This is really interesting and entirely credible writing. Anecdotally, I remember at high school a high frequency of people who sought to performatively communicate their self-harming, or generally detrimental behaviours. Photos of cut wrists were sent between young teenagers, and page-length paragraphs of text would detail morbid feelings and wild expressions of validation, love and identification. The misapprehension I sense some were guided by was that when acts of harm were so blatantly broadcast, that mired them in some invalidity. As this essay correctly gets at, acknowledging the manic dependency on attention, validation, verification of your experience and its extremity, as a detrimental, perhaps pathological, effect of social conditions, is far more useful and important. Thanks for the read.
Thanks Dan, interestingly it wasn’t that long ago that a shift happened. It seems like that status quo that’s been here forever, but it got very bizarre very quickly. Even in 2015 it didn’t approach anything like this
I think your two conclusions are more likely, but you're missing an option or two.
People wanting to showcase their illness so they can feel 'actually' loved/accepted. Hoping that others will be okay with what's wrong with they. It sounds like you've had reality break that desire from you, if you ever had it.
The darker option is self sabotage. I have times where I purposely do things that make my situation worse, usually when my issues have anyway started kicking in. Start drinking, sleep deprivating myself, eating badly...
When you're dealing with people who aren't well, this is a possibility
I think it says something about society writ large if a person has to be accentuate their mental illness to that point in order to be loved and accepted, though I'm not sure this is the best strategy as "higher" levels of mental illness tend to repel people, even people who love us. But you're right - a lot of it is certainly desperation to have our needs met. Even so, I would have to think the "adult" way to get your needs met is to state your needs and ask for help, and I haven't given up on that being the ideal paradigm to work toward.
Thanks for your comment and for following, happy to have you here.
Some people just want to be loved and accepted, regardless of what it takes.
This could be conforming to a group or letting a group be mean to them.
It doesn't matter to them that their 'authentic' thoughts or ways they'd normally act wouldn't be accepted.
On the other side, some people want to feel like the essence of them is loved, and this precludes getting that love by hiding large parts of their 'self'.
You're looking at this from the former - you have needs, a part of your self makes it hard to get them, so best not showcase that part.
Other people with issues might not be able to have those needs met if they don't show that part. Not because they won't be accepted from the other party's perspective, but because the person won't interpret it as their self being accepted
I'm very glad I landed here. You've described mental illness as clearly as I've heard it put, and you're definitely onto the truth about its blurring into "identity".
When you mentioned Gethsemene, I thought you were going to talk about the way mental illness has throughout history been associated with mystical experiences. People who have the breaks where they experience "oneness" with universe have been given status as shamans or prophets. People with epilepsy (sort of a mental illness) have been sometimes accorded this too. In these cases social status is associated with esoteric knowledge etc?
Obviously, as you point out, the truth is very different, but the status is what people are seeking.
This is very interesting because I had the same glancing thought as I mentioned Gesthemane.
I think there’s another post that needs to be made about the epistemological underpinnings of mental illness and what it actually means to have a mental illness. Throughout history we have found creative ways to accommodate mental illness in our society - as you mentioned shamans or prophets – but rarely has there been a situation in which people are seeming to desire a diagnosis of a mental illness.. Im sure people had a modicum of respect for the raving epileptic shaman as a divine channel of higher powers, but it would be hard to say anyone wanted to *be* that Shaman.
Interestingly, I think there’s a weird sort of “divine channeling” assumed with this current identity stuff, centering lived experience as some sort of portal to secret knowledge that those not of the same identity cannot access
I think your spot on, I think it is a lack of will power as well. We’ve been given so much in our modern world that a lot of people don’t have the will power to do the hard, uncomfortable work of addressing what is off balance in ones life.
I have friends who make their mental illness their whole personality and they seem very lost in life, pathologize everything and live in la la land of what they think the world should be. This causes them to not be very close to their families and have these incredibly high expectations of people and the world. When I gave up on trying to control anything and just try to accept that things the way they are, I became a happier person. I think that’s part of it too, a lot of young people are missing the theological or philosophical foundations to be at peace with the chaotic world.
One day the pendulum will swing back from the incessant consumption of media to a place of mindfulness and mediation, or so one might hope...
