For the record...a rant..

[undergroundpanther]

I am mentally ill. I have post traumatic stress. I have been locked up in mental hospitals before. ..oK I am bat shit crazy.

That said I am not an ASSHOLE.I am mentally ill,I have a scarred brain from traumas. That does not mean I am an asshole . I never built a career being on like THESE assholes .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI200504110


Don't stigmatize me and the millions of mentally ill people in this world by lumping in us..with them..!
BIG differences between asshole bullies and mentally ill people.Remember Hitler killed off the disabled and mentally ill first to create his perfect society http://www.chairgrrl.com/DisabilityTimeline/holocaust.htm..

All you Shiavo/all right for the state to pull the plug,on disabled people, people..think on this similarity and realize the futility of life laws are killing people even on DU...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1017296



When I see people on DU,and everywhere else using the mental illness label as a STIGMA tool to insult or label an asshole bad... I feel pissed off for being lumped in with these assholes and hurt because I know I'm NOT an asshole and I know alot of mentally ill or"crazy" people aren't assholes either....
This use of "nutjob,crazy,loon,ect.ect.ect.. being used as the insult du Jour directed to a BULLY,an authoritarian,a fascist dick head,or some such fanatic control freak..
Is really stigmatizing people who suffer in ways people without mental illness cannot ever comprehend. If you have compassion or know someone with depression,PSTD,Autistic,ADD,OCD a phobia,bi polar,eating disorders, schizophrenia or who has committed suicide, Mental illness is no funny joke. In reality mentally ill people suffer,and it is NOT because they are a bunch of bat shit crazy assholes.

But sometimes mentally ill people get fed up,it's because they were hurt by assholes too much and they keep being dehumanized by a society that repeats the insults by stigmatizing them.
You people who have never had mental illness need to understand how pervasive the stigmas against disabled people go in this culture.For some populations of scapegoated people stigmas and hate it is still brutally painful.

Mental illness HURTS the person who has it,it can drive you to kill yourself it hurts so much.. IT ruins your capacity to live life, it ruins everything..

Authoritarians are one type of asshole that helps CREATE mental illness in their victims and in society.
Most mentally ill people are NOT psycho killers,violent or dangers to society at all,they might not bathe enough,they might talk to themselves,or not be efficient workers,or hoard alot of beer cans ,but they are not a bunch of control freak assholes for kicks..in fact in this society they are scapegoated along with gays ,women,brown skinned people,pagans,and fat people ,often by some of the same "fortunate" authoritarian assholes.

And it is the authoritarian that creates the social conditions that normalize the scapegoating of different or suffering people.

SO Say what you really mean, Call an asshole bully what it is an asshole bully

But don't call an asshole bully mentally ill,
crazy,loon,nut job wacko, because that is not what an ASSHOLE bully is. An asshole bully is an asshole when an asshole bully is being an asshole bully to you or someone else or alot of people .OK? Be creative as you want in how you call an asshole an asshole but do not misfire your wrath into innocent people.Mentally ill people,fat people,gays,etc.are not collateral damage to be dismissed as fodder in a war of words ok?

Remember..Assholes don't suffer from their own cruelty,control freakishness stigmatization and hateful words. The victims do.

If it hurt the bully like it hurts the victim hearing such hateful words and vicious stigmas the bully would not do it anymore. If a bully was not an asshole ,their empathy would forbade such abusive verbiage ,and their consience would kick them for it if they took it out on the wrong target. So be aware Asshole bullies have no consience,no empathy and feel no shame when they tear someone innocent , vulnerable,different or in pain down..who didn't insult or hurt them for no reason.

The suffering caused by bully assholes through their cruelty can really cause mental illness in sensitive people. Magnify a bully's opinions with the media, or if they have "authority" or social recognition,a bully can generate social stigmas and cause scapegoating in bystanders and cause war and even some form of fascism if the bullies are not told to shut-up and leave(the victim) alone..

It's obedient behavior that is so easily being exploited and misused by a big mouth bully that gets so many people hurt .

In the Stanford prison experiments
Twenty-four young men were selected to participate from the many candidates subjected to diagnostic interviews and psychological tests designed to weed out abnormal people.
http://www.prisonexp.org/legnews.htm

Wonder why abnormals were not included? Maybe it because mentally ill people are too hurt to trust authority and too scarred by trauma to take a bully for long,or too disorganized to be of any use in such a study of authoritarianism and obedience?

