If there is this normal/sane level, I would have to believe most people deviate from it, in some way, even if slight.

 

Or: Yeah...the human race is one clusterf**k of awful and is screwed up beyond belief.

forum_posts.asp?TID=76447" rel="nofollow - PA is back online, after offline for 6 hours ( get_last_post.asp?TID=76447" rel="nofollow - 1 New Post )
By member_profile.asp?PF=1" rel="nofollow - M@X , Today at 13:57

 lets not start that topic again

 

Someone who has difficulty knowing the inner world from reality (and by reality I mean the world that the majority of people sense and perceive in a similar way...like boiling water is hot, the sky is blue, etc).

 

All you have to do is watch Charlie Sheen to see someone who has lost the line between his own imagination and the "real world." Cocaine does that to people, it's actually a very common pattern. Who know if he has underlying mental illness. But if you watch the interview, that's the definition of delusional.

 

The are people who are just a "leetle bit crazy" who simply perceive things at a slightly different angle, but are still interacting with reality enough that it has meaning for the rest of us. Alot of artists tap on that space. I think the original question is about the borderline place, where I think all of us can go sometimes. That's a very different place from when you're actively hallucinating.

In the space between wake and sleep, I think all of us can simultaneously live in the inner reality and the outer one to a degree.

 

And few of us truly grasp how much our personal experiences filter even our basic sense perceptions of shared experience.

 

Even in establishment psychiatry, there is a very deliberate effort to be clear that it is a continuum between traits and more serious disorders. We all know people (ourselves) with some obsessive habits. How is that different from OCD? Really the only difference is degree, and how much the habits interfere with the ability to have a reasonable life. Pretty subjective.

 

Some conditions are so severe that even once you cross the magic threshold of "no longer to fulfill major role obligations or complete daily life activties" things can still get much worse. Actual schizophrenia, etc.

 

 

 

 

A compulsion is a behavior that a person must do to dissipate the obsession (again the stock definition). Usually anxiety will build and build until the compulsive act is performed.

 

Cleanliness and orderliness are common theme in OCD but they aren't the only ones.

 

Now, in my observation, both obsessive traits / tendencies and full OCD are generally centered around a person's feeling of control vs. helplessness in their environment.

 

I'm interested in exactly what you mean by "disorder in order" in comparison to "correct disorder" i.e. what distinctions you make.

 

What about drink-driving? Potentially dangerous behaviours do not equal mental illness and the majority of people with mental illness are not violent. However, a person may be detained in hospital if he meets the criteria for mental illness and is a danger to self/others. 

 

Schizophrenia also has negative symptoms, not just the positive/florid symptoms that some people may tend to think of; things like lack of motivation, flattening of mood, etc. Schizophrenia isn’t even a single condition with a single set of diagnostic criteria (at least seven types, before you even think about schizo-affective disorders). Disease is a concept that changes over time and may have no real existence in itself; people used to be locked away in asylums because they suffered epilepsy or because they exposed themselves in public. Psychiatric disorders are usually diagnosed through the patient’s subjective experiences, and the value judgements of those making the diagnosis. I can’t provide figures for the number of successful appeals against compulsory detentions, but the fact remains that appeals are successful. Two different doctors might make different diagnoses of the same individual; the same doctor might make two different diagnoses on two separate admissions of the same individual.      

 

The anti-psychiatry movement that peaked in the 1960s questioned the empirical approach and the medical model, and although its main ideas have subsequently been discredited the movement did raise valid and interesting ideas. Normality is enforced conformity; labelling people as ‘mentally ill’ is a device that society uses to maintain order; society stigmatises the individual and adds to his problems. Glaswegian psychiatrist R. D. Laing viewed illness as ‘the reality which we have lost touch with’ and he even advocated the use of recreational psychedelics. Laing stressed social and environmental factors; symptoms weren’t markers of illness but reactions to stress, e.g. the double bind theory, when one parent says a child is good and the other says the child is bad. The child cannot decide on behaviour, the family can be viewed as dysfunctional and in the broader sense so as can society itself. We all carry concepts of one another, of how we see others and expect others to see us, and here Laing was influenced by the existential philosophy of the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre. For Sartre the ‘self’ is not constant, we adopt different roles and the Superego acts as a filter in restricting our drives. Sartre described the self-deception of ‘bad faith’ where one denies one’s freedom to choose, instead of being true to our own selves.