I can trace a line back about ten years to a point that everyone suddenly came to an absolute conclusion that willpower was in short supply, was unreliable, downright didn't exist. I think this was before we knew what the game was, and so we all sort of passively accepted that. In many ways I think this belief - which is a supposed empirical truth about a metaphorical notion - has deeply affected long-held beliefs about agency and ability to overcome. I think a lot of this forms the basis of the "self-acceptance" movement and distorted it from something that started as "love yourself despite your faults" to "love yourself because of your faults."
Interesting I wonder what that shift 10 years ago was all about? I was only a teen back then so I can't say much about the climate 10 years back but maybe post 9/11 people felt more hopeless and that they lost their autonomy in the world or something. What is it you surmise?
As usual, I think it was a combination of a lot of factors - some obvious and some more covert. I think around that time people started figuring out how to use social media like Twitter as more of a political platform at that point and I also think there was a general feeling of “dancing in the Endzone” with eight years of Obama, where people felt that they could sort of let their imagination run wild in terms of how to create an ideal society. There was also a concurrent financial recession which exacerbated already brittle social bonds that have been fracturing during the Bush administration. I’ll keep thinking about it because there were many other obvious contributors that I know I thought and talked about that I can’t bring to mind right now
Okay I've been thinking about this more. Do you think will power is at all tied to faith(maybe just even in oneself rather than a higher power)? Or maybe it just has to do with patience?
I guess the best I can offer is an oblique response: I think that we are best acclimated to our "power levels" when we know our place in the hierarchy. The hubris of thinking we are on top leads to downfall, the lowliness of thinking we are on the bottom leads to being pathetic. Faith in a higher power serves a function of knowing the limits or boundaries within which we can work, like the creativity that comes from adhering to the structure of a sonnet. When we have no faith, we are not sure if we are a god or a bug. Within such a wide chasm, it's hard to know the possibilities and extent of our power, so in that way its hard to plot a trajectory of self-improvement. We more easily feel like failures or elitists, which are two positions that don't have a lot of power to them.
I think that the true leaps forward come from grace, which is something we have no control of and are granted randomly for reasons we can't even begin to understand.
In a sane and healthy culture, your readership would be in the millions -- and Lauren Hill would be esteemed far more highly than Beyoncé. Glad I found your substack!
This is really interesting and entirely credible writing. Anecdotally, I remember at high school a high frequency of people who sought to performatively communicate their self-harming, or generally detrimental behaviours. Photos of cut wrists were sent between young teenagers, and page-length paragraphs of text would detail morbid feelings and wild expressions of validation, love and identification. The misapprehension I sense some were guided by was that when acts of harm were so blatantly broadcast, that mired them in some invalidity. As this essay correctly gets at, acknowledging the manic dependency on attention, validation, verification of your experience and its extremity, as a detrimental, perhaps pathological, effect of social conditions, is far more useful and important. Thanks for the read.
Thanks Dan, interestingly it wasn’t that long ago that a shift happened. It seems like that status quo that’s been here forever, but it got very bizarre very quickly. Even in 2015 it didn’t approach anything like this
I think your two conclusions are more likely, but you're missing an option or two.
People wanting to showcase their illness so they can feel 'actually' loved/accepted. Hoping that others will be okay with what's wrong with they. It sounds like you've had reality break that desire from you, if you ever had it.
The darker option is self sabotage. I have times where I purposely do things that make my situation worse, usually when my issues have anyway started kicking in. Start drinking, sleep deprivating myself, eating badly...
When you're dealing with people who aren't well, this is a possibility
I think it says something about society writ large if a person has to be accentuate their mental illness to that point in order to be loved and accepted, though I'm not sure this is the best strategy as "higher" levels of mental illness tend to repel people, even people who love us. But you're right - a lot of it is certainly desperation to have our needs met. Even so, I would have to think the "adult" way to get your needs met is to state your needs and ask for help, and I haven't given up on that being the ideal paradigm to work toward.
Thanks for your comment and for following, happy to have you here.
Thanks for replying.
I'm not sure that what I wrote got across.
Some people just want to be loved and accepted, regardless of what it takes.
This could be conforming to a group or letting a group be mean to them.
It doesn't matter to them that their 'authentic' thoughts or ways they'd normally act wouldn't be accepted.
On the other side, some people want to feel like the essence of them is loved, and this precludes getting that love by hiding large parts of their 'self'.
You're looking at this from the former - you have needs, a part of your self makes it hard to get them, so best not showcase that part.
