Do you know what insanity is

Do you know what insanity is truly like?

I’ve been given a psychiatric diagnosis, but that does not begin to describe some of the hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, depression, obsession, euphoria, and anxiety I’ve experienced.

If you want to witness firsthand what mental illnesses are like, PCP may be the drug that most accurately mimics their symptoms. I warn you, though, if you do survive it, you may have to take pills to prevent psychoses thereafter.

40% of the homeless have a serious mental illness, 30% of inmates and about 7% of the general population. Half of those affected have abused drugs, and around half are unemployed, existing on below poverty welfare of

Answers and Replies

I’m friends with a guy who lives in my building who was diagnosed a schizophrenic when I first moved in. Later his diagnosis was changed to schizoaffective. When I first moved in he was the victim of «command» voices, voices that ordered him to do pointless things. One of the things they told him to do was paint things white. He painted everything he owned white. Sometimes they told him to paint things he didn’t own white. He was arrested when a neighbor saw him out front painting the fire hydrant white. He protested that it wasn’t his idea and that he had no desire to do it.

I read that voices like this keep people doing what they tell them to do by threatening to create some disaster in the world if they aren’t obeyed. The person is then told they they are responsible for whatever disaster is reported next day on the news, if they haven’t obeyed.

Sometimes the voices let up on him and he became quite giddy and manic. He used to make peculiar, crude furniture out of two by fours and plywood at times like this. One day he cut his thumb off with a circular saw while making something. He didn’t realize it because he seems to have almost no ability to feel physical pain in most of his body. He told me later all he felt was the intense vibration. Someone got him to the hospital and they got his thumb back on in time. It works now, but feels almost completely numb. This is an odd thing that some people diagnosed with schizophrenia have: lack of a sensation of physical pain. I don’t know why this hasn’t been studied in depth because it surely points to some organic neurological basis for the condition.

After the thumb incident he agreed to have shots of prolyxin, which is an extremely powerful anti-psychotic med, in lieu of the pills he wasn’t really taking. This hasn’y stopped the voices, it has changed them to pleasant friendly ones. Unfortunately, it has removed all his motivation to do anything but eat. He sleeps about 16 hours a day now. While he is awake he paces around his room and watches TV. He goes out twice a week, once to shop, and once to a group meeting. He does laundry about once a year on special occasions, like if a relative is coming to visit.

I believe I have some insight into the first person phenomenology of insanity. Some time ago, being a bit experimental, I took a generous dose of dextromethorphan, a dissociative with effects similar to ketamine and PCP. During the resulting experience, my perceptions of time, body, and self became profoundly and uncomfortably distorted and I felt as if I was literally losing my mind, that I was literally insane.

Below is an excerpt from a short story I wrote based on the experience. It goes into better detail about the phenomenology of the experience than I could recount now.

****
Gradually I noticed the change. The world took on an increasingly strange and subtly detached quality, as if I were seeing everything through an omnipresent and invisible haze, through a new filtering mechanism erected behind my eyes. Objects retained much of their familiar character in the most objective sense of form and color— it was rather some attendant and implicit perception of their quality of being and interconnectedness that was becoming increasingly warped well beyond any semblance of familiarity. Where once I took for granted the seamless integrations and distinctions effected by my normally functioning visual faculties, I now appreciated the profound sense in which my mind tacitly constructed the unseen ground that every perception rested upon, the sense in which it made objects appear implicitly natural or absurd, aesthetic or mundane, real or phantasmal— indeed, the very way it distinguished and demarcated the disorganized stimuli of the visual field as discrete, bounded, independent entities to begin with. I tested my vision upon a shoe lying on my floor and it seemed inordinately small, but not in the sense of being in the far distance. It lay before me with the same size and shape as ever, subtended the same visual angle on my retina as ever; nonetheless, it gave the distinct impression of being smaller than it actually was, a qualitative sense of size in blatantly simultaneous contradiction to how large I knew it should have appeared, and some part of me laughed uneasily as the rest looked on, unmoved. I stared at the paradox in dull disbelief, waiting for it to resolve itself back into logical coherence, but it persisted defiantly, impossibly.

