I unlock the door to the institution’s finest office. A doctor’s name is inscribed on a linoleum slide that changes every few years. I press the darkened door smudge on the off-white paint job that dominates the unit. The door swings open. I invite Eugene’s cousin in.

Eugene’s cousin sits in the cushioned seat that matched the last dirty rug. The soot spattered on the outside of the window blocks the sun’s stream. She missed my eulogy. She depicts her challenges in finding the right freeway.

I had been up In the ER waiting room anxiously reviewing what I had to say about Eugene in front of the community. When I finally gave up on her, I had to rush back and make the memorial service happen. Somehow, I doubt it was an honest mistake to have missed the community event.

Eugene’s cousin announces has brought pictures and starts positioning them on the wobbly table.

I know that if I do my job, she will leave feeling just a bit of the guilt that I feel.

Eugene could have been given treatment that could have saved him. People do rehab and come back from strokes. The nursing home had reached out to the cousin repeatedly, I had been reassured. There had been no response.

“As usual,” I explain, scanning the pictures on the table, “many community members had listened to my eulogy understanding well the importance of acknowledging the passing.”

In reality many had strained to get a facial recognition of Eugene.

“As you know, Eugene is very quiet. Many were surprised and lifted to hear the complex details of his life and his miraculous turn around . . .

Eugene had spent years amidst the chronic, room 2, crowd. He’d talk to the therapist and answer stupid questions, but he was hard to really get to know.

As I continue to speak, I feel the strongest sense of grief. There has been staff turnaround due to the threat of closure amid the Trump era financial crisis that’s hit urban cities. The sense of sprawling tent encampments that surround us overwhelms me. It feels like Eugene and his legacy will close and be so easily forgotten.

***

When I first started on the unit, it was hard to reach anyone in room 2. The prescribed topics of illness management and functional skills were the only direction and support I was given to solve the complex phenomena of schizophrenia.

Company managers used to say that our clients would never get any better. I vehemently objected to that mentality, and I also was very worried about job security. As long as I wrote meaningful notes, I could survive.

The first time I went in there, one of Eugene’s peers had screamed, “BUZZARDS.” There was wild laughter, and some moaning. Amidst the lonely groaning and drool going on, I had a list of questions about recovery with which to work. I just didn’t know what to do except persist.

Over time, conversing with the three or four loud personalities in the group putting out disjointed content, I’d learn that the one who yelled, “BUZZARDS” thought he was an aristocrat. The aristocrat was light skinned African American man in a porkpie hat with gums instead of dentures.

Eugene would just sit in silence next to him while he talked throwing his head and his eyes back in repetitive manner. He called this “play acting” or “just acting crazy.” He would tell me he did it because he had nothing to lose. He wasn’t really crazy.

Meanwhile, loud personalities would have creative moments of clarity. For example, I once made sure one of the aristocrat’s quotes made it into the community magazine I put together: “Some days I feel like I am somewhere between a giblet and a human being,”

As per the “BUZZARDS!” comment I always knew there was meaning to it, but it’d take time to learn to come out of my shell and really get down with it.

Of course, the buzzard in the room was me. I was feeding off the dead and decrepit. Indeed, with the salary I was making, I would be able to go from nothing to having the down payment for a bay area house.

One day I would have the confidence to start cawing like a crow. I’d caw like a crow and circle the room until I got close to the aristocrat. Then, I’d simulate getting shot straight in the heart. Then, I’d fall until I laid flat on the floor beneath him and abreact a slow and painful death. It was the only appropriate response.

I still remember the aristocrat’s laugh the first time I pulled something like this. The laugh would happen periodically at the oddest of moments, “HA-HA!”

At least when I finally got down with him, the laugh happened at the appropriate moment. Over time I did manage to understand. The aristocrat was an aristocrat. An aristocrat and a philosopher.

Still, Eugene didn’t have time for these kinds of antics. He would just give you straight forward and stale answers.

***

I had a few years to onboard before I officially carried Eugene on my caseload.

