If he really believes this, then yes, he’s insane by any reasonable, traditional definition of the word. If I genuinely believed I was a hamster or a poached egg—or God, I would also be insane.
I find it deeply jarring that I appear to be in the minority in thinking this.
It's entirely within the realm of possibility that one can have a transcendent experience and come out of it with the conviction of a truth encountered through that experience, and notwithstanding the apparent absurdity of that truth, still function normally and highly in society without a mental health diagnosis.
I feel some type of way about the god-mode Player because I have had my own experiences, which have left me stunned, perplexed, elated, convicted and mystified, and which I have struggled for many years in private to integrate into a high functioning socially well adjusted persona.
The god-mode Player doesn't trust their nearest and dearest with their thoughts. Maybe s/he has been too long in his/her own head with them and needs the impartial feedback of complete strangers to help order those ideas, because despite claims of reasoning and critical thinking, the concepts presented are opaque and disjointed.
This board and this community has been and still is one of the places where I feel safe to share some of my own unorthodox points of view. Maybe they need someplace safe as well. Maybe they are high functioning in all other aspects, and are afraid of an insanity diagnosis and just need a neutral ground to affirm that they are OK as they are.
“The board” has decided to treat this poster like any other poster provided they stay within the rules they’ve been given. And what everybody else had said about random speculative diagnoses. Also, insane - at least in the UK - doesn’t seem to mean what you think it means.
Then the definition has changed in a relatively short period of time.
It's also a standard term used for a very very long time to describe the condition of being extremely mentally imbalanced or deeply delusional. If someone says that someone is "insane," people know what they mean. They don't say, "Oh, have they committed a crime they may not be responsible for?"
People don't generally speak in exclusively technical jargon at all times and in all situations.
You are not giving the impression that you care about the impact of how you talk about mental illness, or delusions specifically, has on people who who live with such a condition - at least one of whom is actually posting in this thread.
How would you feel if they started posting random crap about a health condition that affected you ?
If he really believes this, then yes, he’s insane by any reasonable, traditional definition of the word. If I genuinely believed I was a hamster or a poached egg—or God, I would also be insane.
I find it deeply jarring that I appear to be in the minority in thinking this.
It's entirely within the realm of possibility that one can have a transcendent experience and come out of it with the conviction of a truth encountered through that experience, and notwithstanding the apparent absurdity of that truth, still function normally and highly in society without a mental health diagnosis.
I feel some type of way about the god-mode Player because I have had my own experiences, which have left me stunned, perplexed, elated, convicted and mystified, and which I have struggled for many years in private to integrate into a high functioning socially well adjusted persona.
The god-mode Player doesn't trust their nearest and dearest with their thoughts. Maybe s/he has been too long in his/her own head with them and needs the impartial feedback of complete strangers to help order those ideas, because despite claims of reasoning and critical thinking, the concepts presented are opaque and disjointed.
This board and this community has been and still is one of the places where I feel safe to share some of my own unorthodox points of view. Maybe they need someplace safe as well. Maybe they are high functioning in all other aspects, and are afraid of an insanity diagnosis and just need a neutral ground to affirm that they are OK as they are.
Just thinking out loud here.
AFF
This is a very good analysis, and worth chewing on.
Perhaps Hell isn’t really the right place for this discussion, I’m sorry if I have made you feel harassed.
Well, it's the only board where one can express anything with no holds barred--and in those other threads, people were saying stuff that could only be said under Hell rules.
I don't feel harassed exactly--I'm rather used to being the odd man out in terms of worldview, theology and lots of other stuff. But thank you, regardless.
I think all religion is essentially delusion so I don't read the posts from the person under discussion here as "insane" and I don't really understand what that would mean in the context of a discussion board about religion.
For me it is absolutely fair enough to have a wild idea providing one has sufficient cultural awareness to see how others want to engage with what you write. As far as I'm concerned this hasn't happened, although I accept that I've not read other threads which do not interest me.
But let's say for the sake of argument that someone here really was experiencing dangerous paranoid delusions. I'm not sure exactly what that would mean, but anyway. Something dangerous to themselves or others.
Are you genuinely saying that the best thing to do is not engage? That the moderators will sit back and do nothing?
