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Underground > Temple >

How can you tell when a psychonaut has gone over the edge

  
  

Page: 1(2)

 
 
Quantum
14:26 / 10.12.03
It does raise an interesting point though. I am confident and comfortable talking to/dealing with some psychiatrically sketchy person, because of my experience and skills in dealing with that sort of situation, but if there were a child involved my reactions are very different.
Kids shouldn't have to deal with people with mental illness if they don't have to, it's distressing and disturbing in a way they can't comprehend or deal with easily. As children our social senses operate very unconsciously, and we can't say why someone is weird and scary, they just are, which leads to the hysterical screaming etc.
I don't mind slightly crazy people, but I wouldn't want them around my children (if I had any..) in the same way I like drugs, but I wouldn't want my kids on E, or I like Crowley but I wouldn't want an 8 year old to read him. It's a grown up thing.
 
 
Ganesh
14:54 / 10.12.03
What about epileptic people? Or deaf people? Or black people?
 
 
Mister Snee
15:53 / 10.12.03
What about anyone? Everyone could be dangerous.

Should some authoritative party be able to say that a given person is too dangerous to be allowed the same freedoms as everyone else? Well, that depends. On what? On how dangerous the person is. Or how much those freedoms are worth? Or...

When you get down to whether to label, whether to treat and whether to lock away there are nothing but shades of grey. But when it comes to deciding if any given person is dangerous...

I start to be scared by someone if they're exhibiting what seems to me like an honest inability to relate to the feelings of other people. People who think it's fun to hurt people are dangerous people.

A lot of the people I know who hallucinate, hear voices, scribble down what they say, laughing, and tell their friends how cool it was the next day, are some of the nicest, sanest, most empathetic people I know.

But they're also the people who are putting themselves most frequently and efficaciously in the path of mental derangement or a psychotic break or a murderous command from on high.

I liked the swimming/drowning thing. If you're a normal person who's just not into any crazy things like we are, you get to probably stay sane, but you can also be so oblivious and nasty that it won't matter because you won't be any fun to be around anyway. You don't have to get that way. But it's easy to. It's easy to get that way with drugs and magic, too. But you can also use drugs and magic to become a nicer, less dangerous person, on the whole.

But they can flip you out. That's the catch. Well, one catch. Right?

So I think it comes down to risk/reward. Tim probably helped more people than he hurt, and maybe that's more than a lot of people who didn't hit anyone with their car that day could say. It's still too bad Tim hit those people with his car. Tim obviously shouldn't have taken that acid that time, and if he must have, well, he shouldn't have driven that car. That was bad judgment on Tim's part -- but he was on a lot of drugs, and everyone makes mistakes, especially on drugs. And those drugs may have had a role in making him the calm, cool, sympathetic person you described.

Or is it that calm, cool, sympathetic people gravitate towards drug use, and are then transformed into satanic multi-murderers?
 
 
Z. deScathach
20:13 / 10.12.03
I'm fully aware that there are psychiartists who simply desire to help those who are in pain. I am friends with one. He understands that not all visions are pathological, and would even go so far as to believe that our society is making a mistake in pathologizing atypical spiritual experience. Still the fact remains that psychiatry as a whole has done just that. My partner had schizo-affective disorder, and medication was a life-saver for her, so I'm not anti-med per se. As far as myself, no I'm not on anti-depressants. Understand that you are talking to a dyke here that actually lived during the time of institutionalization for said "perversion". I believe when we let psychiatry off the hook, we risk a return to that. If that wasn't social control, I don't know what the hell was. Since at this point I'm rotting this thread, I shall cease and desist.

