DescentBB

Lyssophobia
Agateophobia
Maniaphobia
Dementophobia
....................... Fear of Insanity

In our culture there is a deep seated ignorance of the mind which causes a fear-of-insanity in almost everyone alive.


It is the ultimate social stigma.
You can be put away for life. \"Taken away by the men in white suits\".
Think of your cultural images of mental institutions, the movie 12 monkeys is one of my favourites.

The image we have of mental institutions is not one of treatment centers. What they are is prisons, no?


We hesitate to give them funding. They are places for dirty sick diseased contageous people, this is how we think of them - but they arn't actually these things are they, they arn't physically sick, and we won't catch anything off of them - or will we?

We are so scared of the insane and insanity, we know nothing about it. But wea re terrified. They are monsters, we lock them away. What have they done wrong? oh they are in treatment. Really?

We hesitate to give them funding because we are essentailly funding them to keep them outof sight outof mind - we don't want to think about it, because we can't think of a cure. And what if we ourselves one day caught it?

An interesting quiz. Have you ever caught yourself thinking that you would rather be dead than go insane?




Our \"image\" we upkeep in society, our egos, our sense of self-respect, your name and reputation, are all incredibly important to most people. So much so that many - when they feel it has been damaged or even may be damaged in the future - will choose to KILL THEMSELVES rather than let that happen.


Our notion of sanity or insanity, is wholely a construct of society. If you were on your own in the universe, there would be no such thing as sanity or insanity. There would be neither anyone else to confer with to make an agreed definition of what sanity is. Neither would there be anyone to judge you, to judge to see if you fit into that definition.
Just as there would be no defintion of what is \"in\" in fashion. Things such as Fashion and Sanity are dependant on the agreed definition from a group of people - with no real base in reality, it's entirely subjective and only regarded as one way or the other from a lot of people in agreement saying it is one way or the other. Pleated pants are in this season.

Interestingly there is the fashion expression \"i'd wouldn't be caught dead in that\". Considering how shallow these subjective definitions are, do you think this expression is similar to \"i'd rather die than go crazy\"?



here's a link to a short article loosely touching on the subject, and how our fear of insantiy is used in horror movies and books to scare us - even though we remain kindog ignorant.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... nsane.html
I'm not basing this thread on it, it's just something, there is precious little to be read about this so it's helpful in proving that this topic is a real issue worthy of much thought and discussion.



My major point is that our culture has an unhealthily deep seated fear of insanity - and no-one thinks about it.
I'd say that like all fears, it has to do with ignorance. We know precious little about the mind, and a lot of what we do find out about it is tainted by denial as we fear what we will find out. A lot of people hate psychiatry/psychology, and think of it as junk science, or just plain fear it - it's hard to tell what they are really feeling coz of denial.
I also think it's linked to our religiously fueled fear of drugs such as LSD in our culture.

Interesting topic...

I'm not sure that people are so much afraid of \"going insane\" (although I do think Alzheimer's really worries people), and I don't agree that it's the reason for anti-drug stances. However, I do think you're right that we generally are freaked out by people in a non-rational mindset.

It seems to me that it's mostly due to \"fear of the unknown\" and \"fear of the unpredictable\". I still remember being a 5-year-old kid, being weirded out by my great-grandmother asking me the same questions over and over - it was something I didn't understand, and couldn't really grasp at that age.

I also think you're right that people with mental issues are often marginalized. Very few (especially the poor among them) get the kind of help they need.

Did you have anything in mind as a solution, or are you just leaving it up as a topic for discussion?

What do you call a fear of roid getting loose and entering the real world?

RoidAPhobia?

But the kicker is you don't know if your sane or insane.

It's been said, and I tend to agree, that if you THINK you're going insane, you're not.

I also agree with Foil - we are afraid of the unknown or anything we don't completely understand. But isn't the real issue, or the source of our fear (in this case) with control? Most of us want to think that we are in total control of our lives and the thought of losing that scares us to death. Sometimes literally.

The best experience of my lifetime was in health care as a CNA, where I had the opportunity and privilege of working with and helping the elderly. This by no means makes me an expert on mental health or the quality and/or quantity of help available. However, I firmly believe that we're ALL doing the best we can or know how in any given moment. This not only applies to helping the mentally challenged, but everything we do.

Look at it this way: If, after years of posting and reading on this board you are still sane, then there is nothing to worry about.

I know a lot of people who have, at one time or another, been insane, and who have been in various forms of asylums. I was afraid of only one of them. I was afraid FOR several others. Didn't feel any of them needed to be hidden away, just protected and healed.