It's nothing to do with me, but if you really think a person is in that state then surely you'd want to remove the posts for their own protection. What possible utility is there in leaving them visible?
I don't think that the poster under discussion is that person, although I'm not qualified to give a medical opinion. I think they have some wild ideas which might be interesting if they were able to arrange them in a more systematic way and had the ability to engage on the same level as other posters.
Yes, I don't like insanity being imputed like that, how on earth could one know? It's also very rude.
You’re kidding, right? Unless you think he’s trolling, and simulating someone being insane.
He claims to have just woken up one day and “realized” that he was God, that the universe was created when he was five years old and that it will blip out and restart whenever he dies.
How is this not definitively, clearly insane?
I'm really curious about this, as it feels like a contradiction when a Christian says it.
Maybe we could start a different thread? Because on the one hand you say a person claiming to be God is insane and yet as a Christian you believe in someone who claimed to be God who wasn't insane.
In my hometown, early 90s, graffiti began to appear all over downtown bearing slogans like...
There are millions of gods more powerful than Jesus
A million gods will burn out the eyes of Jesus
And so on and so forth. One night over drinks, a friend of mine and I had a debate about whether the scribblers were either a) high-school heavy-metal lyricists displaying their talents, OR b) someone with what would generally be classified as a psychiatric illness.
I held to the latter view, partly because I had also once found on the street a business-card emblazoned in a visually jarring manner with many of the slogans, which struck me as too amateurish even for the standards of suburban sub-crowleyites. This impression was later corraborated by a conversation with a street-preacher who claimed to have known the artist and helped him get medical care, though I wouldn't necessarily consider him a reliable source.
I don't think it necessary for anybody to defend Jesus (the real one, I mean) or to diagnose anyone who claims to be his replacement, at least on the Ship. Jesus can handle himself, and as for the rest of us, we are all presumably adults with the responsibility for thinking things through on our own. I presume that if someone turned up with clear signs of a dangerous disorder (say, suicidal ideation) the admins would have behind-the-scenes ways of handling those. But the current case is not that sort of thing.
Has anyone considered the possibility that @godincarnateme is posting homework threads? Like, maybe, eg. testing out certain arguments from the creationism debate, under the guise a discussion as to his own personal godhood.
(Not that I'd necessarily object to such a project, since homework threads can be a lotta fun. But I know the mods take a dim view of it, and I can certainly see the copyright issues, so...)
I don't think it necessary for anybody to defend Jesus (the real one, I mean) or to diagnose anyone who claims to be his replacement, at least on the Ship. Jesus can handle himself, and as for the rest of us, we are all presumably adults with the responsibility for thinking things through on our own. I presume that if someone turned up with clear signs of a dangerous disorder (say, suicidal ideation) the admins would have behind-the-scenes ways of handling those. But the current case is not that sort of thing.
Seconded, as to the general issue of how to handle cases of possible mental illness.
I assume our recently arrived Almighty intends the second meaning, but I think the first comes off a lot cooler, if only because it's grammatically sound.
Yes, I don't like insanity being imputed like that, how on earth could one know? It's also very rude.
You’re kidding, right? Unless you think he’s trolling, and simulating someone being insane.
He claims to have just woken up one day and “realized” that he was God, that the universe was created when he was five years old and that it will blip out and restart whenever he dies.
How is this not definitively, clearly insane?
I'm really curious about this, as it feels like a contradiction when a Christian says it.
Maybe we could start a different thread? Because on the one hand you say a person claiming to be God is insane and yet as a Christian you believe in someone who claimed to be God who wasn't insane.
Jesus didn't also claim that the universe popped into existence when He was five years old, and that all evidence to the contrary is a God-created illusion, including our own memories before 1980.
In any case, I think I'm done with this thread. I've said what I thought needed to be said in reply to various things, I genuinely hope @godincarnateme 's life works out and that he gets whatever help he needs, and I don't think any further debate by me will be fruitful here. This whole thing is sucking me away from catching up on work and even eating meals at a better hour, so I'm personally done. Carry on, whomever wants to.
Jesus didn't also claim that the universe popped into existence when He was five years old, and that all evidence to the contrary is a God-created illusion, including our own memories before 1980.
