The more in denial, the more deluded a society is, the more unconscious are its individuals, and the more existential suffering and destructiveness it creates. Because the ego is in control. The ego is a great tool to have, but it is a lousy master, who doesn’t give a damn for anything or anyone but itself. Existential suffering is our self’s, our true nature’s rebellion against the tyranny of an ego in control. If we didn’t suffer existentially, the ego would have destroyed us, our selves, our true nature and nature as such, a long time ago.

Anyway, I don’t think, we necessarily need to suffer in the rather unconscious way, that often gets labelled “mental illness”, and that, indeed, can be quite destructive itself. It may sound paradoxical, but when we become conscious of our suffering, that is when we realize that we are not our suffering, we don’t suffer anymore, and we can use our suffering in a constructive way.

Btw. having an ego is what distinguishes us from other life forms on this planet, who are not capable to achieve consciousness to the same extent as we are, but who, in spite of their unconsciousness, do not suffer existentially (apropos of “schizophrenic” mice…).

Don’t know, how enlightening this is. I hope, it makes at least some sense.

Yours appears to be an illuminated interpretation. I agree with virtually everything you have said in your last post and particularly agree with the mass societal psychosis as you have described it.

I wonder however, given your current state of enlightenment, what your “symptoms” are symptomatic of? If we viewed them within the context of sign language (or perhaps bells and whistles) arising from the unconscious or subconscious mind, set off by some representative stimulus, does that not suggest that there remains something missing or unresolved and that given resolution that the unconscious or subconscious would no longer be compelled to sign the significance of a perceived threat because that threat no longer exists?`

I anticipate that your response to the question will be enlightening and I look forward to receiving it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think of myself as enlightened. Life is an evolving experience, as you say. So is consciousness. However, I see a whole lot of people who are “normal”, who do not hear voices for instance, who nevertheless suffer considerably, even though they seem to “function” on the surface. They succeed in repressing their trauma, keep it hidden from themselves – and they act it out, big time, through more or less socially acceptable self-/destructiveness: alcohol, nicotine, abusive relationships, wars, discrimination, exploitation, etc. etc.

If you ask me, it’s this “normality” that is the real delusion, or mass-psychosis. And I’m proud to be somewhat maladjusted to it. Indeed, when you reach the point where you realize that your “symptoms” are not who or what you are, that they are signs rather than symptoms, and start to understand their language, that is when you truly come to an understanding of just how traumatic reality is. To say consciously “yes” to “symptoms” is not to turn a blind eye to a reality that is unbearably painful. It is the opposite. It is facing and accepting reality which the “symptoms” ruthlessly confront you with.

I do not embrace “symptoms” because I can’t stand reality, and they’d offer me a refuge from it. I embrace them because I want to know all about reality. If I wanted to escape, and remain unconscious, I’d definitely chosen to pop mind-numbing pills, that had rendered me more or less incapable of investigating and
understanding the sign-language of my unconscious (=”symptoms”).

So, if you think that MadPride, embracing “symptoms”, equals to escapism, think again!

The individual who feels powerless to their psychotic breaks and has their vocational pursuits destroyed because they can’t function sufficiently to attend school or work consistently no doubt views their delusional psychosocial system as an interference.

The intriguing question regarding an individual who clearly has the choice to retain their “gift” or discard it, and chooses to retain it is what is motivating this individual? Is he or she operating from a state of fear or are they seeking pleasure? And, at that point during their recovery, do they really have the choice?

I agree fully with the assessment regarding “A Brave New World” and the perils associated with a medicated society and do not advocate neuroleptic drugs. There are people however who will suggest that they have recovered because they comply with the neuroleptic prescriptions. The relevant point as I indicated earlier is whatever works on the road to recovery can be deemed productive. I however will hang firm on my belief that a goal associated with recovery is to have the individual fully empowered and that to the extent that they are a victim to any environmental stimulus that becomes a catalyst for psychotic experience that they are not fully empowered and are not living an unencumbered life.

It is a frightening experience to face the world without the security of a delusional system to retreat to when the stresses of life seem insurmountable yet once this fear is successfully overcome the affected individual really does have the benefit of free choice available. I will assert that any individual who has recovered to this level of free choice will no longer have their delusional psychosocial systems available to them as an option because they have recovered sufficiently that that delusional system no longer serves any productive purpose.

