Invitation for friendship by the other:
You mentioned mental illness. I take a small dose of an antidepressant. I have for twenty years. I tried to "think" myself happy in my early 20's, and it wasn't possible. I took the pill, and it was a miracle. What caused the mental illness in the first place? I'll never know, nor do I need to know. It doesn't matter. I'm fine now.
If you don't want to be friends, do nothing. If you want to be friends, friend me and I will accept.
My reply:
Your comment is appreciated. It's a much longer reason to explain why I don't take the pills; and a longer discussion than that to explain why I treat people in the mental health profession (read that to mean "industry") as if they were Dr. Mengele.
Wanna know why I'm pissed off, angry, depressed? Because every upright walking moron with a TV thinks they're Dr. Phill and they just know what all my problems are - and of course that I'm the only one in the room with a problem in the first place, because surely it could not be them.
Now - if that were actually true - if I really was the only one flying upside down and backwards and everyone else was Mr. Rogers, I'd off myself just to save them the trouble and allow their utopian perfection to continue without me screwing it all up for them. But you and I know that life is a bit more complicated than that, and I'm a child of Doestoyevsky. "too great a lucidity is a terrible disease. The average man's awareness is more than enough" -
I'm angry and an outcast because I cant' ignore all the other things that so many (too many) people have become comfortable with; and they sleep with themselves at night in peace because they bullshit themselves with a creation of their mind (with a little help from that pill) that they are fine and of course all the problems lie in everyone but them. Either way, it's not their job.
So Doestoyevsky pointed out (and I paraphrase to my own liking) that "the most intelligent, aware, and ludcid person in the room is always going to be the most miserable son of a bitch there" - we shorten that in the common vernacular to: "ignorance is bliss. Therefore; the popular practice of willful and wanton avoidance of anything uncomfortable is a self-fulfilling orgasm"
No, I find far too many legitimate reasons to explain my behavior than to have to search for one in my body chemistry. I"m not interested in becoming someone who others would like more when I know I would like him less. Those same people who tell me to take the pills are the ones who put me on the couch at hundreds of dollars per hour (20x more than I've ever earned) then tell me that I have to be true to myself. Somehow the room doesn't explode as a bolt of lightning should strike their head in recognition of the contradiction they just posed.
Psychology has to be the only profession where a doctor can ask the patient where it hurts --- and then argue with him; and not be thrown out for malpractice or just abject sadism.
I am a reactionary person, and I make no apology that the people in my life who go out of their way to deliberately provoke me (i'm not addressing you here, but in general) because they are expecting a specific response thusly need to blame me when they dont' get the one they came looking for. I call things as I see them; that is the reason I'm an outcast - I can't be what people want me to be just to please them, I have to be what I am. And generally they don't like that and they make no excuses for it.
So why should I?
I'm not talking about you, I'm addressing my general angst; commonly pigeonholed and labelled as a "disorder". Maybe one of the reasons that I'm so "dysfunctional" is because of the 10,000 people in my life, some qualified, most nowhere near so, who put labels on me and then get pissed when I peel them off and tell them I fit no mold, I am unique. Maybe it's the crowd of people who always question me and insist I should have wanted to be someone else or do something else or want something else than what I actually used my own volition to arrive at on my own, who, after 43 years have created a man who doesn't know what the fuck he wants because he's sure if he tells anyone some asshole will pop up out of nowhere to tell me I can't have it, shouldn't want it, and if I don't let it go they will have a problem with me.
We live - well, I live - in a society. There are far more variables in this experiment than just my body chemistry; so when people suggest that the only remedy we're going to apply is to tweak me and leave everything else as it is, I scream bullshit.
It's like we're not going to investigate plane crashes any more; we're going to accept that they fall out of the sky and deal with it by putting pillows all over the ground and hope that when they do plummet downward on fire at 400 miles per hour they will bounce - because to actually address what makes them fall in the first place - well that's just beyond their control.
Imagine the hubris - humanity thinks it can rule the whole goddamn universe and change anything it puts it's mind to...
...except other humans.
Wow. Imagine that - the only thing that can cut a diamond is...another diamond.
