schizophrenia, dehumanization, morality, and the nature of harm
CW: ableism, morality
an essay post about schizophrenia, dehumanization, morality, and the nature of harm, pls take a look + also look @ urselves and question just "why" you have, if you've ever, believed someone being "psychotic" is "bad/wrong/evil" (are you so good you can believe this?)
- who conducts (executes harm; direct violencers)
- who engages (views/benefits from the the fruits of harm; active audience participant)
- who condones (forgives harm; those who justify and grant permission for harm)
i think what feeds the perpetual engine of harm is fundamentally "permission " i.e. cycles of harm and violence as part of the status quo can only exist if they are given "permission" to "be normal / part of the norm." if people in their minds truly believe "there are Good People (heroes) and there are Bad People (villains) and i am a Good Person so any harm i do is For A Good Cause and is directed at Bad People who Deserve To Be Harmed" do u see where i am going?
like, if every violencer believes that they are Good so any ""violence"" they do isn't ""really harmful"" because it was done ""For The Sake of Good!"" because isn't ""vanquishing evil / defeating evil / removing evil / harming evil"" actually a Good Thing?
when the Legendary Hero kills the Evil Villain, it's a Good Thing! he's Saved Everyone! but when this overly simplistic morality is applied in real-time in the "real world where other human beings live," you end up in all these situations where harm is conducted and justified as "good/righteous" because it was done to defend against "bad/evil"
but when "bad/evil" is defined under systemic oppression, you end up Killing Off the most vulnerable. the "scary mental illnesses" for examples. such as: schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder (BPD), and dissociative personality disorder (DID).
"oh but i only hurt them because they were PSYCHOTIC." "so what?"
like, just say you don't think psychotic people are human beings. just tell me you think we are subhuman because we have hallucinations / delusions. does it hurt anyone when i am sitting quietly peeling a tangerine alone in my own house and having "the mental radio / cassette tape" on in my brain that repeats a shuffled series of soundbites it recorded from who knows when and plays them on loop in a barely audible / indistinguishable volume?
i knew someone with cotard's delusion where you think you are dead and nothing anyone tells you can convince you otherwise. how did this hurt anyone, for C to believe he had died and remained among the living haunting them as a ghost. he walked around believing he was a haunting, even as the tried his damndest to do good by others, such as by loving his partner and teaching at the swim school he worked at. helping children learn how not to drown like he believed he did, and didn't survive.
how are these things so horrible that they justify the harm that others do to us?
"you're fucking psychotic," i am, this is true and undeniable, why does it justify the harm that others conduct towards me? does being psychotic mean i am no longer entitled to be treated with the respect human beings deserve?
does being psychotic mean i lose all human rights. does being psychotic mean i'm no longer human. does being psychotic mean im subhuman.
this is what the demonization of mental illness can do. not just 'stigma' but 'morality' under the simplistic binary of GOOD VS. EVIL where 'normal, healthy, neurotypical' people are Good and 'psychotic, crazy, insane' people are Evil.
sometimes these words are too fancy. when people say "neurotypical,' they really mean "a person whose traumas and struggles are deemed within the acceptable parameters of societal and proper behavior" because the truth is that living under capitalist patriarchy traumatizes everyone, including those who benefit.
because those benefits are "conditional" and can be lost at any time due to disgrace, disability, or dismemberment. tragedy of any kind can strike at any time. no one is exempt.
i just want people to interrogate what they mean when they think of Good people and when they think of Bad people. and what they knee-jerk think of schizophrenia and psychosis.
the truth is i go to the grocery store like anyone else. i buy a few fruits as a treat and i stack the apples cutely when i go home. i cut a gaya melon. put my kiwis in the fridge. drink some luxury fridge water that is nice and cold even though it's just fucking unfiltered tap. but it's luxury to me, because it is cold.
like, why is this scary. what about this is scary. i'm psychotic and i live in an unreality, i'm schizophrenic and i have been for years. are there scary parts about psychosis? of damn course there are. but what's scarier than the condition is the dehumanization from all my family, friends, medical professionals and practitioners, strangers on the internet and real life, acquaintances that whisper demonizing gossip about Their acquaintances' interaction with schizophrenic people. media as well.
books, webtoons, manga, comics, tv, movies, music.
to be schizophrenic is to have enemies everywhere that feed the paranoia that you already have enemies everywhere, but the truth is that they Do exist. and they exist in the form of an ordinary person that makes an ordinary and agreeable remark that someone being "fucking psychotic" is Bad, Evil, and makes them Deserving of Harm and Violence of Any and All kinds.
because being "Psychotic" and "Not Mentally Healthy" unlike "Normal People" who are always of course "Perfectly Mentally Healthy" means that violence from the hands of Normal People being weaponized against Psychotic People is just "good defeating evil."
being psychotic and not mentally healthy makes you wrong/bad/evil.
and it is the duty of "good" people to constrain/exorcise/defeat/harm "evil," isn't it?