Columns

ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Acknowledging Cause and Effect

Jack Bragen
Thursday December 18, 2014 - 10:26:00 AM

For people with mental illness, thinking in terms of miracles can worsen an already difficult predicament. When someone has suffered from psychosis, it is a step forward to think in terms of cause and effect and not to see oneself as immune to the repercussions of mistakes. Pragmatism can be healing. It is valuable to think in terms of our actions and words as often but not always creating the results we obtain. It is also useful to refrain from blaming anyone, including oneself, if a bad circumstance that we did not cause creates hardship.  

For example, if you have poor attendance or other problems too much in work situations, a reputation is developed, and eventually your job prospects dry up. If you take your car to an auto mechanic and you haven't in advance removed all of the potato chip wrappers and soda cans, it can be perceived as a sign of disrespect, and you might be dealt with accordingly. On the other hand, people can discriminate in their hiring, and a bad auto mechanic can rip us off.  

Thus, no one is immune to the cause and effect laws of the universe. This can be a sort of revelation for someone who suffers from mental illness. When we are young or underdeveloped, we may think we will have unlimited opportunities in our future and that what we do now will not affect the future. Unfortunately, such a belief is unreal.  

It wasn't until recent years, after decades of falling flat on my face (metaphorically speaking, usually) that I began to have clearer thinking and gained some understanding of how the world works.  

Despite other deficiencies in awareness, I have always been aware that gambling or playing a state lottery is delusional behavior. This is especially true if such a waste of time and money interferes with meeting your basic needs. I bought about three or four lottery tickets in the 1980's, when the California Lottery first came into being, and after wasting about five or ten bucks total, I stopped assuming that I was special and I gave up on it.  

Human health often operates under unforgiving physical laws. Overeating, smoking and lack of exercise will tend to produce a short lifespan. Other physical disease that is not always our fault can make us ill.  

Finances operate under laws of cause and effect; not paying rent when due causes a lack of housing. Accepting excessive credit card debt can lead to a financial crash. People can get laid-off of their job without a good reason, and this can cause life circumstances to collapse, if another job can't be obtained soon enough.  

In the social world there is also cause and effect; rudeness loses you friends. Someone badmouthing you behind your back, possibly through no fault of your own, can get you excluded--unfair but true.  

Failing to maintain oral hygiene leads to poor dental health which can cause a lot of suffering. Some contagious diseases can also wreck your teeth--so can heredity. Poor driving habits of you or of another driver lead to a car accident…and so on and so forth. Most of our actions or lack of them have results. Yet a bad turn of events isn't always anyone's fault.  

Mental illness isn't usually anyone's fault--it is usually something that just happens. 

The universe doesn't follow any expectation of fairness, and it operates by rules of cause and effect. This does not imply that you are doomed to fail at whatever you try. If you try to pursue a goal, you might surprise yourself with what you are able to do. 

On the other hand, sometimes a person just gets lucky. If you are a believer in the random probability of things and if you are an admirer of statistics, you should realize that, statistically speaking, almost everyone gets a few lucky breaks in their lifespan.  

The truism that we have all heard concerning the definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing and expecting different results," needs to be stretched a little bit. The saying: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," is also true some of the time. Regardless of which tack you choose, you should realize that if you try nothing, you are likely to get nothing.  

At this point, I am sort of retired except for my writing attempts. It just didn't work out for me to try to do the standard employment, and it was too hard to succeed in a small business. At this point in life, I no longer have the energy to do employment, and I am very limited by my illness and by being medicated. This doesn't rule out some type of future attempt--but not any time soon.  

We (including most of the readers) should consider ourselves fortunate, since there are many down and out people, who lack the options that I and some of the readers may have, and who may lack a place to sleep at night.  

Thus, unlike the speeches of "motivational speakers" I do not believe absolutely everyone is able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And unlike haughty, wealthy republicans, I do not believe that it is always a person's own fault if they are in a bad situation.  

In a final note to this week's column; we should not blame ourselves or feel shame when we acknowledge past actions that seem unwise, if we had acute symptoms of mental illness. Mental illness through no fault of our own distorts the perception of reality. When we finally recover enough, we may ask ourselves the question: "Was that really me?"  


Just to remind the readers I have books for sale on Amazon that would make a great holiday gift.