I don't think of sanity as a purely social construct, though it certainly includes measures of social aptitude. Sanity is measured at least in part by your ability to appropriately recognize patterns in the world at large. Even if you never met another person, you'd be more or less sane depending on whether your model of reality was more or less dependable. There would be nobody to judge it, but the concept would be no less real. Society's judgement of sanity isn't always correct, but neither is society's judgement of a lot of other real things.

'A Beautiful Mind'... an excellent movie.

Our notion of sanity or insanity, is wholely a construct of society. If you were on your own in the universe, there would be no such thing as sanity or insanity.

I'm not sure if I agree with that in all cases. Many with mental problems suffer terribly. They are overcome by fear, by hatred by all the emotions. A person who's anxiety comes and goes will recognize that some periods are more reasoned and rational than others and will likely prefer the rational. I suppose without anyone else to compare to they may not realize there is an alternative to their state.
Mental disability is certainly poorly understood by the general population. Homeless wanderers are just thought to be \"lazy\" or some kind of leech on society when in most cases they suffer from some kind of mental confusion and function poorly in the reality that the rest of us use in this world.

mistercool2 wrote:It's been said, and I tend to agree, that if you THINK you're going insane, you're not.

I also agree with Foil - we are afraid of the unknown or anything we don't completely understand. But isn't the real issue, or the source of our fear (in this case) with control? Most of us want to think that we are in total control of our lives and the thought of losing that scares us to death. Sometimes literally.

good point. IMHO This fear of loss of control is based around a false belief that we are in control in the first place - we all think we're quite sane but i've found that the deeper you dig the more that seems wrong .
There's no such thing as a true Scottsman.
The average man carries all kinds of neurosis, and rare desires, but he tries hard to hide all of this - lest he be labeled "odd", "queer", "weird". Some hide it better than others. Most hide it well from themselves (denial, we've all got it somewhere).

this issue (control) is also the reason i feel that drug laws are religiously based (as drugs tend to open up your mind to alternate concepts of spirituality, religions are trying to protect their monopoly by preventing this)

Lothar wrote:I know a lot of people who have, at one time or another, been insane, and who have been in various forms of asylums. I was afraid of only one of them. I was afraid FOR several others. Didn't feel any of them needed to be hidden away, just protected and healed.

I don't think of sanity as a purely social construct, though it certainly includes measures of social aptitude. Sanity is measured at least in part by your ability to appropriately recognize patterns in the world at large. Even if you never met another person, you'd be more or less sane depending on whether your model of reality was more or less dependable. There would be nobody to judge it, but the concept would be no less real. Society's judgement of sanity isn't always correct, but neither is society's judgement of a lot of other real things.

"Appropriate" is relative to the general consensus of the definition of Truth. Things can be inappropriate, yet you still get by. Take for example religion - no, take someone ELSE'S religion as an example. These people have it all WRONG, they think the world is totally different to how it really IS, but they seem to get by just fine. Everyone acts on their relative Truths, which are all different, yet they all get by! Some people's definition of truth is VERY wrong but gives them an anti-social advantage and they end up doing bette than others even though they have it REALLY wrong.

ie: most violent ppl. Typical example the Nazis - in giving themselves reasons to attack others they were anti-social, but it was great for THEM!
But that doesn't mean their reasons to attack others were correct - they were lies. Yet these lies made them strong. So success is no measure of sanity.

Some Crazy ppl see more than us. But sometimes it seems to be useful, does that mean that they are correct and we are the blind ones? It might.
i've read stories about drug divination - some ppl have the ability to see auras around things, i recall one trip where someone saw a strange aura around someone's arm - and it turned out they had some disease (cancer?) in their arm and no-one knew not even them.
It could be that they are just more sensative to things that most of us can't percieve.
I've heard of dogs seem to be able to sniff out various illnesses (ie: constantly licking and barking at a spot on their owner that turns out to be cancerous) and even predict epileptic siezures. They might be picking up on things that we will eventually be able to make up machines to pick up on.
So perhaps crazy ppl, and ppl on drugs, are able to use a form of Synthesia to pick up on things that normal people just can't. Is this a BAD thing? In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king.

Paranoia can also be good, for similar reasons. It can be like a Synthesia for logic. Jumps in logic can reveal much that would remain hidden.