It was mentioned about the God/devil duality. I would agree with this. With my partner, religious absolutism was always a feature of her psychosis. Absolutism makes the ego brittle, and brittle can break easier than flexible. Still there's a certain point that refutes this. It is possible to become so flexible that one loses "control", and the visions are running the show,as well as any entities that might be hanging around,(admittedly my cognition). It is true though, that when this happens, the person may become very absolutist. I would question whether that person isn't hanging on to that absolutism like a bouy. When people go down magickally into the realm of psychosis, it is easy to see. For myself, I may be into crazy things, i.e., magick, but at least I can keep my ego fluid enough to not have to run my life by, "I'm OK, that weirdo is not....." That is a form of stability that I do not want. I think that it was a pretty cogent point about people that enjoy hurting other people. At least in the society that I live in, that is seen as normative, as long as it does not cross into the physical. What is not seen as normative are.... visions, unless they are of Godly things. Voices, (unless it's God's voice), and ritual, (unless it's done in a church). I'm not trying to wax anti-religious here, what I'm trying to point out is that pathology is determined not upon the basic occurences, but their relation to what is normative in society. Schizotypal personality disorder is a perfect example of this. The visions and communication are seen as non-pathological if they are normative for the surrounding culture, (DSM IV). What this essentially means is that prevailing religious sentiment is what actually determines what is pathology in that particular disorder, rather than any objective criteria. Therefor, I'd argue that we should be damn careful about how we judge another magickal practitioner. We are, whether we want to admit it or not, making a state of what is "normative".
 
 
Salamander
01:55 / 11.12.03
Still, if I see somthing dangerous unfolding, I won't refuse to take action. There's minding one's buisness and there's doin' right by my fellow humans.
 
 
Quantum
08:32 / 11.12.03
What about epileptic people? Or deaf people? Or black people? Ganesh
I hardly think that's the same. I take your point, but I'm not stigmatising mental illness, I take exception to the symptoms. If a friend of mine who is on medication wants to babysit, no worries. If a friend of mine is behaving erratically, and more exactly unpredictably, and wants to babysit, then I'm afraid not, whether it's caused by chemicals or by psychosis.

I don't like to tar all the varieties of mental illness with the same brush, as they are all so different, but let's take schizophrenic behaviour as an example. If someone is listening to commanding voices, they're not reliable and dependable enough to be trusted with a baby.
 
 
macrophage
08:35 / 11.12.03
I've lost control before mainly due to drink and drugs which is why I've stopped drinking altogether. After the end of a long term relationship that lasted 5 years I went on a gonzoesque Hunter S. Thompson binge - culminating in grotesque DTs - it's only recently that I'm calming down - and I put that down to me centralisin myself through various methods. It's possible to come out of the tunnel... I've known loads of people who have undergone similar experiences mainly due to amphetamines/etc - you just got to overcome it - I sometimes wish I could turn back time and not have consumned as much as I did - but we all learn from our mistakes.
 
 
Ganesh
08:54 / 11.12.03
... not all visions are pathological, and would even go so far as to believe that our society is making a mistake in pathologizing atypical spiritual experience. Still the fact remains that psychiatry as a whole has done just that.

I'd argue that society in general has done that, rather than 'psychiatry' in isolation - and not just atypical spiritual experience but unhappiness, bereavement, adolescence, etc., etc. There's a generalised trend, amplified by (particularly US) media, toward the pathologisation of many aspects of 'normal' human experience. I think this is largely driven by the pharmaceutical industry, an increasingly litigious society and 'victim culture' generally. Believe it or not, the majority of psychiatrists in the UK spend much of our time resisting these pressures.
 
 
Ganesh
09:11 / 11.12.03
Ganesh
I hardly think that's the same.

Epilepsy, deafness and being black are all associated, however tenuously, with violent crime. You made the point that children, with relatively little understanding of the cause and effect of unusual behaviour, are likely to be frightened by some aspects of psychiatric illness. A child is equally likely to be frightened by an epileptic seizure or a deaf person attempting to communicate, or even (and I'm thinking North East Scotland, where every face was white and all manner of bizarre myths proliferated) a black person. If we're to take 'possibility of violence' or 'likelihood of frightening child' alone as suitable justification for segregation, these ludicrous-seeming examples are all theoretically apposite.

I'm not stigmatising mental illness, I take exception to the symptoms. If a friend of mine who is on medication wants to babysit, no worries. If a friend of mine is behaving erratically, and more exactly unpredictably, and wants to babysit, then I'm afraid not, whether it's caused by chemicals or by psychosis.