 

This ties in with the work of Erving Goffman who defined stigma as ‘the process by which the reaction of others spoils normal identity’. We all put on an act in social interactions to make desired impressions on others. Goffman commented on the segregation of the mentally ill, subject to different rules from society. Russell Barton developed Goffman’s ideas on the ‘wharehousing’ of people and coined the term ‘Institutional Neurosis’ where individuals are robbed of all individuality, inability to make decisions/plan ahead. As recently as thirty years ago there was the phenomenon of ‘schizophrenic trousers’, i.e. schizophrenic patients in long-stay institutions were noted to wear trousers that were too short in the leg, hence ‘schizophrenic trousers’. Of course this says more about society, about the standards of care and the prevailing attitudes to these people at that time. And even today, nanny society seems to want us all to fit in as ‘good patients’.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insanity is a non-technical term in 2011, and it is reasonable to say that it's pointless to try to pick a specific line where mental illness actually becomes "insane." Some people with heavy disease burden can still function reasonably.

 

Of course they have Adonis DNA, which other mere mortals only wish for.

 

...for the sake of those viewing in monochrome, the wingspan of a F-14 is approx 64 feet and the height of an average Joe about 6 feet - proportionally the people in the photograph are 1.5 times bigger than the plane¹, which means the plane is 1.5 times further away from the camera. Assuming a 135mm lens, with a viewing angle of 10º, then the people are approximately 500 feet from the camera, and the aircraft is 750 feet away - or the distance between the aircraft and the people is 250 feet. The other point to observe is that the are standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier - this is evident because the starboard wing-tip is below the deck-line - this suggests that the aircraft is also about 250 feet away from the deck of the boat. Also the flight-deck of a USS aircraft carrier is approximately 250 feet above sea level, so the plane must also be 250 feet above the wave-tops. So while it is certainly an impressive piece of flying the aircraft, pilot and co-pilot are 250 feet from any danger in all directions - so from the pilot's perspective it's a perfectly calculated piece of flying [during a staged flying display I may add] and not especially crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

¹ in the image the plane is aproximately 7 times bigger than the people - it should be 10.66 times bigger (64/6), therefore the people look 10.66/7=1.52 times bigger.

Dean, can I call you CSI? 

You might be a naturally shy person that keeps to themselves. Because those around you who personally know of your brother or sister with mental issues, you are thrusted upon the stand before the jury. You will be confronted for the rest of your life.  They will make cruel judgements on you because you are a blood relation to that person. Guilty by association. It's perfectly natural for people in society to feel this way and question your behaviour......even if you are quiet and well behaved, keeping to yourself. It may very well be that you are in control of your life, loving, plain and simple, while people around you will persist that something is deadly wrong with you. This is not good. It can develop depression, cause you missed opportunities, lower your confidence, destroy your marriage, and years later....you find yourself seeking council hoping it might change your life.

 

It never ends! If your family member resents you for an early part of your life and now for many years you have changed your entire life, living differently, raising children, it will not register in their mind. They will haunt you about your annoying past! Something that you have let go of when you finalized your decision 10 years ago is suddenly thrust upon you in front of your children. Because your family member has a mental illness they cannot or will not see into the future or understand change in humans. You will endlessly be compared to your kin. Not a good situation to be in.   

 

The first is Rush's "Everybody got to deviate from the norm"

 

The second is mine "Sanity is overrated"

 

 

But he always used to say "Never believe your own bullsh*t."

 

You when you start to believe your own made up stories, you're in trouble.