It was not long before my sense of time began to suffer a similar deterioration at the roots. The extended sense of time dilation I experienced was overpowered forcibly by a more troubling apprehension that time itself was beginning to come unglued at the seams, splintering jagged fragments into the mist. I lurched from one temporal island of awareness to the next, as if my brain had forgotten how to reconcile the present as a smooth, flowing continuation of the immediate past. I was shocked to discover that it ever needed to do so in the first place, that perhaps the subjective continuity of time was merely an internal construction, an illusion telling nothing of the true nature of time itself— if such a thing even existed.

Reality crumbled in my hand like a stale cracker the more desperately I tried to grasp hold of it. I extended my arms out before me and looked at my hands in an effort to remind myself of the order of things, to re-establish some firm footing before I drifted too far off. But I found no solace even in the familiar context of my own embodiment. I had difficulty recognizing my limbs as belonging to myself— they appeared instead as grotesque mechanical appendages floating disconnected in space, lifeless, no more an extension of my being than the room around me. My body, I now keenly perceived, was no different from the bed I lay upon, or the shoe I had gazed upon; it was a miserable lump of nervous matter, an inert mass to which I was inextricably bounded.

I rose from my bed to see myself in the mirror, to see what I had become, what I was becoming to become. I perceived with intense discomfort the uneasy disorientation of merely standing upright, for it scarcely felt as if I were standing at all, as if any sense of kinesthesia that was not lost to me altogether had been hopelessly distorted. But the act of walking was infinitely worse. Each step was horrifyingly dead and mechanical, zombie-like; I remained capable enough for autonomous movement, but the specific motoric response of my gait was beyond my control, my feet falling with robotic fixedness and rigidity, like clockwork. I was reduced to an infinitesimal jailor shouting orders at the detached and burdensome apparatus of his own deadweight prison.

When I came to the mirror I did not recognize my face. It was only a plastic mask, a false shell that had calcified over me through time, encrusting me, suffocating— how oddly it hung there, distended and drooping like a leaden curtain from my thoughts, how utterly strange that I could have ever conceived of this thing as ‘me.’ My eyes were huge and blank as if they had undergone shock, seeing themselves to be doorways to an empty husk, showing nothing of what remained of myself. I became possessed by an intense, overbearing feeling that my life to this point, now so utterly and unfathomably remote, had been leading me inexorably to this particular moment, a prolonged string of trivialities and deceptions culminating spectacularly in the violent and inevitable act of their own systematic deconstruction. I felt no connection with my former self, my name, my memories— they had all been exposed as mere fabrications and illusions, smoke and mirrors devised by the alien I once pretended to be, peddling as truth its vain comedic tragedies so well that it came to believe them, even to defend them with sycophantic guardedness. But I now saw the arbitrariness of it all, that even those things that had once been so concrete that they assumed the guise of an independent and absolute reality were at their heart only contingent, subjective creations. Every notion that is construed in such a way by the mind can thus be construed differently by the mind— nothing is sacred, no great immutable Truths reveal themselves from outside to the frail evanescent fiction of life— there is only the convergence of relativities, artificial impositions generating the illusion of coherence, of false unity.

But what, then, was it that remained of me? What was that incompressible core which nonetheless persisted to function and carry on at least this most rudimentary and atomic sense of self, microscopic and constricted as it was? I did not have time to ponder this final mystery— suddenly I felt the menacing onset of what could only be described as the impending encroachment upon me of death, if I had not died already, a seeping darkness bleeding from the haze and snuffing out the last vestiges of consciousness—
****

(I didn’t really pass out like that, I just wrote it in. I did make a conscientious effort to fall asleep, though, to sleep off the experience and wake up ‘normal,’ as it was so uncomfortable. And I did feel as if I was literally dying.)