Other people with issues might not be able to have those needs met if they don't show that part. Not because they won't be accepted from the other party's perspective, but because the person won't interpret it as their self being accepted
I'm very glad I landed here. You've described mental illness as clearly as I've heard it put, and you're definitely onto the truth about its blurring into "identity".
When you mentioned Gethsemene, I thought you were going to talk about the way mental illness has throughout history been associated with mystical experiences. People who have the breaks where they experience "oneness" with universe have been given status as shamans or prophets. People with epilepsy (sort of a mental illness) have been sometimes accorded this too. In these cases social status is associated with esoteric knowledge etc?
Obviously, as you point out, the truth is very different, but the status is what people are seeking.
This is very interesting because I had the same glancing thought as I mentioned Gesthemane.
I think there’s another post that needs to be made about the epistemological underpinnings of mental illness and what it actually means to have a mental illness. Throughout history we have found creative ways to accommodate mental illness in our society - as you mentioned shamans or prophets – but rarely has there been a situation in which people are seeming to desire a diagnosis of a mental illness.. Im sure people had a modicum of respect for the raving epileptic shaman as a divine channel of higher powers, but it would be hard to say anyone wanted to *be* that Shaman.
Interestingly, I think there’s a weird sort of “divine channeling” assumed with this current identity stuff, centering lived experience as some sort of portal to secret knowledge that those not of the same identity cannot access
I think your spot on, I think it is a lack of will power as well. We’ve been given so much in our modern world that a lot of people don’t have the will power to do the hard, uncomfortable work of addressing what is off balance in ones life.
I have friends who make their mental illness their whole personality and they seem very lost in life, pathologize everything and live in la la land of what they think the world should be. This causes them to not be very close to their families and have these incredibly high expectations of people and the world. When I gave up on trying to control anything and just try to accept that things the way they are, I became a happier person. I think that’s part of it too, a lot of young people are missing the theological or philosophical foundations to be at peace with the chaotic world.
One day the pendulum will swing back from the incessant consumption of media to a place of mindfulness and mediation, or so one might hope...
I can trace a line back about ten years to a point that everyone suddenly came to an absolute conclusion that willpower was in short supply, was unreliable, downright didn't exist. I think this was before we knew what the game was, and so we all sort of passively accepted that. In many ways I think this belief - which is a supposed empirical truth about a metaphorical notion - has deeply affected long-held beliefs about agency and ability to overcome. I think a lot of this forms the basis of the "self-acceptance" movement and distorted it from something that started as "love yourself despite your faults" to "love yourself because of your faults."
Interesting I wonder what that shift 10 years ago was all about? I was only a teen back then so I can't say much about the climate 10 years back but maybe post 9/11 people felt more hopeless and that they lost their autonomy in the world or something. What is it you surmise?
As usual, I think it was a combination of a lot of factors - some obvious and some more covert. I think around that time people started figuring out how to use social media like Twitter as more of a political platform at that point and I also think there was a general feeling of “dancing in the Endzone” with eight years of Obama, where people felt that they could sort of let their imagination run wild in terms of how to create an ideal society. There was also a concurrent financial recession which exacerbated already brittle social bonds that have been fracturing during the Bush administration. I’ll keep thinking about it because there were many other obvious contributors that I know I thought and talked about that I can’t bring to mind right now
Okay I've been thinking about this more. Do you think will power is at all tied to faith(maybe just even in oneself rather than a higher power)? Or maybe it just has to do with patience?
I guess the best I can offer is an oblique response: I think that we are best acclimated to our "power levels" when we know our place in the hierarchy. The hubris of thinking we are on top leads to downfall, the lowliness of thinking we are on the bottom leads to being pathetic. Faith in a higher power serves a function of knowing the limits or boundaries within which we can work, like the creativity that comes from adhering to the structure of a sonnet. When we have no faith, we are not sure if we are a god or a bug. Within such a wide chasm, it's hard to know the possibilities and extent of our power, so in that way its hard to plot a trajectory of self-improvement. We more easily feel like failures or elitists, which are two positions that don't have a lot of power to them.
I think that the true leaps forward come from grace, which is something we have no control of and are granted randomly for reasons we can't even begin to understand.
In a sane and healthy culture, your readership would be in the millions -- and Lauren Hill would be esteemed far more highly than Beyoncé. Glad I found your substack!