If your anxiety's motivated by possible risk of harm to the child, then fine. If, on the other hand, it's motivated by the fear of "distressing and disturbing [them] in a way they can't comprehend" then I think the onus is on you, as a parent, to explain the situation in a way the child can comprehend. As you would with epileptic people, deaf people, etc., etc.

I don't like to tar all the varieties of mental illness with the same brush, as they are all so different, but let's take schizophrenic behaviour as an example. If someone is listening to commanding voices, they're not reliable and dependable enough to be trusted with a baby.

Well, sure, but that's rather an extreme and comparitively rare example. If someone is merely "weird and scary" rather than 'being commanded to smother babies', then surely it's preferable to teach the child a little about why this person appears weird and scary but is still Auntie Mabel (or whatever) and is unlikely to do them any harm?
 
 
Quantum
13:03 / 11.12.03
If your anxiety's motivated by possible risk of harm to the child
Of course it is, I'm imagining being a protective parent (one day I may be) but I can see your point. Hmm.
I'm all in favour of teaching children about things, so they're not scary, and instilling acceptance of diversity, and that certainly extends to mental illness.
I suppose as you say I am considering a melodramatic example, but I think I'm only really talking about uncontrolled symptoms, people who can't manage. I'm not saying I wouldn't let my depressed aunt or a bipolar friend look after a child, just that I can empathise with Tryphena's example and wouldn't like that to happen if I can avoid it. I think the stigma of mental illness should be opposed, but I'm treating it here as akin to intoxication- I wouldn't let someone drunk look after my child for example, it doesn't mean I hate drunks.
 
 
Ganesh
13:33 / 11.12.03
... which sort of brings us back to the original question: how do you know when a psychonaut has gone over the edge? Or, to put it another way, how does one decide which symptoms are "uncontrolled" in the sense of posing an unacceptable degree of risk (to self and/or others)?
 
 
cusm
14:31 / 11.12.03
Well, so far we have:

* Listens to commanding voices and is inclined to do what they say

* Is obsessed with absolutes (God/Devil issues)

* Abuses substances beyond the reasonable levels of recreational use

Any other good ones? I'm sure Ganesh has a textbook list of warning signs, as we could easily replace "psychonaut" for "abnormal psychology" for the purposes of this discussion.
 
 
Quantum
15:05 / 11.12.03
How about 'displays unpredictable behaviour' or 'lack of empathy', and maybe 'appears to have lost control'? Not terribly objective measures perhaps, but then it's a subjective call to make- you're more likeley to listen to your intuition than look for warning signs I think.
 
 
Papess
15:54 / 11.12.03
I was going to add:

The inability to comprehend the consequences to one's actions

...to go along with Quantum's lack of empathy, but then I realized we are talking about magick here. To be able to fully comprehend the effect of one's actions magickally is,

a)only possible if one can perceive timelines and the subtlties of cause and effect, or karma, and...
b) that a could be construed as psychotic behavior anyway, [especially if verbalised], or could possibly induce a state of psychosis [especially if not verbalised].

Am I making sense?
 
 
Unconditional Love
17:10 / 11.12.03
hi,

someone asked how to become mad? or be classed as mad? its really very easy, associate with people suffering from your chosen form of madness role model your behaviour upon those individuals. next visit your gp, exhibit the symptoms not text book but characteristics that display said symptoms, get an appointment to see an nhs psychiatrist then explain your behaviours, not too over the top or an institution awaits.heh. but hey i wouldnt recommend it unless you wish to be a social parriah, or spend all your days associating with others with disorders, which is a learning experience in itself. you will probably find like i have that many begin to define themselves by there illness as if it is central to there identity, which is in my mind a mistake but is further reinforced by seeing a psychiatrist and visiting a psychiatric centre. in fact in some ways it can be seen like this ,if you are in a psychiatric centre you are either staff or a patient, when your not staff being a patient becomes an easy role to fill, much like being in a hospital there is a certain social script that begins to enter play.