The above account doesn’t quite capture everything. When I pondered my own self identity, not only did it seem completely false and fabricated and remote, there was actually some element of humor to it. It was so ridiculous as to be funny that I associated anything about me before that time— name, memories, etc.— with ‘me.’ All of that had nothing to do with ‘me’ during this experience, as if I had shed a costume that I become so accustomed to wearing that I entirely forgot that I was ever wearing it in the first place.

I also at one point dimly felt some sort of massive and imminent presence about me, as if I felt the presence of God dwelling about me, but it was distinctly un-Godlike in its complete dispassionate impersonalness. In retrospect I think this feeling of some dissociated ‘presence’ must have been related to my own personal dissociation of identity. Whatever part of my brain that is responsible for ‘sensing’ self-hood and otherness was being thrown for a loop.

Do you know what insanity is truly like?

Using hunt-and-peck typing and obsessive editing, it is hard for me to maintain voluminous communication.

Did you know that I have worked on an 800-mental health line for nine years? I field mostly informational calls, but some callers attempt to seek counseling or crisis intervention.

Hey there Loren

Yes thallium is an extremely poisonous element. I have a thing with poisons, but do not think I am a killer or anything..

I have barely heard of schizoaffective disorder. What is that about?

May I ask how old you are? How do you cope with the 800-mental help line?
The strange thing about me when I was ill was that I wanted to help other people so badly. I wanted to talk to others suffering from the same symptoms.

The doctors did never check me because I never told anyone about my hallucinations. I experienced only auditory hallucinations, particularly laughter, voices that called me names and one of them which was very vivid said: «Jesus! What an ugly witch she is!» That was when I read for a test, leant back and rested my eyes and suddenly, I felt a man over me shouting this in my ear. He was so close I could feel the sounds of eevrything else behind me being blocked away and it was like his jacket scraped against the sofa. I hopped up from the sofa and was completely breathless. I remember that so well.

I prefer http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=3&ContentID=10843 [Broken]

I’m 45, and thrive as a part-time information specialist. As I may have mentioned, it is both stressful and therapeutic. Socialization is key in helping people who are actually isolated by voices. Talk therapy is all too rare and much needed for psychiatric patients. I, too, was bombarded by a whole range of insults, as if part of my brain was working against the other. Oddly, rarely do the voices seem to contradict perceived reality to disprove themselves.

Okay, «insanity» is not a psychological term at all. It is a legal term. It does not apply in psychology.

Most psychological conditions do not constitute «disabilities». In fact, many involve superior abilities in certain areas. Although to be fair, a great many involve greater ability in some areas and lesser ability in others, so it balances out. So, considering the occasional negatives, some conditions indicate disabilities.

Now, many things considered negative behaviours in terms of social standards are observed in people who are not necessarily experiencing psychological conditions often associated with those behaviours. For example, a rapist may not be a psychopath, although many texts link such activity to psychopathy. Thus it is rather improper to say a psychological condition is intrinsically linked to some negative behaviour. Personal choices of the individual play a much larger part in matters.

Now, having hopefully clarified some misunderstandings, I was diagnosed early last year with Asperger’s Syndrome and a bucket of other things. On the other hand, the same thorough testing placed me rather high for IQ, I’ve never stolen a car or fed someone to a chipping machine (yet). Personally, I don’t mind being different.

Loren, I admire you. You appear to me to be a very msart man who fights to live. Keep it up! Do you experience hearing inner voices while taking your medication? Does your stressful job affect your mental well-being/contribute to making the symptoms worse?

Cecilie (that is my real name)

I started learning about Asperger’s just this year. It is not at all clear to me why it is in the DSM since it is obviously not a psychological or psychiatric condition, rather a neurological one.

Asperger’s is practically unique in that it can present as a condition of being above average, or even gifted, in many areas, with the deficits often merely presenting as «eccentricities». People with Asperger’s generally excel in some academic persuit, and enjoy research a great deal.

The primary deficit seems to be a social awkwardness due to the fact they aren’t able to tune into subtle social cues that everyone else takes for granted. This is the main reason they seem «eccentric» to other people. Normally, that’s as far as the problem goes unless there is social conflict, such as often arises in school situations, especially when there is a bully involved. Asperger’s people don’t fair well at all, here, and can become withdrawn outcasts. This is often when they are brought to the attention of the school psychologist.