I can't take the meds because I dont' trust the people who prescribe them. If you want to help me write the book I've been struggling with for six years, I'd welcome that. I dont' have the attention span for it; but when I tell people about what I'm going through, they always tell me I have a different problem Been this way for 25 years.
So the book is called 'Building Broken People" - however the working title always has been "Stories so fucking bizarre you won't believe they could be real, but since this shit goes on every day, it's nothing to get worked up over". Either way, I'm not going back. The first thing any of them will ask me (tell me) is that they can't change me, only I can change me, and if I'm not interested in changing then they can't help me.
Ok, they can't help me. Can I leave now?
That usually starts some kind of conflict that has more than once ended in the shrink coming apart in front of me and displaying they've got far more issues than I do and they have found a way of dealing with theirs - by telling other people what to do and ignoring that they are the antithesis of their best advice.
I have no respect and little patience for such people. Seriously - let me tell you soem of the stories. These bastards ought to be in cages and not hosting couches in their office. They take no responsibilty for their own words - if I heal, they are Jesus - but if I walk out of their office in a fit of rage and kill 38 people at a McDonalds, surely they were not to blame because -
...well, you know why....
"he was obviously sick, it wasn't anything that I said..."
And. So. It. Goes.
If I pick my nose, the world as we know it comes to an end and it's solely my fault. Meanwhile, they could skull fuck the Virgin Mary with a rusty egg beater and as long as they have their white coat on, well, that must be what she needed to heal her pain.
So if that means I go to an early grave even by my own hand, I'm more at peace with that decision than I ever could be with somehow still witnessing and recognizing all the bullshit and lies around me and somehow masturbating myself to think it's OK or offering myself up as the only real problem in the room while the rest all continues unabated.
Please dont' misread my comment; this is not anger offered towards you, it's who I am. I'm comfortable this way, at least that means I could not be more comfortable as someone else which is what those around me who judge me are insisting that I must become in order to escape their opinions of me.
I tried to take an antidepressent. I felt lobotomized; but that's not the point. I had to take the pill. Taking the pill, meaning that I woudl be happy that day but knowing that all of the shit, misery, lies and bullshit that should still enrage me because it is nonetheless enraging to a sober mind, well that seemed like a betrayal to me.
I know the standard response; and you should know what book by Joseph Heller I'm going to return fire with. I should keep trying medications, and keep trying shrinks until I get the "right" one -
but if I'm so fucked up, who amongst them will grant me the authority to tell them even if it's not working. How could I know, being as sick as I am. ANd how dare I question medical professionals.
I'll wind this up, because I know this is way more than you askef for and I probably got msyelf in trouble by not saying, "i'm fine thanks, great to meet you, let's have a cheeseburger and a coke and be on our way"
Imagine you're on a bus. Everyone is glued to the windows of the bus and they're having the time of their lives because they're enjoying the scenery and reminding themselves what a great time they're having and all is well. Id' be the one dumb bastard on the bus looking out the windshield and noticing that the driver fell asleep at the wheel and we're heading for a bridge that is not there.
Now in my world, were I to stand up and scream "THE DRIVER IS ASLEEP AND THERE IS NO BRIDGE" - the crowd around me would turn to me in anger and demand I sit down and shut the fuck up because I'm making it impossible for them to enjoy their trip.
I'm not sure learning how to be "happy" in the midst of that is really to anyone's advantage - and lets' face it. Any counselor, any medication is only going to be the "serenity prayer" in a bottle - learn to live with the things I cannot change, and make peace with it. Courage - well that's bullshit because whether or not you were supposed to have courage or seek serentiy is always judged ex post facto by the people who know the outcome and who never had any skin in the game.
Sure, if we were supposed to change things, then we were supposed to have courage.
If it was futile to try, (because after it's already played out, any dumb fool can see that this was true) we were supposed to seek serenity in capitulation to the fates and let go
that "wisdom" they threw in there - it does not exist - only in hindsight from others who never had to put their balls on the line when the time was at hand.
Thanks for the discussion; we can have more. There's a munch here in Hazleton, although the dates are somewhat in flux right now. Maybe we'll meet someday. I tend to run in Black Phoenix circles but have been staying on the porch lately because I'm broke.
Be good.
Felt good to unleash all that. How much for today's session, Doc?
So.
How was your day?
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