Or maybe because the intent of this experiment was to show how normal people are not immune as they'd like to believe they are from being victims,bystanders or perpetrators.And the stigma attached to mental illness would have been used to dismiss the study and it's profound implications about the authoritarianism of the military culture and the state.

Bullies cause and thrive on social discord,bad relations,and Psychiatric injury.And they are common in every population of human beings. They gravitate anywhere that TOLERATES or 'normalizes' their shit.
An Asshole is an Asshole.An ASSHOLE is the problem.
Don't BE an asshole when you get outraged by an asshole and go around and stigmatize the mentally ill yet again 'cause an asshole pissed you off.. WE can do better at being aware of what we say and who it hurts and keep it aimed at the real target that deserves our wrath right? Have some empathy and skillful means..

Watch who you point that sharp tongue at you might stab someones heart out with it if you flap it around without aiming it at your true intended target first..

Here's an analogy..It's like when you can't chew out an ASSHOLE boss being mean to you,so you stuff it,you come home and kick the family pet... who is Innocent and uninvolved with your situation,you just made your pet the victim to suffer the wrath the asshole deserved.. And because we humans speak and words have meanings they can pummel a mind like fists pummel flesh. Hence Psychiatric injury.

http://www.bullyonline.org/stress/index.htm

This is the stigmatizing to the mentally ill thread that got me pissed off.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2683767&mesg_id=2683901

[BrklynLiberal]

1. You are absoutely right.

Mental illness does not = evil or stupid, and should never be construed as such.

:thumbsup:

What is going on in this administration is way beyond mental illness. It attracts people who are EVIL, and enjoy taking advantage of people, and breaking them. People may not like comparisons to Hitler, but his regime attracted the same category of sadistic, evil people.

[wellstone dem]

2. Amen

Thanks for posting.

i'm recommending.

[undergroundpanther]

3. thanks..

I'tll probably fade into obscurity with the Enron stuff above it.At least I got it on my journal..

[Mnemosyne]

4. This needs to be seen. k&r

From one sufferer to another. :hug:

And fuck anyone that thinks we are "weak" or "nuts", I'm one of the strongest people I know because of it now (and possibly one of the sanest in many ways)- otherwise I would never have survived to this point. If you don't suffer from mental illness, you really can't ever understand exactly how strong you have to be to survive with it nor how much horrendous suffering is involved just to survive some days. The days I have had to fight just to keep breathing for the day have been more numerous than I could ever count.

And I thank the Universe that it's not any worse than it is each day though some are unbearable.

Here's to those of us that manage to survive. :toast: :smoke: :hug:

My daughter's father committed suicide 21 years ago. I've lost several friends and my grandfather at age 82, all to suicide. One thing that has kept me going is I don't want my daughter to have had two parents lost to suicide. It's been a raging battle in me too many days.

And to those that couldn't survive it. :cry::grouphug::cry:

Fuck the cruel and ignorant that add unnecessary pain to those already suffering. My last ex was cruel and manipulative to me about it and now he suffers from severe depression and actually apologized recently.

What goes around...

[tavalon]

5. You have some very good points

and as a fellow survivor/sufferer of mental illness, I get this, with feeling. Yeah, here comes the 'but', but there are just too many kinds of mental illness placed under that wide umbrella called mental illness, psychopath, sociopath, bipolar I and II, depressive or unipolar, schizophrenia........and so on. And you are so right that authoritarianism is the evil behind so much of the genesis of these many kinds of mental illness. George Bush and many of the others in power actually are sociopathic murderers - they don't kill despite their conscience, they have no conscience to bother them. Now, whether that is a genetic predisposition or the fallout from horrible abuse is a topic for another discussion, but it is what we are dealing with here, a gathering of sociopaths in the halls of power. It has happened before but rarely in so powerful and dangerous a country as ours.

Anyway, I don't call these people looneys, I call them privileged and dangerous sociopathic murderers, rich and powerful Ted Bundy's, one and all. I don't see any relation between their mental illness and mine, except that in both cases, something is terribly wrong in the grey matter. Mental illness almost always causes soul sickness and in the case of the people who are now running our country, I think the soul sickness has progressed to soul death, if a sociopath can even develop a soul, something I am unsure about. The point being that, while George W. and I both have mental illness, there is no kinship between my Unipolar and his Sociopathic brain. None. So I just don't see his mental illness as being in any way related to mine so when people call him batshit crazy, I don't feel any sting of kinship, that's for sure.