Our first meeting, Eugene said, “I want to purchase a book to read with the solution to schizophrenia in it. I had a box filled with haphazardly xeroxed recovery materials I’d gleaned off the internet. I shuffled through it until I found the Patricia Deegan article introducing the hearing voices network in Europe. There was a book recommendation at the bottom I explained.

It took us a while but we sent away for it through snail mail. It was a good effort but it never arrived.

One day we were sitting in doctor’s office. It was the end of the session and Eugene exclaimed, “I see alien green!” They were the last words I’d hear from him for years.

Unlike a few of the colleagues who have come and gone over the years, I insisted in keeping weekly appointments with muted Eugene. Instead of talking we walked.

He was an extremely fast and aggressive walker. I ran ten miles on Saturday and hiked twenty miles every Sunday vying to meet a soul mate; yet, I could barely keep up.

As the muted walks continued, I would try one-way comments to connect with him. I would ask if he saw any objects as we walked that were signs of alien surveillance. I would point out things I saw that could be signs of surveillance. I let him lead.

It took me a while to develop these kinds of connection techniques. We did a lot of silent walks.

When Eugene had a housing crisis, I did some research and found an odd doctor named Bassard who had a board and care that was off in the Hayward foothills. There was reportedly a lot of space out there to walk.

His dutiful case worker in West Oakland had told me he used to lead Sierra Club backpacking trips in his younger years. She sometimes talked to his aunt who would pick him up and take him Christmas shopping for his nieces and nephews who lived in undisclosed location. The aunt might be how she found out about his secret life as a backpacker.

***

Doctor Bassard’s board and care seemed to be a good fit for a while.

One day after our walk Eugene sat with me and explained that he used to work in a print shop, the hardest kind of physical labor there was. He reported that he was the hardest worker and would often demonstrate his superiority to the other workers. He didn’t give a fuck!

The next thing I heard from Eugene was that he was thinking about going to the Alameda County Fair. Then I’d hear about Christmas shopping with his aunt.

I’d learn that he had been a drug and alcohol counselor early on. When he’d gotten married and had his son, he switched to the print shop to increase his income.

His mom had been, “nuts.” The daughter of a famous Irish protestant radio preacher and artist. In fitful rages she would accuse Eugene of being a spy for the Irish Republican Army and beat him. His father was a roofer and (according to Eugene) a bit of a slacker. He supported the mother and later Eugene through the years of madness

Growing up, Eugene’s peers would tease him because his Mom was “nuts.” He learned to hang out with the druggies even though he refused to use. Thus, the drug and alcohol job.

I learned much of this far later in my tenure when Eugene returned to treatment.

We took a walk before he got taken to jail on assault charges. It had been a return to the mute days. He littered. Sensing his ire, I hadn’t corrected him. There was a can on the hospital grounds and he smashed it with his foot. I hadn’t done anything . . .

His roommates had been constantly stealing his food at Bassard’s. They were largely unmonitored. Eugene’s efforts to fix this were not supported by the strange doctor.

***

Throughout I was volunteering after work for my child and family hours. Finally, I passed the exams. I managed to meet my soul mate and collect enough for down payment on a house.

I heard about an expensive group curriculum for psychosis developed by Patricia Deegan. Me being the arrogant cheapskate that I am I decided to develop my own. Thus, I started running psychoses focus groups for years developing a curriculum.

By the time Eugene was referred back to our program, I had left my job for a year and a half, but been permitted to return when the new job hadn’t worked out.

***

This time Eugene was staying at McClure’s board and care home, one of the best licensed board and care in town. His trusty case manager advocated for him.

Eugene was mandated to complete our five day a week PHP program by the board a care facility. Turns out all he had done was gotten angry about taking his medication on day and slammed a door. Now, the hospital could make a lot of money off him.

The hospital had erected world class facilities but left its historic psych ward with bubbled windows (our unit) alone. No longer could we go out and sit by the trash compacter and watch the men work. Walks were no longer easily accessible.

