There is nothing the mentally ill, the mentally disabled, want more than to be normal.
You talk to anyone with a mental illness, personality disorder, mood disorder, anxiety disorder, or some other form of mental disability.
I'm not mentioning schizophrenia or psychotic disorder, I'm talking the mundane day-to-day disorders.
You talk to anyone with these disorders and they will tell you, all I want, all I want is a respite. All I want is a break, a lucky break. All I want is to have a normal life like everyone else, like everybody around me.
Mental illness causes dysphoria, sadness, grieving, self grieving, and self mourning, which are ongoing.
And so the mentally ill dream of when they grow up, they dream of being normal.
Unscrupulous, vainglorious, grandiose, and unethical therapists and psychologists are taking advantage of this ardent and fervent desire to be normal.
And they lie, lie to their patients, deceive their patients, and sometimes deceive themselves into believing that yes, these patients can be normal, given enough medication, given enough therapy, given enough investment, which goes of course to the pockets of the therapist.
Everything will be fine and dandy. Life will resume in its full glory and the mentally ill person can have an existence which is indistinguishable from normal, healthy people.
It's poppycock, it's deceit, it is fraud, and it's perpetrated industry-wide by the vast majority of therapists and psychologists.
So who else to the breach but Saint Vaknin? I am the guy who tells you things as they are. I am the in-your-face psychologist, the one who breaks all the taboos cheerfully and with a smile and a glass of red wine.
Yes, it is red wine, not what you're thinking.
Let's talk a little about what mentally ill people can and cannot expect and how they should avoid being deceived and fleeced and scammed by the industry of therapy because therapy is an industry. It's allied with the pharmaceutical industry, it's allied with the insurance industry, it's about money and profits, it's not about patients, it's not about the welfare of clients, it's not about healing, it's not about curing, it's about making therapists rich, making therapies powerful, catering to the needs of therapies for narcissistic supply and perhaps self-healing via their patients.
Now, it's a generalization. Of course there are exceptions. I've come across these exceptions. People who are real healers really want to cure and help, but even these people are misled by the propaganda and indoctrination of the so-called profession of psychology.
Psychology is a pseudoscience. I've said it numerous times.
And so there is this ethos which is an American, basically, thing.
Number one, if there's a problem, there's always a solution. If there's a disease, there's always a cure. If there's a disorder, there's always healing.
This is nonsense. Many problems, most problems actually, don't have solutions. That's why they keep being problems. That's why they're entrenched.
Most disorders can't be reversed or healed or cured. Same goes for most diseases. It's American nonsense.
This belief, magical thinking, in effect, a form of pathology, this belief that anything is solvable. No, almost nothing is solvable.
Mental illness is a lifelong condition. You can get it in a variety of ways. Genetically, in some cases, psychopathy, borderline, nurture, bad environment, bad upbringing, a dead mother, a dead father, narcissism, trauma, and it's aftermath. All these things lead to mental illness.
But mental illness, once acquired, is a lifelong condition, a little like herpes or viruses, certain viruses. You get them, you can never lose them. They're with you. They're part of who you are.
Mental illness is an identity determinant. Mental illness is not just a superfluous thing, like a cold or pneumonia. Mental illness can be cured with antibiotics.
Mental illness and mental disorders are critical components of the identity of the identity of the patients.
They distort cognition. They distort reality. They impair reality testing. They filter the interface between the patient and other people. They cause the patient to behave in ways or the client to behave in ways which hinder and further undermine and obstruct personal growth, personal development, self-efficacy, autonomy, agency, the ability to secure and obtain life goals.
So mental illness is not just a veneer.
Mental illness is the quiddity, the essence of the patient, and to insist that you can cure mental illness, that you can heal mental illness, that you can reverse mental illness, that mental illness is a passing set of symptoms, or a syndrome, very much like the common cold.
To say all these things is to lie, to be a fraudster and a scammer, and about 80% of all therapists and psychologists keep repeating these counterfactual mantras, rendering them con artists.
I'm sorry, you know, I don't mean words. I don't mean words. I call a spade a spade, and I call a therapist, a con artist, when and if he or she deserves it, and anyone who tells you that you're mentally ill but you can change, you can heal, you can modify yourself, and you can live a totally normal life. That person is after your money, is laughing all the way to the bank.