No, but some respected(as these things go) Young Earth Creationists apparently came up with a theory that for some reason God deliberately made parts of nature to have the appearance of being much older than they are, and I wouldn't automatically judge those people as psychiatrically unwell. @godincarnateme is basically just applying their logic to the entire universe, with our memories being among the things subject to theistic tampering.
Well if it's true I have a bone to pick with god-mode Player because I feel quite certain that if my pre-1980 memories are installed by him, then I think he could at least have done me the courtesy of sparing me the ones that I still carry as a trauma.
I just feel like he could have done much better than he has done because collective humanity is kind of a shitshow most days. Did he have to pop the world-that-was into creation with starving Africans, colonialism, the Cold War, Reaganomics and the Berlin Wall? Is that really the world he wanted?
Yes, I don't like insanity being imputed like that, how on earth could one know? It's also very rude.
You’re kidding, right? Unless you think he’s trolling, and simulating someone being insane.
He claims to have just woken up one day and “realized” that he was God, that the universe was created when he was five years old and that it will blip out and restart whenever he dies.
How is this not definitively, clearly insane?
I'm really curious about this, as it feels like a contradiction when a Christian says it.
Maybe we could start a different thread? Because on the one hand you say a person claiming to be God is insane and yet as a Christian you believe in someone who claimed to be God who wasn't insane.
Jesus didn't also claim that the universe popped into existence when He was five years old, and that all evidence to the contrary is a God-created illusion, including our own memories before 1980.
In any case, I think I'm done with this thread. I've said what I thought needed to be said in reply to various things, I genuinely hope @godincarnateme 's life works out and that he gets whatever help he needs, and I don't think any further debate by me will be fruitful here. This whole thing is sucking me away from catching up on work and even eating meals at a better hour, so I'm personally done. Carry on, whomever wants to.
I think we come across the idea of god-mode player(s) in many aspects of our lives.
As well as religion itself, we can find god-mode player in different forms of fiction, in sci-fi and fantasy, as well as in game-playing. Religion is a bit more contentious these days, but in pretend or make-believe contexts, we tend to view the idea of god-mode player as being essentially harmless.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that many of us, at certain points in our lives, have at least started contemplating god-mode thoughts that are a bit less make-believe (for example, wishing that we could change the world), and that for some of us there is a possibility that, depending on our circumstances, these thoughts might grow and become beliefs in their own right.
In relation to the functioning of the internet, another term for god-mode player might be sys admin or tech admin.
@ChastMastr you don't need to reply to this, but I think it's important to say. Part of the reason you're getting pushback is that many mentally-ill people regard "insane" to be an ableist slur, because of how the term was used by the medical establishment and the law to harm mentally-ill people. I think if you had referred to them as simply mentally ill, you wouldn't have experienced as much pushback - also, distancing yourself from other mentally-ill people on this thread in addition to that gave an impression of some really deep-seated ableism towards people who experience delusions.
I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case, but please pause to consider what language you use to describe people experiencing mental illness. I do find it hypocritical that you are so bothered by behaviour that you consider to be rude, but never once paused to consider if your own behaviour and language was rude. You were incredibly dismissive towards Heavenlyannie and her own lived experiences, in a way that very much came across as mansplaining given that she both experiences delusions and is a professional in the subject.
@ChastMastr you don't need to reply to this, but I think it's important to say. Part of the reason you're getting pushback is that many mentally-ill people regard "insane" to be an ableist slur, because of how the term was used by the medical establishment and the law to harm mentally-ill people. I think if you had referred to them as simply mentally ill, you wouldn't have experienced as much pushback - also, distancing yourself from other mentally-ill people on this thread in addition to that gave an impression of some really deep-seated ableism towards people who experience delusions.
I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case, but please pause to consider what language you use to describe people experiencing mental illness. I do find it hypocritical that you are so bothered by behaviour that you consider to be rude, but never once paused to consider if your own behaviour and language was rude. You were incredibly dismissive towards Heavenlyannie and her own lived experiences, in a way that very much came across as mansplaining given that she both experiences delusions and is a professional in the subject.
We will disagree on much of this, but again, I don’t think debating this will be fruitful. @Heavenlyannie , I did not mean to cause any distress to you, and I am sorry if I did. Again, I do consider your situation to be very different from what @godincarnateme’s seems to be.