[undergroundpanther]

6. It's not kinship

It's stigma.Two times,of being called a degrading name and second for having a piece of shit like bush called mentally ill perpetating the stigma mentally ill people are psycho killers..
And because he IS NOT any kin to me also.

[ninkasi]

10. undergroundpanther

some people are weak, and so make sure to take revenge on those with less power than themselves. I place Bush, and his cronies, in that category. Some people, like you, are strong, and while you know you have a condition which requires help, just as diabetes requires help, you tend to your illness yourself, and do not try to project the symptoms onto other people.

Three members of my family have taken their own lives. The one I was closest to, a brother three years younger than me, was one of the most intelligent, artistic, loving people I have ever know. I miss him as much today as I did 15 years ago. There is no way I can put him and people like Bush in the same category. My brother's pain caused him to turn on himself, while Bush and his fellow sociopaths turn on others. There is a huge difference.

Just as physical illnesses are different, so are mental illnesses. Be strong, I admire you. I admire your courage, and your willingness to share your feelings. Nobody could consider for a moment that you and Bush share any trait.

[Dora]

7. I like you more and more each post I read.

:thumbsup:

[kineneb]

8. I see it this way...

there are good crazy people and there are bad crazy people. I try to be one of the good crazy people because I have ethics and I care about others. The bad crazy people (as you term them "assholes") embrace the insanity as an excuse to commit horrid acts. It is the similar logic to the false christians/moslems/etc. who use the lame excuse of being "forgiven" to do totally unforgivable acts against their fellow beings (human and otherwise).

Or another way, the diagnosis of insanity separate from the actions of the diagnosed.

And Hi, from a fellow crazy: depression, OCD, panic disorder; w/history of depression and suicide in family. On Cymbalta now; dealing w/Hubby who is on dialysis and has 20% heart function ("ejection fraction"), finishing up Chapter 7 bankruptcy and trying to figure out how to live on Hubby's SSDI.
:grouphug:

[Iowa]

9. K&R

[rucky]

11. The parasites: Antisocial Personality Disorder?

maybe the assholes who make a name for themselves are in a different spectrum of mental illness...

http://www.mental-health-matters.com/disorders/dis_details.php?disID=8

Antisocial Personal Disorder
Also known as:

Description

Antisocial Personality Disorder results in what is commonly known as a Sociopath. This disorder is defined by an ongoing disregard for the rights of others, since the age of 15 years. Some examples of this disregard are reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, deceitfulness such as repeated lying or deceit for personal profit or pleasure, and lack of remorse for actions that hurt other people in any way. Additionally, they must have evidenced a Conduct Disorder before the age of 15 years, and must be at least 18 years old to receive this diagnosis.

http://www.mental-health-matters.com/articles/article.php?artID=292

In response to our recent rash of sniper attacks in the Washington D.C area, and the term "Psychopath" being used indiscriminately, we feel that it is appropriate to truly define this term for our valued members.

Psychopathy is not a clinical term in either the DSM-IV or the ICD-10. The nearest equivalent to it is, in the DSM-IV is Antisocial Personality Disorder, while the ICD-10 uses the term "sociopathy" or "Dissocial Personality Disorder". With this in mind, I will focus on both the characteristics of the DSM-IV definitions, as well as the general "public definitions" of a psychopath.

These persons, in general, display many of the following traits:

Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Need for stimulation, with a proneness to boredom
Pathological lying
Conning and manipulating behaviors
No sense of remorse or guilt
A very shallow emotional affect - they display emotions they don't really feel
A lack of empathy for others
They are parasitic - they live off of others
They are impulsive, and show poor control over their behaviors
They tend to be promiscuous
Their behavior problems start early in life
They cannot form long-term plans that are realistic
They are impulsive, and irresponsible
They do not accept responsibility for their actions - another caused it
Marital relationships are short, and many
They display juvenile delinquency
They violate probation often
Their criminality is diverse

-------------------------------------------

Interesting topic you've opened up. It appears I am a parasite magnet (and prone to depression). Coincidence?