That's a fraudster, a con artist, and you can take this video and show it to your therapist, if that's what he or she are telling you.
So what can and cannot be done?
As I said, grandiose and unethical and unscrupulous therapists, they cater to the needs and wishes and desires of the mentally ill and the mentally disabled person.
Mentally ill people want to be normal. It's exactly like a medical doctor would promise a paralyzed, invalid quadriplegic that she would be able to run again and win the marathon.
The truth is, the mentally ill should be sequestered and isolated. The mentally ill should be discouraged from seeking normalcy and intimacy.
Now this sounds horrible. This sounds almost like, you know, the worst darkest periods in human history, but it happens to be the truth.
Mentally ill people are injurious and dangerous. Hurt people hurt people. Mentally ill people cause enormous devastation and damage and pain and hurt to numerous other people, intimate partners, children, neighbors, colleagues, institutions. Mentally ill people are like Lewis cannons. They can't be controlled. They don't have impulse control. They are dysregulated. They are in boundary. They do crazy things, crazy making. That's why it's called crazy making.
Now what do I mean when I say mentally ill?
I also mean personality disorder.
Clinically, personality disorders are not mental illness, but they are.
In effect, they are perhaps the most pernicious forms of mental illness.
Scholar like Kernberg didn't see much of a difference between borderline personality disorder and psychosis. I don't see much of a difference between narcissistic personality disorder and schizophrenia. These are serious, critical mental health flaws and mental health dysfunctions.
And so the mentally ill should be managed. They should be regulated. They should be isolated.
Mentally ill people should not have relationships. If you are a conscientious therapist, you should discourage your mentally ill patients from teaming up with other people and destroying their lives. You should tell your mentally ill patients to not get married, to not bear children, to not have families, and to not gain access to certain institutions.
Even today, if you're mentally ill, if you're diagnosed, you cannot work in the intelligence community. You cannot join the army or certain branches of the army. There are certain things that are closed off to you if you are diagnosed with a mental illness and rightly so.
The mentally ill are a danger to themselves and to society and to their so-called nearest and dearest. They should therefore be considered as vectors of disease, as carriers of a dangerous virus known as mental illness.
Exactly as we would isolate someone with typhus or with an infectious disease, we should isolate the mentally ill. We should not allow them to pretend to lead a normal life. They are incapable of normalcy. They're incapable of functioning. All they do is wreak havoc and inflict devastation and destruction upon everything and everyone around them.
Why would we tolerate this? Why would we encourage this? Why would we lie to these anyhow miserable people that they can ever be normal and lead a normal life?
Some high-functioning patients compartmentalize their mental illness.
We know, for example, that patients with paranoid personality disorder are perfectly able to reason to be logical and to be moral in most settings. This compartmentalization is the key.
An accomplished professional by day, prostitutes herself, intoxicated by night. A beloved medical doctor turns pedophile after the working hours for a murderer, Dr. Shipley. A respected politician, burgles homes by moonlight. These are all real cases.
Mental illness is an enclave. It's a reservoir. It's an island.
And yes, we can isolate, sequester, firewall it. We can minimize the damage of mental illness if we prevent mentally ill people from engaging in certain interactions, from integrating themselves in certain social institutions, most notably the family.
We should accept reality. We are very far, very far from knowing how to treat mental illness.
I would say we don't even know what is mental illness. We've just started to study the brain, which allegedly is the seat of mental illness. We are at the very beginning. We're at the inception of this twin wannabe sciences, neuroscience, and psychology. It would take centuries before we know what we're talking about.
And yet grandiose, as we all are, as we all had become in our narcissistic societies, neuroscientists tell you they know everything about the brain. And psychologists tell you they can cure you, they can heal you, they can change you, modify and transform you, give you a better life. They have the magic formula, which had eluded humanity for 10,000 years. The wisest of men knew that they know nothing.
And yet modern day psychologists know everything. This is narcissism bordering on psychopathy. This is sickness. The sickest profession on earth is psychology.
Most psychologists and therapists are so poisoned in this toxic environment of grandiosity that they essentially become narcissists.