Eugene and his peers had to weave through the historic backwards, passing the freshly built shower facilities for doctors, the hole-in-the-wall medical records department, down a flight of stairs and down and then around the substance abuse ward to find the sunlight. Then they had to walk down a sizeable hill all the way down to the sidewalk to smoke.

Everyday in community meeting they would be reminded that tickets for smoking were eight hundred dollars, the same price as their monthly SSDI checks.

Eugene was one of the few remaining room 2 clients who obeyed these daily threats. He’d be known to skip the last group and stay down on the sidewalk smoking.

By the time he had sat through two days of PHP which was four groups with the same small group of people who were just out of the hospital, he was fuming. When I sat down with him for the second time, I knew I had to do something.

Board and care homes have no legal right to mandate treatment, but they can kick Eugene out for misconduct. When he half way expressed the reason he was fuming, I could see how right he was.

Luckily the clinical manager who hated me was out for the day. I went straight to the director who had been around as long as I had. I made the appeal. I kept it simple, but was compelling enough.

I reported to Eugene that he could come just two days a week as he’d requested.

***

“See, what happened to me was that I leaked a suspicious death to the newspapers. I was afraid thuging residents I knew at the section 8 complex where I worked would find out.

“I sought consult from my best college friend back east, an ex-drug addict. He warned me not to leave town, he had the power to find me.

“Had he set me up to take a fall? That’s what I started thinking.

“I tried to escape to Canada and they put me in a State Hospital for three months. I was discharged to the streets and I took a Trailways to California.

“Turns out the only job I could get was arranged by my family at an Italian Delicatessen. I had to move to the outskirts of the bay area, bike ten miles and take the rails an hour to get to the job. Everyday I was followed on my way to and from the job and no one believed me.

I had told my story as such a million times in the psychoses focus group. If I hadn’t done so repeatedly, I would not have been able to even articulate secrets so raw. But I had a lot of practice and gotten a lot of support from participants who loved and advocated for my group.

“I don’t think your family is really an Irish mafia family!” exclaimed Eugene. Sure, enough he had tracked the details. His words gutted me as brutally as possible. “I don’t think you were really followed on your way to the Italian Delicatessen. I think those are paranoid delusions!”

I remained cool as a cucumber in hot sauce. Experience had prepared me for this moment. I spoke softly and peacefully . . .

“One day at the BART station, a man I knew well from the section 8 housing authority in Seattle Washington walked past me with handcuffs and a shirt that read “CIA.” He sat across from me and stared at me the whole ride. He had told me he killed people.

I answered a few questions: “yes, I knew for a fact he had been busted for impersonating a CIA officer in the past;”  “yes, I knew that for a fact because I had read his file as a social worker;” yes, I ignored him;” “yes, it was just another day for me.”

Eugene’s questions were intelligent ones!

“Then there was the day I came home and my apartment was trashed. My kitty litter had been slashed and emptied over the carpeted floor; my belongings had been taken out of my closet; and the labels of my clothes had been slashed with a knife. When I went to the managers office to complain, this woman I had met before was there. She had flashed her official secret service badge at me. She told me that my uncle had entered my apartment and had the right to do so because he had co-signed on the apartment.

I paused. I was afraid Eugene wouldn’t follow the very real details I shared with him.

“Yeah, I had the secret service follow me once as well,” admitted Eugene. “One time I tried to escape to Canada myself.”

***

“Yes, Eugene started talking,” said his case manager. “I think he did so because he finally met someone to whom he could relate.” I could feel the social worker smiling as she acknowledged me. “I think now he has hope for recovery.”

Eugene and I had a lot of good years of talking and relating. I used to go down and have sessions with him on the sidewalk. Eventually, he started coming to see me in the office during the third group.

***

When I finally get to the place where I tell the cousin about how I had cracked Eugene’s case, to her credit she shifts to trying to help me grieve smoothly.

Listening to her stories is nice. She tells me about cheerful parts of Eugene: his generosity to his family and to his fellow peers at the board and care. I choose to keep a picture of Eugene with her husband, a stout Irish musician, as they shared a cigar with a smile.