@ChastMastr you don't need to reply to this, but I think it's important to say. Part of the reason you're getting pushback is that many mentally-ill people regard "insane" to be an ableist slur, because of how the term was used by the medical establishment and the law to harm mentally-ill people. I think if you had referred to them as simply mentally ill, you wouldn't have experienced as much pushback - also, distancing yourself from other mentally-ill people on this thread in addition to that gave an impression of some really deep-seated ableism towards people who experience delusions.
I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case, but please pause to consider what language you use to describe people experiencing mental illness. I do find it hypocritical that you are so bothered by behaviour that you consider to be rude, but never once paused to consider if your own behaviour and language was rude. You were incredibly dismissive towards Heavenlyannie and her own lived experiences, in a way that very much came across as mansplaining given that she both experiences delusions and is a professional in the subject.
For the record, while I found the use of "insane" to be unpalatably archaic, I would have had equally strong objections to the psychiatric diagnosis of godincarnateme, regardless of the terminology employed. Simply because I don't really see the evidence for it.
Jesus didn't also claim that the universe popped into existence when He was five years old, and that all evidence to the contrary is a God-created illusion, including our own memories before 1980.
No, but some respected(as these things go) Young Earth Creationists apparently came up with a theory that for some reason God deliberately made parts of nature to have the appearance of being much older than they are, and I wouldn't automatically judge those people as psychiatrically unwell. @godincarnateme is basically just applying their logic to the entire universe, with our memories being among the things subject to theistic tampering.
I think one can be delusional without being mentally ill, although there seems to be overlap at the edges.
Belief in something others find weird is not mental illness, although I would argue that there are some particularly destructive beliefs.
Belief that the world was created last Thursday, 20 years ago or 6000 years ago would appear to require similar levels of disbelief in facts that everyone else accepts. It's hard to say how destructive that is or at one point that's an indicator of mental illness.
There are several possibilities of course. Our new Shipmate may be adopting a particular stance or persona for the purposes of debate - and debate seems to be developing now on the threads where they are active.
Or they could be deluded and genuinely believe they are God Incarnate.
They may be using the Incarnational imagery as a trope or metaphor, rather in the way that more 'High Church' Christians might say that the Church is an icon of the Trinity, or that collectively we form 'The Body of Christ.'
Whatever the case, time will tell.
And as Hosts and Admins have reminded us, it behoves us all to welcome the 'stranger and alien' and not to sit in judgement. I was quick on the draw with a trolling accusation but will take that back and reserve judgement for the time being.
The family member I mentioned elsewhere is adamant that nobody is 'mad'. He strongly believes that he (and many others) is a victim of what he calls the 'psychiatric industry', and I think he may possibly have a valid point there.
The family member I mentioned elsewhere is adamant that nobody is 'mad'. He strongly believes that he (and many others) is a victim of what he calls the 'psychiatric industry', and I think he may possibly have a valid point there.
There is certainly a long history of people who think that, although it's something of a spectrum - from people who are totally anti-psychiatry to people whose critique is more aimed towards the underlying conditions of society making people ill and psychiatry not being able to fix that without society being fixed. Iirc, Dr Laing was aiming more at the latter with his work, with the idea that the nuclear family is what made people mentally unwell.
I think there is certainly some truth to that for some conditions - certainly from my experience of Complex PTSD, part of the treatment is accepting that your mind reacted as it did to protect you and was in some ways a "normal" response (C-PTSD occurs as a result of longterm or particularly severe trauma, so is not an "outsized" response). But this really depends on the illness and how debilitating it is. My OCD (which is moral/scrupulosity focused rather than something more "physical" like contamination) is a lot more debilitating even if it is a more common condition and much easier to treat, because my C-PTSD makes more sense as a cause-effect pattern. I also have to admit that as someone for whom basically only talking therapies plus regular SSRIs/SNRIs are recommended for my conditions, I am somewhat envious of people who can just take mood stabilisers/antipsychotics and be functional rather than having to spend their life in therapy. Therapy is expensive and exhausting, or barely available and exhausting when on the NHS.
Many people on mood stabilisers would be much better off if they had therapy to enable them to cope with their daily lives but it is often denied them. I was offered lithium or nothing.
