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ON MENTAL ILLNESS: The Solution?

Jack Bragen
Friday January 13, 2017 - 02:54:00 PM

Albert Einstein: “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

The above quote is transferrable to a number of situations.

Anosognosia is the term psychiatrists and others use to describe people with schizophrenia who do not have insight into their problems. However, in some instances, this very same insight is blocked by overmedicating.  

 

Authorities on mental health would have you believe that persons who have a mental health diagnosis are intrinsically inferior in their minds in comparison to a non-afflicted person. This presumption is the same thing that Americans once used to oppress African American people and women. (This bigotry, unfortunately, hasn't gone away, either.)  

Mental illnesses do not go away by thinking them out of existence. On the other hand, persons with psychiatric disabilities, if they are to do better, must have a level of insight into themselves that exceeds that of the average, non-afflicted person. A person with a psychiatric disability must understand the manner in which their mind lies to them. This knowledge is not needed by the average, non-afflicted person. This kind of insight doesn't come about easily or quickly.  

If everyone agrees that today is Saturday, it makes today Saturday. If everyone agrees that a person is dumb, does that make them dumb? Not always. If you can convince a person that she or he is dumb, it will program that individual to appear dumb. When I have professed that I am a smart person, mental health practitioners labeled this as "delusions of grandeur." However I was never convinced of that idea. Others have not been as fortunate.  

In the absence of treatment, an individual who suffers from schizophrenia will tend to lack the insight that they are ill, because their psychosis blocks that awareness. Once medicated, a person with schizophrenia has an opportunity to learn from her or his mistakes.  

You can't talk a psychotic person back to sanity. A line from a Billy Joel song goes, "You should never argue with a crazy man." A psychotic person needs treatment, usually in the form of medication, to the point where she or he is receptive to reason. At that point, it becomes possible to point out delusions to that person.  

However, if someone is overmedicated, if their environment is set up to convince them of their inabilities, and if you drill into that person's head that they are unable to think on their own, the long term results will not be very good.  

(Undermedicating is a problem as well. The condition is not adequately addressed in that case, and symptoms can develop, and this can lead to delusions developing, in turn leading to noncompliance and a full relapse.)  

The Einstein quote is applicable to society but is also applicable to someone recovering from mental illness. If we are to do better, our thinking must not be completely medicated out of existence. Yet the illness must be addressed, or we will be perpetually stuck in what one psychologist termed, "the revolving door" of going in and out of the hospital with repeated relapses.  

What is the solution, you might ask. Well, part of the solution is living long enough. If we can survive past forty, we have a chance at long-term recovery and some productive years. Part of the solution is journaling, I believe. And part of the solution comes from the ability to accept the unacceptable: we have an illness that requires treatment.  

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Thanks to readers who are continuing to purchase copies of my memoir and my self-help manual. You might also try my science fiction collection--some of the pieces are better than others, but overall it is a good read. Please get them from Amazon, Lulu, or another reputable source, in order to be certain they are not pirated copies.