Her stories help me see that when he started to tell me about cooperating and sharing TV with his roommates that we really had accomplished something. Previously he’d just talked about walking up to Berkeley to go to a doughnut shop.

The cousin tells me about how they used to visit him at the board and care home in the inner-city with gifts and that by the time they had left they would see those gifts getting sold in a garage sale at the neighbors’ yard. It must have filled them with so much guilt to see what he was going through in contrast to them.

When I was in the State Hospital, the few belongings I had to my name were constantly stolen. For Eugene, living like that was a life sentence.

Eugene had learned more about the mental illness of schizophrenia, than he’d learned about the hidden world of recovery.

In our treatment, I’d finally gave him a book with the solution to schizophrenia. I wrote it. It was my memoir.

***

When my mother told family acquaintances what had happened to me on my way to Canada, everybody we knew, she was sure to tell me, cursed the closings of the institutions in the eighties. They were trying to sooth her. They didn’t want her to have to enable-me any longer.

My life ended in the folklore of the Christmas Card.

Sure, I have had some mainstream accomplishments that could be cited. Sure, the community of people I once knew could stand to learn about the reality of mental illness in the U.S.

But alas, my achievements only become embarrassing reminders of the word that defines me to everyone with whom I grew up, schizophrenia. Some days it feels like that word defines me to almost every one I once knew.

Once, when I credited my Mom that investing three thousand dollars in a car for me, I was trying to honor her support. I said that it was the main thing that enabled me to recover.

Her words were, “I shouldn’t have purchased you that car!”

When I published my award-winning memoir, my grandmother’s dying words to me (who she couldn’t recognize) was that the book made the family look bad.

A relative wrote a bad review. Another made a salty, veiled-in-a-compliment criticism. The whole Clan ignored me at the family reunion.

Eugene in contrast sacrificed himself for his family. That is somehow more admirable in our shared cultural heritage.

***

Sure, Eugene and I talked openly about aliens. He’d explain that he could feel implants obsessively on his brain. I think they were caused by ongoing voices about which he never did get to the point where he’d share.

Sure, he’d talk about the very common experience of being able to transition into different dimensions of reality. He could tell because the board and care rats he’s seen skittering across the floor suddenly disappear into thin air. Finally, he told me about his relative with Top Sec clearance for NASA.

Neither of us suffered for the sharing of these details. We didn’t become worse or traumatize each other. No, we formed a valuable allegiance that enabled him to have relationships with others.

True, this only happened because I broke all the rules and shared with him what many would consider to be delusions about my brush with the underworld and Italian Mafia.

Sure, he died before he could start up his business or take the stained-glass, art class he wanted to take. I almost got him to pay for an art class at one point.

It’s true I wasn’t so committed to him that I would quit my day job and help him come back from his stroke.

***

So, when the cousin leaves the hospital, I think she feels some of the guilt I felt when I drove across town with cards and letters after work only to learn that he expired. As she leaves the hospital, she expresses a little upset that I only accepted one picture of Eugene that she had collected. I sure hadn’t realized she would feel that way.

But as I say goodbye, I still hope for the best for the cousin and Eugene’s family who accepted his gifts at Christmas and never reached back. I call his son with the phone number the cousin gave me, but never hear back. I still call my mother weekly and vie for a less hurtful relationship.

Still. I hope and pray that the fact that Eugene and I were finally able to work together gave him a sense of peace and that he may rest from the torment of that damned word we use to bill for services, schizophrenia.

The post Eulogy On Irish Schizophrenia appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

The Corona virus is shutting down our social institutions. Our streets are full of displaced people living in shelters or tent encampments. The Federal Government is steering services away from the poor and the elderly in ways that seem to be working. Sure, it’s affecting me, man! But I am still here, scheduled to lead three trainings on the subject of redefining psychosis.

These trainings are based on twelve years of experience running professional groups that explore psychosis. They have not yet been cancelled!