im sorry you had to xperience that distress as a young girl, i can only reassure you as an adult that a majority of the mentally ill people i know are not violent, many of them seem to be the subject of alot of mental emotional and physical violence from others infact a large majority have a victim mentality. its a very small minority that perform acts of violence.
unfortunately the press and entertainment media misrepresent this drastically as if were all spree killers and serial killers waiting to run amuck.
my first post was written under the influence of too much coffee which i tend to find creates a few weird tangents in my thinking and alot of over excitement.
if you know any schizophrenics id suggest tai chi as a good form of treatment it focuses the mind on the body and allows the two to join, one of the symptoms of schizophrenia is disassociation with your own body, also the blurring of subject and object which can give you the sense that you are something else, some of the philosophies of zen buddhism kind of explain that well too me. also there is a tendency to experience hyperawareness ie that sky line could entrance you for the next half an hour, total immersion, or that music really will take you someplace else, also in my experiences the mentally ill rely on art more than most especially music for its healing properties.

the negative effects are that negative emotions and thought ideations become all consuming as well.

its hard for me to disentangle mystical experience and what would be termed mental illness for me alot of what i experience could appear as either depending on the perceptual map you choose to look through.

i was only diagnosed 3 years ago after a near death experience which occured after i drank and drugged myself to death, my psychiatrist estimates that i have been this way since i was a teen i have hidden it very well and apparently to the untrained eye i would seem normal, well normal enough what ever that is.

i agree some psychiatrists are trying to heal but you must also acknowledge that others are on a power trip much like some allopathic drs and nurses, ive come to realise that as much as others may try to help and hinder i can only heal myself, its a cliche but one i am finding to be very true. but then to heal you must admit you have an illness first.

as for children and there reactions, so much more education is needed about the various takes on what mental illness is considered to be and all the differing ideas and opinions on the subject.

because at current to most folk its kinda like being the village witch.tabloids really dont help the matter.

mark.
 
 
LykeX
16:23 / 12.12.03
Thanks Wolfangel, but I wasn't referring to being able to act mad, being percieved by others as mad or getting a medical certificate. I meant, quite literally, to be mad, to go insane, to actually develop some sort of mental illness.
As I mentioned, the idea is that this should be temporary and a learning experience of sorts.
And I'm not actually going to do it (at least not without some serious research), it was just a thought.
 
 
roach
16:03 / 13.12.03
* Listens to commanding voices and is inclined to do what they say

* Is obsessed with absolutes (God/Devil issues)

* Abuses substances beyond the reasonable levels of recreational use


Or


* Listens to spirits, and performs their desires on the material
plane in exchange for rewards

* Is incredibly concerned with supporting good spirits and thwarting
the designs of evil spirits

* Uses intense chemognosis


So, a high percentage of shaman-types have gone "over the edge"?
 
 
Ria
21:40 / 13.12.03
predictably I have decided to pop in with my opinions.

Quantum, nice people may or may not work in psychiatry. to me this means nothing because this does not address the system. 'nice' means having good table manners.

will address Ganesh's link later. then go away. because I get sick of dragging myself into discussions of psychiatry all the time both on-line and in person as good reasons as I have to drag myself into them.
 
 
Z. deScathach
23:29 / 13.12.03
May Tricks: Evolutions wrote:

a)only possible if one can perceive timelines and the subtlties of cause and effect, or karma, and...
b) that a could be construed as psychotic behavior anyway, [especially if verbalised], or could possibly induce a state of psychosis [especially if not verbalised].

Hmm, now a. would depend on what your particular view of karma is, there are a number of them. As for b. , why would not verbalising one's perception on karma cause one to go psychotic? While ,the inability to comprehend the consequences of one's actions may be an indicator of serious mental problems, it certainly isn't an indicator for dangerousness. A suitably empathetic person may make a choice to not hurt a person based upon that empathy, not upon future consequences, where a very vicious person may understand the consequences of their actions, it's why they try so hard not to get caught.
 
 
--
02:31 / 14.12.03
Oddly enough, despite all my magic work I've never had visions or heard voices. Yet I still worry I'm driving myself mad sometimes. But that worry stems from my over-obsessing about my health. Sometimes I get this feeling that there are billions of tiny little monsters inside my body, especially around my stomach, slowly chewing up my insides. It's not a very fun thought.