I have read some literature which refers to Asperger’s as a form of «high functioning autism.» Personally, I think that is quite erroneous, and based on vague, superficial resemblances that are of no consequence.

One of the things that got me interested in the subject was a biography of Canadian Pianist, Glen Gould, in which the author made a very persuasive argument that Gould may have been an Asperger’s person. He is considered the most brilliant pianist of the 20th century, but also probably the most eccentric, both personally and musically. He couldn’t stand performing in public, despite being in great demand, and retired from the concert stage after a ten year carrear to retire to the recording studio, exclusively. He could not play without humming along loudly. They had to build a special studio to isolate him from the back half of the piano. Even then, they never completely blocked the sound of his humming: you can hear it on all his recordings. If he stopped humming, though, he couldn’t play.

This concern for other people is quite unusual in mental illness. Depressed people normally withdraw, and ruminate on their own problems. Manic people are often without ethics and will lie cheat and steal to get their own way. Paranoid people are suspicious and self protective.

The only condition I’ve ever heard of which seems to bring out a strong concern for other people is temporal lobe epilepsy:

«Deeply held ethical convictions and a profound sense of right and wrong are observed in these patients. It is not unusual for them to exhibit interest in global issues such as national or international politics, They also become involved in issues that are not so global. Several patients exhbited an unusual degree of concern for the welfare of other patients, voluntarily helping with their nursing care while in the hospital and offering to visit them after discharge.»

The Interictal Behaviour Syndrome of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Stephen G. Waxman, PhD, Norman Geschwind, MD
Arch Gen Psychiatry-vol 32, Dec 1975

Hearing voices isn’t the most common simple partial seizure symptom, but it is nearly always listed as one of the possible symptoms these peculiar little seizures can cause.

Данный перевод песни на русском языке является художественным, т.е. перевод недословный. Чтобы узнать дословный перевод песни, можете наводить мышкой на английские слова.

Virtual insanity

Now there is no sound
If we all live underground
And now it’s virtual insanity
Forget your virtual reality
Oh, there’s nothing so bad.
I know yeah

Of this virtual insanity, we’re livin in.
Has got to change, yeah
Things, will never be the same.
And I can’t go on
While we’re livin’ in oh, oh virtual insanity
Oh, this world, has got to change
Cos I just, I just can’t keep going on, it was virtual.
Virtual insanity that we’re livin’ in, that we’re livin’ in
That virtual insanity is what it is

Virtual Insanity is what we’re living in

Скрытое безумие

О да, вот где мы живем (позволь мне тебе рассказать).
Удивительно, что человек вообще способен есть,
Когда то, что должно быть маленьким — большое.
Кто может сказать, что сделают с нами эти чары?
А я дарю этому миру всю свою любовь,
Но в ответ мне только говорят, что
Я не могу видеть,
Не могу дышать,
Что мы больше не будем существовать,
И ничего не изменит нашу жизнь,
Потому что мы только берем, но не даем никогда.
И теперь все становится хуже.
Видишь, мы живем в сумасшедшем мире,
И я просто не могу понять, что половину из погрязших в грехе нас
Мы должны отдать этим.

Теперь будущее будет состоять из скрытого безумия,
Вечно управляемое Виртуальностью.
Нет ни звука о том, что у нас любовь есть,
Потому что наша бесполезная новая технология все искажает.
Нет ни звука — потому что мы живем под землей.

И я думаю о той неразберихе, в которой мы оказались,
Тяжело понять, с чего начать.
Ах, если бы я мог избегнуть этих странных обязательств, придуманных суетными людьми.
Теперь каждая мать может выбрать цвет своего ребенка —
Так не дожно быть в природе.
Ну, так они сказали вчера.
Нам осталось только молиться,
Я думаю, что мне пора найти новую религию.
О, это слишком безумно —
Получать синтезем новую рассу.
Что-то есть такое в будущем,
О чем надо бы нам рассказать.