Yes, that’s right on 3/20, 5/6. And 5/20 I am scheduled to lead trainings that aim to impact the way our social workers, peers and educators meet and greet psychosis in the clinics and in the public. I argue that the working definition we have of psychosis is non-descriptive and that a new definition can highlight solutions and justify exploration and intervention.

And as I am preparing to open a private practice, I am willing to train local agencies and treatment teams for free. This is a limited time offer. If you have a heart condition, be forewarned!

Historically, clinicians are trained to avoid engaging with people when they are in an emergency state for fear of escalating symptoms. This workshop is intended to provide a road-map to the rabbit-hole. In other words, it redefines what is happening during a person’s journey through madness in a structured way that justifies intervention and highlights solutions.

I feel my training can help a supporter feel confident that listening and intervening has value and can be necessary to form an alliance that can help. Interventions and solution strategies that get suggested can be used at any stage of a person’s recovery to explore what is happening or what has been experienced.

Often the public struggles to know what is and isn’t helpful. These presentations will give attendees not only a better sense of what is helpful, but also hosts of strategies to consider using.

On 3/20, the Peer Support Services Networking Meeting of Solano County will be hosting the first section of my training. This has yet to be cancelled!

On 5/6, I will be presenting a workshop at the annual CASRA Conference that also will describe the introduction of my work. This has yet to be cancelled as well!

And finally, on 5/20 I will be presenting for six hours of continuing credit, the full Monty. This includes an eight-part definition that better describes what psychosis is like from the inside out and eight solution concepts that can help guide effective interventions. And, of course, this is a social engagement that has not yet been cancelled!

Have you too heard it said that insanity is doing the same thing time and time again and expecting different results?

We’ll have to wait and see.

Click Shop to schedule a training at your agency.

Also, check out this Interview that Deb Brasher from CASRA did with me to help promote that event.

Tim Dreby, LMFT Interview Redacted

Tim, could you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be involved in the Special Messages Project?

I was working in Seattle at a section eight housing authority and I was astounded at how covered up people’s lives were.  I started to try to investigate and find out what was going on a little bit.  At the same time, I went off my medication, which I had been on for about seven years.  I started to feel this profound sense of connection and that things were related and that things weren’t coincidental.  I went through a bit of an emergency and was hospitalized for three months.  Then coming out, I had a little bit of money, but I was basically on the streets, trying to recoup and come back from that kind of situation.   That’s the part of my background that taught me about special messages.  A lot of my work has been opening up people’s stories and getting people to tell their story, how the stories work in concert with each other, and how to work through the experiences as a result.  Then learning from that and documenting some of the processes that I’ve seen going on and can relate to from my own story.

Could you define what the Special Messages Project is?

Absolutely.  Special messages are experiences that people have that lead to alternative ways of thinking.  The experiences can be things like voices.  Or extra sensory perceptions that are very bad.  It can also be things like an inner person.  It can be codes in letters and numbers.  They can be intuitions.  They can be premonitions.  It can be an assortment of things that give people information that other people may or may not get.

Could you talk about how your approach is so different from our current general psychological approach to these experiences?

Certainly.  I think the way things work in the mainstream treatment is that people are taught to suppress these experiences because they feel they’re punished when they have them.  So they judge them and then when the experience happens again, they are in conflict with them, or they learn that they can’t talk about them anywhere and it’s not safe.  When this suppression happens, it makes it harder to heal from these experiences because they’re real.  They cause real feelings and they cause real experiences.

How has it changed for you to come out about your lived experience at work, and out in the world, Did it take you a long time to decide to do that?

Yes.  I think, to be honest, I started doing these groups about 11 years ago and I didn’t come out to my fellow staff till more recently.  I learned in supervision – every supervisor I had, had bad things to say about schizophrenics, and that was my diagnosis.  So, I learned that it was very much not safe.  I came out through the help of taking WRAP courses.  That really helped me.  I started doing them and what happened was it was so popular on the unit where I worked that there was no taking it back.  However, there were efforts to get me in trouble for talking about my experiences.  And eventually I learned that I needed to tell people that I was out and I needed to learn how to do that.  It’s a very hard thing to manage.