I'm curious what a voice in your head would even sound like. I mean, we all have voices in our heads, but for the most part those voices seem muted, at least in volume. As for the God or Devil, I dunno, I'm not sure how seriuosly I'd take any of their orders. Usually when people tell me to do something I completely ignore them. Then again, if some loud voice suddenly started screaming inside my head, I can see how that could unnerve me.
 
 
Papess
08:01 / 14.12.03
Z. deScathach: AS I see karma, is as I wrote it - the "law" of cause and effect. The point though, should not be missed because of my terms. That is just the way karma was described to me by a Lama, so I tend to refer to karma that way. The point is more the cause and effect, however.

If one can percieve the log term consequences of their actions then quite conceivably, they will also understand the consequences of every action and the domino effect that will ensue. Now, if you can just think about that for a minute, you may see why I think it would drive someone mad. Do you really want to be able to know that the guy next door is about to is about to engage in sexual acts with a minor and this time he is going to elevate that atrocity by murdering his victim? Oh, did I mention that there is no way that you can do anything about it? Because of course, he hasn't done anything *yet* and if you react to what you can perceive before it happens what grounds do you have? You end up in jail most likely, and he will be at home, wondering how the hell you knew what was going on in his mind.

Sometimes though, people do not even see where they are taking their lives.If you can see timelines and intent of being, you may find you know the course of their lives before they do. (For example, that pedophile may not be able to see that he is going to murder the child before you do, if you can see the timeline) You really cannot say anything though, can you? People WILL think you are nuts.

It was not the very best example, but I am sure you can see how that may be construed as psychotic if verbalised and if it isn't then you have to watch all the nasty shit people WILL do to each other eventually, in silence, and not be able to do a damn thing about it. I am pretty sure that THAT could induce psychosis.

BTW, I am talking about both short term and the longer term subtler consequences - the domino effect of actions that are not so apparent. Not being able to percieve the short term consequences of one's actions is not a healthy state of mind, for certain and IMO, most definately dangerous......nothing is going to happen if to me or anyone else if I drink and drive...being an example of losing site of one's effect upon the world and the dangerous consequences that could follow.

So, I wasn't talking necessarily about karma, so forget I used the darn word....argh...I really meant cause and effect.
 
 
Papess
08:22 / 14.12.03
Oh yes, Sypha Nadon:

When I hear voices (or sometimes I just hear different sounds that are not part of the "conscentual reality"), they are usually quite separate from my own inner natterings to myself. They have a "texture" that is usually quite velvety and booming - they sound as if they are in surround sound in my head. Quite often the voices are accompanied with a bout of *tinnitis.

The thought process is another indicator as it is usually not congruent with my line of thinking at the time. I cannot control what they say to me, except perhaps, by asking a question.

Damn, it's a good thing that I don't take orders from anyone!


*: a sensation of noise (as a ringing or roaring) that is caused by a bodily condition (as a disturbance of the auditory nerve or wax in the ear) and can usually be heard only by the one affected
 
 
--
13:33 / 14.12.03
That's kinda what I thought it would be like. Actually, this reminds me of some weird thing that happened to me once in the seventh grade or so. It was during gym class, I was near a wall in the gymnasium, wondering if I should even bother joining in the basketball game, when suddenly this husky, cigarette-stained voice in my head muttered "Go for it". Needless to say, after this happened I was too spooked out to play basketball. So, I guess in retrospect that's the only time I've ever heard a voice in my head.

My internal natterings, on the other hand, never shut up.
 
 
EE
21:26 / 14.12.03
* Listens to commanding voices and is inclined to do what they say

* Is obsessed with absolutes (God/Devil issues)

* Abuses substances beyond the reasonable levels of recreational use


Or


* Listens to spirits, and performs their desires on the material
plane in exchange for rewards

* Is incredibly concerned with supporting good spirits and thwarting
the designs of evil spirits

* Uses intense chemognosis

So, a high percentage of shaman-types have gone "over the edge"?

Yeah, probably. I would not be the least bit surprised. Can you not see how easy it would be for the whole thing to start spinning out of control? Especially for those using "intense chemognosis"? I can easily picture the values shifting and everything eventually getting out of any resemblance of balance.