Just look at the arts, As Bill Hicks said "The really good music was written by people who were either crazy or on drugs", and i'd agree. A lot of people who our society considers great were NUTTERS, and it was this outside the box thinking and perceiving of the world that was both their curse and gift. But a lot of why it's a curse is because of how people label mental illness and are afraid of it.
Being Gay used to be a curse. Now days it's more fabulous (lol), and we don't really consider it a curse anymore because we are free to be who we want to be. Well how about a similar movement for the mentally ill? Bring it outof the closet - don't be afraid of who you are. I really like this thought.

How our culture sees and labels mental illness is still fed by social conditions from hundreds of years ago where your reputation was everything and MADNESS was the ultimate label of social faux-pas. We have barely progressed, most people are still just as terrified of madness for the exact same reasons.

Ford Prefect wrote:

Our notion of sanity or insanity, is wholely a construct of society. If you were on your own in the universe, there would be no such thing as sanity or insanity.

I'm not sure if I agree with that in all cases. Many with mental problems suffer terribly. They are overcome by fear, by hatred by all the emotions. A person who's anxiety comes and goes will recognize that some periods are more reasoned and rational than others and will likely prefer the rational. I suppose without anyone else to compare to they may not realize there is an alternative to their state.
Mental disability is certainly poorly understood by the general population. Homeless wanderers are just thought to be "lazy" or some kind of leech on society when in most cases they suffer from some kind of mental confusion and function poorly in the reality that the rest of us use in this world.

but it's hard to think of a world without other people. we are social creatures - everything we do and think is tainted by social influences that we integrate into our psyche and we constrain ourselves prettymuch automatically without consciously thinking about it.

A lot of the suffering caused by mental illness may not be caused by the illness itself - but by how that illness effects the person's interaction with society. Even those completely overcome by what we term negative emotions.
(note: this is even getting beyond me, it's difficult for me to imagine a bizaro world where our labels of positive and negative emotions are different - but i'm willing to admit it's possible, and who knows if we'd think it was good or bad.)

I prefer the more rational times, because it makes it easier for me to communicate to other people (since i communicate with most people through a language based on rationality). And i judge myself based on the world around me, which wants rationality.

But you know how they say that if you leave a person alone for ages (solitary confinement) they go crazy? Well i think that's kinda key. They go crazy - based on our judgement.

If that person NEVER saw another person, if other people didn't exist, then he'd still be crazy by our definition, but we don't exist and therefore neither does our definition of crazy. He could be totally bonkers, but would he know it? and if there was no-one else around, would he care he were bonkers? would it make him any less happy?


What if the world were full of Homeless Wanderers, they wouldn't be Homeless Wanderers. They might have homes - if that's what they want, they might not wander. Or maybe the entire society would be based around wandering and traveling.

In my country, one poem that's on the Irish Language course is about a crazy man. In short, it's about an obviously crazy man that gets on a bus, and all the other passengers save one are completely afraid of him, dispite that he isn't doing anything dangerous or that would affect the other passengers. The only person that wasn't afraid of him was the only child on the bus.

roid wrote:If that person NEVER saw another person, if other people didn't exist, then he'd still be crazy by our definition, but we don't exist and therefore neither does our definition of crazy. He could be totally bonkers, but would he know it? and if there was no-one else around, would he care he were bonkers? would it make him any less happy?

If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody's around to hear it, it doesn't make a sound.
(Which is the correct answer to that riddle, if you didn't already know. Anyone that has a basic understanding of physics could tell you that.)

But you know how they say that if you leave a person alone for ages (solitary confinement) they go crazy? Well I think that's kinda key. They go crazy - based on our judgement.

That's a good point. Our world view is heavily influenced by our society. Without others to make us \"toe the line\" we might wander out of this vision of \"normal\".

Roid, have you ever read this? It's been on my to-do list for a while. The customer reviews on the page seem to give a good summary though.

Jeff250 wrote:Roid, have you ever read this? It's been on my to-do list for a while. The customer reviews on the page seem to give a good summary though.

woa. it's just made my list too.

it seems that a few years back i was influenced heavily by the essay Why Nerds are Unpopular by Paul Graham. Looking at this Michel Foucault fellow (author of the book you linked to), i wouldn't be surprised if he inspired sections of Paul Graham's essay.
My viewpoints seem to mesh very closely with Michel Foucault, so thx a lot i'll have to look into him.

WillyP wrote:'A Beautiful Mind'... an excellent movie.

I was just about to mention something like this. Sometimes people that think 'outside the box' are viewed as crazy or insane because we fear things that are not like our self. Many of these people have done lots of important things for us big and small. Not all of it is good or bad. Heres a short list:

Albert Einstein
Stephen Hawking
Robert Oppenheimer
Stanley Kubrick
and YOU