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I
AM HERE!
-Canadave-
You
say you've paid the Price of Life
And find it 'Incomplete',
You say you'd like to take it back;
Well, show me your receipt!
Hi.
I am Dave. I live in Canada. I have looked for a place to VOICE
some ideas and have seen very little, "internetally",
this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Then I encountered "VOICES"...
Way
over here in Canada, I have been called a "consumer"
for some decades, now. Apparently, I am one who consumes mental
health, or financial assistance, in my daily life. ( I'm not sure
what on earth this term is intended to signify!) I find the
notion of being some kind of "consumer" to be repulsive.
It is not that I don't require the help, but the euphemism really
is silly, wouldn't you say?
I
once was normal, inasmuch as I hadn't been "found out"
yet, way back in the 1960's. The fact that friends referred to me
as "Crazy David" had not attained official recognition
until 1970, whence I "had" a 'nervous breakdown'. I
guess I must have seemed 'nervous' but my implicit experience was
much worse than that! I think the psychologist conceded that
I was
amidst a "psychotic episode". I was supposed to be
assuaged by this, because an 'episode' is, technically, a
temporary situation. I otherwise feared an eternity of macabre,
paranoid and 'superior' understanding- a condition of really
deep, insightful and loveless delirium, which I mistook to be
exceedingly unique and mysterious awareness of things mystic and
philosophic. The distinction between psychosis and 'temporarily
psychotic' eluded me. I could see no solution or 'reprieve'
because it was all new to me, this psychiatric habitation and
daily dole of pills.
To
this day I detest a world of psychiatric/psychological
terminology. Something more natural is better. Something that
doesn't arbitrarily delineate between rabid dogs and polite dogs,
for example. They are each dogs. Today's polite dog may well be
tomorrow's rabid dog, and, until causation be dealt with, all
canines are 'at risk'. My point is, let's not label our fellow
man for mere convenience. If we must use adjectives, let us say
'MAD', cut the political correctness and patronizations, or leave
it alone entirely!
I
know depression and confusion and doubt are not funny attributes
of a human being. But I also know that shame is more the anxiety
of the observer than the 'due' of the sufferer! Are we really
surprised that a person go 'over the edge' when we ourselves do
not know where the edge is, if it is, and to whence 'it' goes?
"MENTAL
ILLNESS", the expression, overlooks one or two things.
Illness is rarely, if ever, confined to the mind. If the mind
were part of body, the body would be implicated in a disorder.
The mind is not physical, and only co-ordinates with a body.
Inasmuch as a body depends upon things mental or cerebral to be
animated ('alive'), "mental illness" is never
explicitly a mental disintegration. It is a comprehensive
disorder, including mind, body and all else that comprises a
human being.
Is
there something else? Need we ask? Human beings, not to mention
animals, "feel"! If minds are cognizant/idiomatic,
where does 'feeling' occur? In one's heart- (and 'cardiac' is
not, here, intended!) There, then, is mind, body, and heart.
There is "psyche"- a nebulous reference to the fact
that we are alive ( and not to be equated with mere ideas such as
"mad", "normal" or "genius"...)
I
could go on forever, ( and I may, since I don't accredit 'death'
as true or 'real') but I will conclude here by saying that
whether a person is 'nuts' or 'normal' is so often a
behaviourally-observed 'indication'... devoid of understanding of
causation. It therefore becomes inordinate to ascribe
'diagnoses', prescribe medication or inscribe epithets for a
situation or malady that cannot be remedied effectively thereby!
Thanks
to "VOICES" and its initiators for the chance to say
some of what I have to say.
Canadave/Dave