So we need to get off this high horse. We need to face reality, look it in the face and admit there's very little we can do to help people with mental illness. We can teach them how to cope, regulate emotions, reduce mood lability, not harm themselves, set realistic life goals and pursue them.
Yes, we can teach all these things. But if you put all of them together, that's not healing. That's not curing. That's definitely not normalizing.
These people are not normal and they will never ever be normal.
Why pretend? Why fool them? Why fool them? Why deceive them into believing that they could ever be normal? Why inflict these people on other people, this devastating affliction of mental illness? It's contagious. Why release these people into the general population, the environment?
When people who are mentally ill compartmentalize their mental illness when it is confined to specific time, a specific phase in life, a specific period, or with specific people or in specific behaviors, this compartmentalization it functions like a pressure valve, a dysregulated and unboundaried release of anxiety, mitigating and ameliorating anxiety by acting crazy, by acting out, by decompensating.
And so people with mental illness cope with anxiety, depression, antisocial impulses and many other derangements. And sometimes the only way for them to cope is to be crazy only in the evening or to be crazy only at night and then somehow function in their career or job or workplace.
We should allow this.
When there are areas of high functioning, we should encourage these areas.
So if we have someone who is mentally ill in all ways but is a genius artist, we should place the emphasis on the art. If we have someone who is addicted to substances, mentally ill, borderline ill, borderline depressed, anxious and whatever what, and has a thriving career, we should redirect this person to invest her resources, her scarce and dwindling resources in her career. We should isolate the areas of life which are high functioning. We should encourage the mentally ill to focus their energies exclusively on these areas.
So if you're mentally ill and you have a spectacular, meteoric career but your relationships suck because you're mentally ill, stop having relationships. Don't seek intimacy. Give up the dream of a normal family of children. It's not for you. Not everyone is capable of having relationships or intimacy or family or children.
Focus on what you're good at. Are you an artist? Are you an entrepreneur? Are you a psychologist? Are you a scientist? Are you an athlete? Are you a judge? Are you a professor? Whatever it is that whatever it is that you're good at, whatever field of your life you do function in, whatever field of your life is highly functional, focus on that to the exclusion of all else.
If you're mentally ill, you will never ever be normal, ever. It's a pipe dream. It's a lie. It's the deceit embedded in the field of therapy. Therapy is deceitful because it sells you a dream which can never come true.
Give it up. Find out what you're strong at, your limitations and your weaknesses and frailties and flaws. Distinguish between the two and focus on the former and ignore the latter. You're mentally ill. It's a disability. It's exactly like being amputated or paralyzed or affected by a chronic disease such as, I don't know, diabetes. You have to accept reality. If you're diabetic, you cannot eat sugar anymore. If you're mentally ill, you cannot have relationships. You cannot have love. You cannot have children. You cannot have a family.
Give all these things up. You probably cannot have friendships. In some other forms of mental illness, you cannot have a career.
Focus on what you can have, not on illusions and delusions sold to you by the therapeutic pharmaceutical industrial complex.
And if you're on the receiving end of mentally ill people, forgive these people. Don't rage at the mentally disabled. Don't mourn what they could have been. Don't let their accomplishments and standing in society mislead you.
In the vast majority of cases of mental illness, there's nobody home. These people are long dead. They're just taking their time, realizing it and then accepting it. They know not what they're doing because there's no they. They're not there. They're spiraling out of control. They're threatening to take you with them. Don't let them.
When you're confronted with a mentally ill, do not try to make sense of the choices and actions of these poor miscreants and misfits. There is no reason or rhyme or sense or logic to what they're doing. Just move on with your life, forget them. There are lost causes in the overwhelming vast majority of cases.
Don't invest your scarce resources in unnecessary therapy and such hype.
Of course, in many cases therapy is useful, but ironically therapy is useful mostly for healthy people. It is an abysmal failure when it comes to true mental illness.
Remember this, you're under an obligation to sacrifice yourself and to love the mentally ill. Your remote sympathy and pity are sufficient offerings.
Safeguard your life, protect your sanity, stay away, remove such people from your life post-haste regardless of how agonizing such a break may be to you. You love them, but no contact is the only way for you to survive.
Do not be a rescuer. Do not be a savior. Do not be a fixer, lest you end up being in need of rescuing, saving and fixing.