In every instance life is an evolving experience and to suggest that someone has recovered because they have made it successfully through one gate or another is rather naive. At best as I have said elsewhere no one recoveres from schizophrenia because schizophrenia does not exist. At best they recover from their own limiting beliefs; beliefs that in the presence of particular environmental stimuli become unbearable to the extent that they need to break with their current experience and retreat to a delusional system to try to cope.

Many of the experiences I had during crisis were absolutely terrifying at first. But what made them terrifying was that I didn’t understand them, because I grew up in a culture that doesn’t (want to) understand them, that itself is terrified by them, and judges them to be an “interference”, an illness, a defect. Once I understood, I realized the immense value of the experiences in terms of coming to an understanding of myself and the world on a somewhat deeper level than I see most people ever achieve (sounds arrogant, I know; so be it). It’s like Jon Kabat-Zinn says about his traumatic childhood: “It was just perfect.”

Science is well on its way to be able to create what on the surface may appear to be the perfectly happy society. No one has to experience psychological distress of any kind anymore, thanks to the achievements of psychopharmacology and maybe (probably) even psychosurgery. No matter how much abuse, exploitation, oppression, no one reacts naturally distressed to it anymore. Nothing interferes with our culture’s abusiveness anymore. – And this is what really renders unusual experiences, beliefs, perceptions, etc. “interferences”, isn’t it? That they interfere with, interrupt, disturb the smooth continuation of the abusiveness of our culture, that they prevent our culture’s dysfunctionality from functioning altogether unchallenged. – Brave New World. Is that really where we want to go? Is that where the future of humanity lies? In the abolition of everything that makes a human being human? Needless to say: that then will be the end of humanity.

I know what I’d choose if I were to choose between an alienated, indifferent, and by and large empty existence, and life with all its challenges, insecurities, and the whole array of experiences and emotions from despair to euphoria. Indeed, I was offered the first, and refused the offer. I haven’t yet regretted my choice, not for one second. Not only because of the side effects that usually come along with psych drugs, and that often cause a lot of suffering themselves, but mainly because being alive and conscious is such an exciting experience, I can’t get enough of it.

I hear it that you “don’t doubt” that if individuals were given a choice, they would choose to live without something like the experience of hearing voices. Yet I have heard some voice hearers, who had made good recoveries and had a clear perspective from which to make a choice, say that they were happy to have the experience of hearing voices, that it did enrich their lives in various ways. So everyone is not the same on this.

There are those who see being gay as something like a disability: they imagine not only that people don’t choose to be that way, but that everyone who is gay if given a choice not to be, would rationally choose to be heterosexual. In fact it is more complex than that. While it is generally true that people did not become gay as a result of a “choice” – they just grew up that way – many if now given a choice would happily stay gay, and this is more true in places where discrimination is low.

So what about people who have recovered in other ways, but who still hear voices and wish they didn’t? I would encourage them to look at what is distressing to them about the voices, and to look at a variety of options for reducing that distress. They might find ways of getting the voice hearing experience to stop, or they might find ways to reduce the distress while the voice hearing experience continues.

I think we cause problems for others when we try to get other people’s experiences to change because it distresses us, and we start thinking we should decide what other people’s experience should be. And people cause problems for themselves when they get too rigid about what their own experience should be, and come up with fixed ideas about that, rather than explore the variety of ways they might find to relate well with their own experience. I suggest really paying attention to what does work for people, and then coming to appreciate the diversity that exists in ways to be healthy.

(By the way, hearing voices is not in itself a delusion, as long as one does not have a delusional belief about the source of the experience. If one has no delusional beliefs about source, then it is really just another form of thinking.)

I am inclined to agree with Sarah and suggest that the affected individual, given a choice, would no doubt choose to live their lives without the interferences of these delusional thoughts.

In many respects promoting that one should embrace these interferences as a “gift” is an acknowledgement by the individual advocating this that they are powerless to alter the outcome sufficiently to effect a complete recovery yet there are people who recover completely and who move beyond their delusional psychosocial systems.