viragette

Well - nothing, really. I’ll get back to that. What I mean to say is - and just consider this for a moment - if you’ve ever lived or worked with someone who is just not right in the head - it’s funny. You can admit it. And, it has to be. This is what makes human interaction such a source of endless comedy. Because what is true is funny - and what is true is that people, frankly, are crazy.

I have known some crazy people. People who are - shall we say - eccentric. Abnormal. Weird. I’ve worked with people who are so very odd that it takes the combined brain power of 5 graduate students to successfully generate more oddness (and succeed they did). I’ve mentioned that I knew a woman graduate student who would attend faculty candidate talks wearing no underwear. That was merely the tip of the crazy iceberg! She may have been the most unpleasant crazy person I’ve met, but she was very tame by comparison to others. I’ve lived with people who could be classified by DSM-IV criteria in multiple categories. With honors.

I am not bragging about this, I assure you. I’m also not saying that I’m perfect (and if I did, I might have to see someone about Narcissistic Personality Disorder - a statement which exempts me from the possibility of said diagnosis, but I digress). While I construct a facade of heartless unconcern for ironic effect (i.e., because it is a lame way of entertaining myself), in all honesty I am more of a caregiver by nature. A sap. A sweetheart. A people pleaser. And, I am tolerant to a fault - something I am working on.

My tendency to tolerate when others would toss-aside is ideal for extended interaction with unusual people. Disorders of the mind are compelling because they force us to question our notions of free choice. Many people who are classified by psychiatric categories could behave much more normally if they chose to. However, the defining attribute of many disorders is that afflicted individuals are extremely unlikely to choose to seek help, or get better.

This is very similar to the problems of addiction. While it is true that addiction is a disease, it can conceivably be overcome merely by choosing to overcome it. In fact - that is the ONLY way that addiction is overcome. So too with many psychiatric disorders.

I am thinking primarily of personality disorders - diagnoses like antisocial, borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. I believe these are very poorly understood classifications, and thus far medicine has had little success in helping people diagnosed in this way. Perhaps largely because it is impossible to help someone who will not help themselves, and a defining characteristic of these syndromes is the absence of desire or willingness to seek help or be helped. The prognosis for someone with such a disorder who refuses psychological help is extremely poor while, ironically, those who accept help have a much better prognosis primarily because they are considered - by definition - to be less severely ill.

I’m not sure that an initial diagnosis, in many cases, is even helpful for the patient - although it may be wholly accurate and may be very helpful to those living around the patient. People seem to need a certain kind of infallible evidence before they will accept that something is wrong with them - and the only acceptable evidence is often utter self-destruction. For those who witness irrational, self destructive behavior - sometimes from people who are otherwise so very intelligent, wonderful and capable - it can be crazy-making. In fact, it usually is. The distress caused by witnessing such behavior is a palpable index of mental health in the distressed - it bugs a healthy person so much because they recognize how sick it is, and because they care (lack of empathy is evidence of something wrong).

Recovery programs for people who survive encounters with the mentally ill, or addicts, are very common. Al-Anon and Ala-Teen, for example, serve the spouses, friends, family or (one in four) children of alcoholics. They emphasize - above all - that it is not healthy for a normal person to try to help someone who is ill or addicted in the ways that most healthy people reflexively attempt to help. Normal people try to understand, they try to offer help and when that doesn’t work - they attempt to exert control. Overtly or passively, they attempt to make the sick person accept help. For their own good.

Everyone learns, sooner or later, that the only people who exert control over others in this world are crazy people.

Meanwhile, it is indeed possible to relate to crazy folk without joining them. Laugh. You know it’s funny. And if you don’t - you’ll cry.