That doesn't mean there's no coming back, of course, or that in their worst bits these shaman-types always end up killing someone and getting locked away. But I can easily (it's scary how easy) see it happening to anybody.
 
 
Ria
23:25 / 14.12.03
side issue: Ganesh talked about epileptic people. funny that epileptics do not get described as m*ntally il*. (a phrase I BTW hate.) or people with Tourette's Syndrome. hmmm...
 
 
roach
01:26 / 15.12.03
EE: The question Ive been thinking to myself is whats the difference between suffering shamanic episodes and schizophrenic attacks. So far, the best this thread seems to have come up with is that they're schizophrenic attacks if someone gets hurt, shamanic episodes otherwise. This seems like simply ret-conning the situation.

Ok, here's a hypothetical example for people. My friend, "Dave", has shamanic experiences. He uses spirits to heal, etc, and listens to spirit advice to act on, for instance, by knowing what to say to help sort out his friend's problems. Then the same spirits tell him to kill, which he then does, knowing that the spirits are to be trusted. Has he been having shamanic experiences, or is he schizophrenic? Is he having shamanic experiences first, then schizophrenic (or vice versa)? Most importantly, should we stop him from hearing the spirits? And, if we should stop him from hearing the spirits when they tell him to kill, should we stop him from hearing them when they're helpful?

enjoy
 
 
illmatic
08:13 / 15.12.03
Well, it all comes down to how well you can judge the effects of your actions/empathy for other people, (which you should be aspiring to anyway, if you want to do healing work). If spirits tell you to do anything that fucking stupid and so askew from reality you should tell them to fuck off, quite frankly. If you're unable to sitingush between astal communications and the real world you shouldn't be cultivating those kind of relationships.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
08:36 / 15.12.03
I think a point is being missed here. An effective shaman is someone who is capable of moving through these areas without going over the edge. Shamanism is about walking between worlds, not going off into craziness with no way of getting back. If you're a good shaman, you can do this. If you're not, you're screwed, and end up a casualty of magic. Shamanism should best be considered a trade, with its own skills, tools, and required aptitudes.

Heavy full-on shamanic work is not a walk in the park, and it's not risk free. As far as 'pop magic' goes, yeah, any daft fuckwit can masturbate over a sigil, do 10 minutes of meditation a day, and call themselves a magician without much risk or danger coming into it - but heavy spirit or entity work does have associated risks, complications and dangers which have to be taken into account, and which suggest that particular road might not be for everyone. In the same way that flying a plane or performing surgery might not be for everyone.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:25 / 15.12.03
[off topic] Ria: Epileptic people do get described as "mentally ill." Our condition is often misdiagnosed as some psychiatric problem (eg schizophrenia, depression, panic attacks, Munchausen's syndrome) and medicated accordingly--sometimes with catastrophic results, since many psychiatric medications, especially SSRIs, actually worsen epilepsy symptoms. But we're wayyy off-topic here; maybe this could be a Lab rant? [/offtopic]
 
 
Z. deScathach
03:27 / 16.12.03
Once more bringing us around to the question: What is dangerous unfoldment? If a friend of mine was talking about killing people, I would consider that dangerous unfoldment whether he was hearing things or not. Still, if we are going to view eccentric behavior as dangerous as well as the recieving of visions, or communicating with entities, a lot of us are going to wind up medicated. To me, the issue is one of control and will. When a person has lost the ability to chose their actions, then they can be said to be dangerous, because they are not morally processing those actions and making choices based upon that.
 
 
Z. deScathach
06:46 / 16.12.03
Illmatic: If spirits tell you to do anything that fucking stupid and so askew from reality you should tell them to fuck off, quite frankly. If you're unable to sitingush between astal communications and the real world you shouldn't be cultivating those kind of relationships.