Some of us are both victims of the ‘psychiatric industry’ and necessary recipients of it. Without psychiatry I would not have a diagnosis which has enabled me to forge an identity and obtain treatment. But, unfortunately, I have consistently been treated badly by doctors within the industry; the refusal of a general practitioner to refer me for psychotherapy when I was first diagnosed, repeatedly being referred to family planning clinics in my 20s because ‘manic depressives are promiscuous’ despite telling them I was a celibate Christian, doctors accusing me of lying about taking my medication when my blood levels changed. Even in my 50s and as a public health lecturer I am still disbelieved by doctors, with my post-covid autonomic disorder being misdiagnosed as anxiety by a cardiologist, so what hope has anyone else without my advantages in life.
Many people on mood stabilisers would be much better off if they had therapy to enable them to cope with their daily lives but it is often denied them. I was offered lithium or nothing.
Some of us are both victims of the ‘psychiatric industry’ and necessary recipients of it. Without psychiatry I would not have a diagnosis which has enabled me to forge an identity and obtain treatment. But, unfortunately, I have consistently been treated badly by doctors within the industry; the refusal of a general practitioner to refer me for psychotherapy when I was first diagnosed, repeatedly being referred to family planning clinics in my 20s because ‘manic depressives are promiscuous’ despite telling them I was a celibate Christian, doctors accusing me of lying about taking my medication when my blood levels changed. Even in my 50s and as a public health lecturer I am still disbelieved by doctors, with my post-covid autonomic disorder being misdiagnosed as anxiety by a cardiologist, so what hope has anyone else without my advantages in life.
My goodness dear what a weighty and complex cross you have had to bear.
Certainly ISTM that frequently the medical/psychiatric community is bound by "protocols" so tightly that it can't move outside them, even if it would be to the betterment of the patient AND contribute to a greater understanding of people and the conditions they operate within.
I was 17 when I read "The Manufacture of Madness" by Thomas Szasz. Though I don't agree with all of his points of view, it certainly alerted me to the possibility, early in life, that psychiatry might not be helpful to me in integrating the stranger aspects of my experience of consciousness.
Many people on mood stabilisers would be much better off if they had therapy to enable them to cope with their daily lives but it is often denied them. I was offered lithium or nothing.
Some of us are both victims of the ‘psychiatric industry’ and necessary recipients of it. Without psychiatry I would not have a diagnosis which has enabled me to forge an identity and obtain treatment. But, unfortunately, I have consistently been treated badly by doctors within the industry; the refusal of a general practitioner to refer me for psychotherapy when I was first diagnosed, repeatedly being referred to family planning clinics in my 20s because ‘manic depressives are promiscuous’ despite telling them I was a celibate Christian, doctors accusing me of lying about taking my medication when my blood levels changed. Even in my 50s and as a public health lecturer I am still disbelieved by doctors, with my post-covid autonomic disorder being misdiagnosed as anxiety by a cardiologist, so what hope has anyone else without my advantages in life.
I also have to admit that as someone for whom basically only talking therapies plus regular SSRIs/SNRIs are recommended for my conditions, I am somewhat envious of people who can just take mood stabilisers/antipsychotics and be functional rather than having to spend their life in therapy.
Comments
It's entirely within the realm of possibility that one can have a transcendent experience and come out of it with the conviction of a truth encountered through that experience, and notwithstanding the apparent absurdity of that truth, still function normally and highly in society without a mental health diagnosis.
I feel some type of way about the god-mode Player because I have had my own experiences, which have left me stunned, perplexed, elated, convicted and mystified, and which I have struggled for many years in private to integrate into a high functioning socially well adjusted persona.
The god-mode Player doesn't trust their nearest and dearest with their thoughts. Maybe s/he has been too long in his/her own head with them and needs the impartial feedback of complete strangers to help order those ideas, because despite claims of reasoning and critical thinking, the concepts presented are opaque and disjointed.
This board and this community has been and still is one of the places where I feel safe to share some of my own unorthodox points of view. Maybe they need someplace safe as well. Maybe they are high functioning in all other aspects, and are afraid of an insanity diagnosis and just need a neutral ground to affirm that they are OK as they are.
Just thinking out loud here.
AFF
I am affected by it. That's why I'm on meds.
I'm sorry that you have that impression.
This is a very good analysis, and worth chewing on.
