this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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I'm a little shocked how many people still seem to equate sociopaths, psychopaths and narcissists with other mental issues, or how we still all use a lot of the terminology brought into existence by an abusive psychiatry. I don't see the so called 'mental health care system' as much better than police - they are there to keep people in line and functioning, and have been uncaring and untrustworthy every step on the way much like the police.
I guess after breaking up both this system and its terminology we have to redefine who we would declare a danger to our society, but without having to be cast into either a crime or madness framework. I guess we also would see a lot of bad behaviour disappear. For example, bot 'autistics' and 'schizophrenics' don't tend to be violent people if others don't freak out around them and if there's freedom to change environments and fulfill sensory needs (vs. being locked in a classroom, hospital room, prison cell, office for x hours at a time). Society will get more peaceful when people can relearn and get better at raising children with love (which also gets easier as we fulfill the needs of all, not just the rich).
The fact that now there's so many people imprisoned doesn't mean we'll see the same numbers or even close to that in a solarpunk society. Now, we have people imprisoned because it makes some people rich, we have people imprisoned because we believe only people who can keep up with awful working conditions are worthy of a dignified life, we have them imprisoned because we created a society that traumatised them to shit, we have people imprisoned because they like the wrong substance. Or we medicate them or put them in the psychiatric ward if they are weird and don't play along.
In solarpunk we share what we have, we don't hoard, so what is there to fight about, what is there to steal? We don't work long hours, there's time to take care of yourself - so mental problems will stay low. I think this could lead to where we would find if and how the cases look that remain - the rare cases of people we don't want to have around. I'm not really sure how that would even look - I feel too locked into current society and its 'bad' and 'mentally ill' people. Maybe the thought path leads to that having to admit that as long as we are ruled by psychopath bullies, an un-psychopathic society could never exist.
Edit: mark oldschool psych terms
Narcissist here. My NPD is a mental health issue. My parents abused me, and I never learned to love myself unconditionally as a result. The ego I do have is a fragile facade. Threats to my ego can feel subjectively like threats to my life, because when I don't have my false ego, I don't think I'm worthy of life. Some narcisstists perceive threats to their egos as violence, and they respond with violence. I don't act that way, but I do perceive attacks on my disability as violence, and I don't believe anyone should have to hear that.
Material conditions are never going to solve my NPD, because I'm too old to learn to love myself unconditionally. The brain loses plasticity as it ages, and what we're talking about is early childhood stuff. What I can benefit from is a more caring and understanding environment, and one that doesn't attack narcisstists for being abuse victims. One that understands my special needs and provides them, even when they are social needs as opposed to physical needs.
I used to be married to someone who got damaged so seriously so early in life that a normal relationship with him was ultimately impossible and I couldn't really provide the social needs this person needed without completely denying my own needs. The only way I found to deal with it was to move very far away. I guess if we hadn't been married and forced ourselves to live together it could have been different - another factor here was the lack of healthy community.
I'm curious about what you perceive as attack on your disability. If it is the terminology thing: I'm ranting rather about the terminology (Narcissist, Autistic, Schizophrenic, Psychopath) as a symbol of an authoritarian, abusive psychiatric system that judges people as being disordered, out of order, without addressing the underlying causes - the trauma, the abusive setup of society, the competitive setup that causes people to be aggressive ... so yes, we are all damaged, and each of us in different, specific ways that can be categorized and their categorization can be helpful for our self-awareness-process - but I don't want to use the language of people who call me disordered when really I'm just mainly neurodiverse and for the rest mostly traumatized.
The challenge for each of us in a solarpunk society is to find a place where we are somewhat useful, or at least not of harm to others. As a neurofunky person I have already chosen a place a little away from other people because the weirded-out-ness is mutual and I need it quiet. I try to be of use without meeting too many actual people and what used to be 'my mental health' is now only just me again, which is very good.
You hold strongly to the ideals of Solarpunk in your discussion, it is apparent in the tone your text conveys. Also I had never seen that website before, I may have to look at it in the future.
I have seen the damages the mental health system does, compared to just leaving people alone and do their thing. It's a people-destroying atrocious system of uncare. I watched it and tried to believe in it for 20 years and I'm just done. No more. The first thing one can simply give up is self-pathologizing - why declare myself ill, if first of all the setup of society is ill, and my mental unwellness is a reaction to my powerlessness to change anything about it?
I will not deny that in many situations there is damage caused by the current Mental Healthcare Model, I have seen many who suffer from the stigmatization of their struggles, both self-inflicted by how they are told to view themselves as well as inflicted by those that they hold trust towards; however, I cannot truly agree with your belief of it being people-destroying, but that is due to my own observations and experiences on both sides of the glass window.
As I had mentioned earlier in my own comment, one of the most important steps to be taken is to change the stigma of the labels, including the label of client or patient.