I would have to agree with this. The real question shouldn't be what communication with discarnate entities is insane, but whether the person has volition. Someone who kills someone on the command of spirits, shows a real lack of both common sense and stability. Doing such a serious action on something as subjective as communication with spirits shows that the individual had serious underlying problems, and probably should have left magick alone.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
10:22 / 16.12.03
Wolfangel, I just want to make certain that you know that I certainly don't assume that all people with any mental illness should be drugged up to their eyeballs. I've always assumed with this kind of thing that it very much depends on situation. You do have to judge people by their actions but the drugs in mental health exist to protect people- including those who are taking them. I was really trying to make the point that a lot of Paranoid Schizophrenics need to be on drugs because they can't function without them. I've had the unfortunate experience of meeting two who were very aggressive in their behaviour towards me and everyone else. I don't then assume that all Schizophrenics need to be on drugs but I do assume that these things need to be considered.

My experience of mental illness (I dislike that term as well btw) is hardly limited to Schizophrenia (depending on how you're using the word). It stretches to manic and clinical depression, a friend had a paranoid breakdown when I was 16, I could probably go on and find other illnesses lurking back there but it would take a while. Most of the people that I've met who were ill were violent on some level but most of the violence was directed towards themselves.

As for telling when someone's gone over the edge- is that not a non-question? Surely it's up to the people closest to an individual to know when something's going on with them. Only when thing's are really severely wrong is it obvious that there's something bad happening, I think that a lot of the time with mental illness the bad happens so suddenly that it couldn't be predicted?
 
 
Unconditional Love
14:45 / 16.12.03
hi,

i have a question.

do you think talk of doing something is obviously a sign that somebody intends to do something.

now if a person is talking of killing another person are they more likely too if they are paranoid schizophrenic, using drugs everyday or normal.

and what would help you make judgements about who was more likely to kill, the normal person, the drug user, the schizophrenic and where are you drawing your information from to make these judgements.

a side from that id like to know if you think there really is a division between a normal world and a magickal world,is there really a spirit matter duality so distinct in experience, and is that really a very healthy way to view the world as a whole?

mark.
 
 
amarodeeps
02:47 / 30.12.03
Hi, new to this forum, but wanted to comment on the parent--sorry to digress from the discussion(s) at hand.

Having worked in a mental institution here in the states for about 6 months, which, granted, is not that long, by the end I did feel like I had learned one thing: there's not that big a difference between those of us who are 'crazy' and those of us who are not. I truly believe some of us just have an easier time shoe-horning our craziness into the surrounding culture. I'm not denying that some of us have truly lost it, but what that actually means, and where the dividing line is exactly...? Well, seems like the doctors didn't even know, or comforted themselves with a relatively arbitrary set of guidelines (http://www.psychologynet.org/dsm.html) and that was that.

But hey, what do I know, I'm not a doctor. One doctor I spoke to at length did tell me, however, that the current state of psychiatric medicines being used (haldol, thorazine, etc.) was like hammering a tack with a sledgehammer. So, that I think tells us something about what we really understand about psychiatric disorders: not as much as we'd like to think.

To take a different tack, why do you feel like it was your responsibility for determining that Tim was going to lose it, and needed to be stopped before he did something else? Why should mentally disabled/disturbed people not be held responsible for their actions (look, I know there is a somewhat obvious answer to this, but let's play the devil's advocate here for a bit, as that might show us some truths about mental illness vs. supposed lack thereof...etc.)?
 
 
EE
18:00 / 30.12.03
To take a different tack, why do you feel like it was your responsibility for determining that Tim was going to lose it, and needed to be stopped before he did something else? Why should mentally disabled/disturbed people not be held responsible for their actions (look, I know there is a somewhat obvious answer to this, but let's play the devil's advocate here for a bit, as that might show us some truths about mental illness vs. supposed lack thereof...etc.)?

It's not that I really feel like it was my responsibility to determine whether or not he was doing alright. It's more like I keep asking myself "should I or my co-workers, who see him more often than almost anybody, have seen this coming,". But hindsight is always 20/20 or however that phrase goes. It all fits together now, of course, with the benefit of knowing Tim was melting the whole time.

As for whether or not he should've been held repsonsible...well, the family of the victim originally wanted old school justice because Tim admitted several times before the police arrived that he had done it on purpose, in the sense that Satan told him to so he went ahead and did it.
 
  

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