Well, it's the only board where one can express anything with no holds barred--and in those other threads, people were saying stuff that could only be said under Hell rules.
I don't feel harassed exactly--I'm rather used to being the odd man out in terms of worldview, theology and lots of other stuff. But thank you, regardless.
For me it is absolutely fair enough to have a wild idea providing one has sufficient cultural awareness to see how others want to engage with what you write. As far as I'm concerned this hasn't happened, although I accept that I've not read other threads which do not interest me.
But let's say for the sake of argument that someone here really was experiencing dangerous paranoid delusions. I'm not sure exactly what that would mean, but anyway. Something dangerous to themselves or others.
Are you genuinely saying that the best thing to do is not engage? That the moderators will sit back and do nothing?
It's nothing to do with me, but if you really think a person is in that state then surely you'd want to remove the posts for their own protection. What possible utility is there in leaving them visible?
I don't think that the poster under discussion is that person, although I'm not qualified to give a medical opinion. I think they have some wild ideas which might be interesting if they were able to arrange them in a more systematic way and had the ability to engage on the same level as other posters.
I'm really curious about this, as it feels like a contradiction when a Christian says it.
Maybe we could start a different thread? Because on the one hand you say a person claiming to be God is insane and yet as a Christian you believe in someone who claimed to be God who wasn't insane.
There are millions of gods more powerful than Jesus
A million gods will burn out the eyes of Jesus
And so on and so forth. One night over drinks, a friend of mine and I had a debate about whether the scribblers were either a) high-school heavy-metal lyricists displaying their talents, OR b) someone with what would generally be classified as a psychiatric illness.
I held to the latter view, partly because I had also once found on the street a business-card emblazoned in a visually jarring manner with many of the slogans, which struck me as too amateurish even for the standards of suburban sub-crowleyites. This impression was later corraborated by a conversation with a street-preacher who claimed to have known the artist and helped him get medical care, though I wouldn't necessarily consider him a reliable source.
Has anyone considered the possibility that @godincarnateme is posting homework threads? Like, maybe, eg. testing out certain arguments from the creationism debate, under the guise a discussion as to his own personal godhood.
(Not that I'd necessarily object to such a project, since homework threads can be a lotta fun. But I know the mods take a dim view of it, and I can certainly see the copyright issues, so...)
Seconded, as to the general issue of how to handle cases of possible mental illness.
"God, INCARNATE me!"
"God incarnate [silent "is"] ME."
I assume our recently arrived Almighty intends the second meaning, but I think the first comes off a lot cooler, if only because it's grammatically sound.
Jesus didn't also claim that the universe popped into existence when He was five years old, and that all evidence to the contrary is a God-created illusion, including our own memories before 1980.
In any case, I think I'm done with this thread. I've said what I thought needed to be said in reply to various things, I genuinely hope @godincarnateme 's life works out and that he gets whatever help he needs, and I don't think any further debate by me will be fruitful here. This whole thing is sucking me away from catching up on work and even eating meals at a better hour, so I'm personally done. Carry on, whomever wants to.
No, but some respected(as these things go) Young Earth Creationists apparently came up with a theory that for some reason God deliberately made parts of nature to have the appearance of being much older than they are, and I wouldn't automatically judge those people as psychiatrically unwell. @godincarnateme is basically just applying their logic to the entire universe, with our memories being among the things subject to theistic tampering.
I just feel like he could have done much better than he has done because collective humanity is kind of a shitshow most days. Did he have to pop the world-that-was into creation with starving Africans, colonialism, the Cold War, Reaganomics and the Berlin Wall? Is that really the world he wanted?
AFF
FWIW, I think you're making a wise decision.
As well as religion itself, we can find god-mode player in different forms of fiction, in sci-fi and fantasy, as well as in game-playing. Religion is a bit more contentious these days, but in pretend or make-believe contexts, we tend to view the idea of god-mode player as being essentially harmless.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that many of us, at certain points in our lives, have at least started contemplating god-mode thoughts that are a bit less make-believe (for example, wishing that we could change the world), and that for some of us there is a possibility that, depending on our circumstances, these thoughts might grow and become beliefs in their own right.
In relation to the functioning of the internet, another term for god-mode player might be sys admin or tech admin.