Теперь будущее будет состоять из скрытого безумия,
Вечно управляемое Виртуальностью.
Нет ни звука о том, что у нас любовь есть,
Потому что наша бесполезная новая технология все искажает.
Нет ни звука — потому что мы живем под землей.

Нет ни звука,
Если ты живешь под землей.
Теперь это скрытое безумие.
Забудь настоящую реальность,
О, в этом ничего плохого,
Я знаю, да,

Об этом скрытом безумии, в котором мы живем.
Все изменилось, да,
И по-прежнему теперь уж ничего не будет.
Но во мне не сил продолжать,
Пока мы живем в этом, о, скрытом безумии.
О, мир изменился,
Потому что я просто, о, я просто не могу жить дальше, этого не было в действительности.
Скрытое безумие — вот в чем мы живем, вот в чем мы живем,
Это скрытое безумие — вот что все это.

Теперь будущее будет состоять из скрытого безумия,
Вечно управляемое Виртуальностью.
Нет ни звука о том, что у нас любовь есть,
Потому что наша бесполезная новая технология все искажает.
Нет ни звука — потому что мы живем под землей.

Живем в Скрытом безумии
Живем в Скрытом безумии
Живем в Скрытом безумии
Живем в Скрытом безумии

Inanimate Insanity Subculture

Popular:

Inanimate Insanity

(This article is a W.I.P.)

About

History

After inspired by Battle For Dream Island, Adam Katz, a 14 year old New York resident, decided to create an animation using Anime Studio with characters similar to those from BFDI.

The video for the show was labeled, «The Stupid Trailer», where Adam Katz (known as DuncanEpic on YouTube), noted in the description that «This series does not have any storyline yet, so don’t ask me when it’s coming out, I have a lot of work to do. I’m thinking a gameshow like BFDI and TDI, or maybe just a stupid comedy skit show.» [2] Eventually, Katz used this animation to make the spinoff, and the first episode premiered on April 1st, 2011.

The first episode of Inanimate Insanity was labeled, «The Crappy Cliff», and had contestants following a similar task to Total Drama Island’s first episode, jumping off a cliff. The episode also featured Christian Potenza, the voice of Chris McClean, the host of Total Drama, as the voice of MePhone4, the host of Inanimate Insanity. Potenza, however, was replaced with Mark Katz, Adam Katz’s father, after he never sent in lines for the second episode. Katz proceeded to make several more episodes of Inanimate Insanity, each of them coming out usually on the first of each month. Adam Katz was progressively joined by his friends, Taylor Grodin, Brian Koch and Justin Chapman, who helped him create future episodes. The series continued on with 18 episodes, progressively becoming better in terms of animation and voice acting. The 18th and final episode released on December 7th, 2012.

Insanity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to other people. Conceptually, mental insanity also is associated with the biological phenomenon of contagion (that mental illness is infectious) as in the case of copycat suicides. In contemporary usage, the term insanity is an informal, un-scientific term denoting «mental instability»; thus, the term insanity defense is the legal definition of mental instability. In medicine, the general term psychosis is used to include the presence either of delusions or of hallucinations or both in a patient; [1] and psychiatric illness is «psychopathology», not mental insanity. [2]

In English, the word «sane» derives from the Latin adjective sanus meaning «healthy». Juvenal’s phrase mens sana in corpore sano is often translated to mean a «healthy mind in a healthy body». From this perspective, insanity can be considered as poor health of the mind, not necessarily of the brain as an organ (although that can affect mental health), but rather refers to defective function of mental processes such as reasoning. Another Latin phrase related to our current concept of sanity is «compos mentis» (lit. «sound of mind»), and a euphemistic term for insanity is «non compos mentis». In law, mens rea means having had criminal intent, or a guilty mind, when the act (actus reus) was committed.

A more informal use of the term insanity is to denote something or someone considered highly unique, passionate or extreme, including in a positive sense. The term may also be used as an attempt to discredit or criticize particular ideas, beliefs, principles, desires, personal feelings, attitudes, or their proponents, such as in politics and religion.