I’ve been accused of all sorts of things but what strikes me is that in all their high-holiness, they aren’t listening to the person who they think has been wronged. I won’t give an apology where none is deserved or wanted, especially when prodded by people who are not affected. No one has the right to appoint themselves as spokesperson for someone else.
If someone tells me that I offended them, I listen to their reasons. Usually I will apologize if we can’t establish that there was a misunderstanding. Misunderstandings are no big deal. They happen. I let them go. I expect no apologies for them, but forgive readily.
I believe that a good apology requires that you take responsibility for your actions, though you may describe the circumstances under which you failed as an explanation but not an excuse. When you say “it was because you said or did this”, it isn’t an apology but a cop-out.
Dream
Posted on May 10, 2015 in Dreams
Pope Francis has been pushed into retirement by ultra-conservatives who do not like his inclusiveness. I gain an audience with one of the cardinals who might replace him. He sits half-naked on the floor, looking more like an emaciated yogi than like a cardinal. There’s a smirk on his face. I hear the news that two men are in contention for the papacy, one of them being the man who I visited. Both are extremists. The news seems so real that I believe that I am awake.