I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case, but please pause to consider what language you use to describe people experiencing mental illness. I do find it hypocritical that you are so bothered by behaviour that you consider to be rude, but never once paused to consider if your own behaviour and language was rude. You were incredibly dismissive towards Heavenlyannie and her own lived experiences, in a way that very much came across as mansplaining given that she both experiences delusions and is a professional in the subject.
We will disagree on much of this, but again, I don’t think debating this will be fruitful. @Heavenlyannie , I did not mean to cause any distress to you, and I am sorry if I did. Again, I do consider your situation to be very different from what @godincarnateme’s seems to be.
For the record, while I found the use of "insane" to be unpalatably archaic, I would have had equally strong objections to the psychiatric diagnosis of godincarnateme, regardless of the terminology employed. Simply because I don't really see the evidence for it.
I think one can be delusional without being mentally ill, although there seems to be overlap at the edges.
Belief in something others find weird is not mental illness, although I would argue that there are some particularly destructive beliefs.
Belief that the world was created last Thursday, 20 years ago or 6000 years ago would appear to require similar levels of disbelief in facts that everyone else accepts. It's hard to say how destructive that is or at one point that's an indicator of mental illness.
Or they could be deluded and genuinely believe they are God Incarnate.
They may be using the Incarnational imagery as a trope or metaphor, rather in the way that more 'High Church' Christians might say that the Church is an icon of the Trinity, or that collectively we form 'The Body of Christ.'
Whatever the case, time will tell.
And as Hosts and Admins have reminded us, it behoves us all to welcome the 'stranger and alien' and not to sit in judgement. I was quick on the draw with a trolling accusation but will take that back and reserve judgement for the time being.
There is certainly a long history of people who think that, although it's something of a spectrum - from people who are totally anti-psychiatry to people whose critique is more aimed towards the underlying conditions of society making people ill and psychiatry not being able to fix that without society being fixed. Iirc, Dr Laing was aiming more at the latter with his work, with the idea that the nuclear family is what made people mentally unwell.
I think there is certainly some truth to that for some conditions - certainly from my experience of Complex PTSD, part of the treatment is accepting that your mind reacted as it did to protect you and was in some ways a "normal" response (C-PTSD occurs as a result of longterm or particularly severe trauma, so is not an "outsized" response). But this really depends on the illness and how debilitating it is. My OCD (which is moral/scrupulosity focused rather than something more "physical" like contamination) is a lot more debilitating even if it is a more common condition and much easier to treat, because my C-PTSD makes more sense as a cause-effect pattern. I also have to admit that as someone for whom basically only talking therapies plus regular SSRIs/SNRIs are recommended for my conditions, I am somewhat envious of people who can just take mood stabilisers/antipsychotics and be functional rather than having to spend their life in therapy. Therapy is expensive and exhausting, or barely available and exhausting when on the NHS.
Some of us are both victims of the ‘psychiatric industry’ and necessary recipients of it. Without psychiatry I would not have a diagnosis which has enabled me to forge an identity and obtain treatment. But, unfortunately, I have consistently been treated badly by doctors within the industry; the refusal of a general practitioner to refer me for psychotherapy when I was first diagnosed, repeatedly being referred to family planning clinics in my 20s because ‘manic depressives are promiscuous’ despite telling them I was a celibate Christian, doctors accusing me of lying about taking my medication when my blood levels changed. Even in my 50s and as a public health lecturer I am still disbelieved by doctors, with my post-covid autonomic disorder being misdiagnosed as anxiety by a cardiologist, so what hope has anyone else without my advantages in life.
My goodness dear what a weighty and complex cross you have had to bear.
Certainly ISTM that frequently the medical/psychiatric community is bound by "protocols" so tightly that it can't move outside them, even if it would be to the betterment of the patient AND contribute to a greater understanding of people and the conditions they operate within.
I was 17 when I read "The Manufacture of Madness" by Thomas Szasz. Though I don't agree with all of his points of view, it certainly alerted me to the possibility, early in life, that psychiatry might not be helpful to me in integrating the stranger aspects of my experience of consciousness.
AFF
I second @Gamma Gamaliel ’s “Yikes!” 😢
🕯🕯🕯
-- chrisstiles, Hell Host
I’m with you on that one.