I had a supervisor who knew and he supported me.  That was really helpful.  I had other people who weren’t so sure.  I wrote up manuals for what I was doing.  They made it requirement that people write things up after I started writing things up (for other groups).  So, it was kind of like a gift.   You know it’s it’s a privilege to be able to do it.

And so this is the birth of the Special Messages Project.  What’s been the response of the people that are in the group, like how have you seen it work? 

People in the group get to tell their stories.  They get to go places that they’re afraid to go elsewhere.  It’s been something that has transitioned here at work.  But I’ve also done it in the community and there’s been very powerful responses.  They do this work at the Hearing Voices Network in Berkeley.  I help out there, and that’s another good place to do this kind of work.  It really, really makes a difference when there’s someplace you can talk about these experiences and and make them less shameful, less traumatizing.

What changes have you noticed in people once they’re able to find a safe place to talk?  And put words to their experiences?

Many people feel more open with psychiatrists, they feel less punished in general.  And they have more motivation to get to know other people who are also dealing with, what they’re going through, “quote unquote psychosis”, or other types of experiences.  A lot of times, when I was in the system, I didn’t want anything to do with the person that was talking to themselves.  I just didn’t want to be like that person.  But it takes a transition period to say, oh, what he’s going through is actually similar to what I’m going through.  If we’re not allowed to talk and realize that, we’re not able to form community and community is very important to healing.  Many people say, when they come to my groups, I never realized just happened to anybody else until I heard you tell your story.  It is powerful.

So, you are a busy man.  You are doing a lot of trainings, like what you’re going to do at the conference.  You’ve got a blog.  You’re the author of the book: Fighting for Freedom in America, and you’re still working in the field.  So, first: how do you do it all?

Well, I think that I do it because I don’t have kids.  This project is like my baby.  And I have support from my wife.  My wife, without her I would probably not be able to do what I do, so I’m grateful for those things.  It took me awhile to get those things and I’m extremely grateful.  I had to work a lot, and I developed a style of working through my hardships.  And so, if anything, when I stop working, which I do on a regular basis, when I hike, I have to process a lot of things and a lot of emotions.  So I’m kind of in a regular pattern of working and processing in writing, which is part of how I process.

So, so what can we, as practitioners, do better?  Even if we’re not running special messages groups?  And don’t come at it from our own lived experience, what’s your advice for us.

I think it’s really important to be curious about the experiences that are happening behind the scenes. Instead of punishing, get people to talk about what they’re going through and what they’re experiencing.  Find out what’s behind the ideas and the beliefs they have.  If they don’t make sense or they don’t fit for you – what is normal or not normal?  Just even having the awareness.

Many practitioners are taught NOT to delve into this kind of topic – “delusional” material.  You were taught to “reality check”.  So what you’re doing when talking to staff is educating them about another way to be present for the person.

Exactly.  I’m making it into something that can be understood.  When the staff person understands what’s going on instead of saying “they’re more symptomatic today” or “they’re showing more delusions”, they can see it as this person is giving me an opportunity to trust them.  I can plan for and I can know what to do when they trust me with this material to open them up.  That is, in a nutshell, what I hope people do.  When I give these trainings in the field, a key part is the idea that you become a trustworthy person.  And that’s huge.  People have different minds.  It’s much more of a neurodiversity issue than it is a disease issue.  The idea of inclusion of different ways of processing the world and experiences is important.  When we think of diversity, we don’t think of people who are different as “you’re wrong and we’re going to punish you”.  You form relationships

So, people that come to your workshop, what can they expect?

We will look at redefining what psychosis is, and how it can lead to alternate ways of helping.  We’ll look at what special messages are and look at what other components of psychosis are.  We’ll look at solutions that arise when we know what those parts of psychosis are.  There are different interventions when you’re paying attention to the special messages, in the way you’re talking about them.  It’s the main meat of how to do things differently.

The post The Best of Times and the Worst of Times appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

While treating voices as though they are real things may seem like a revolutionary step for a mental health clinician to take, I feel it can only be a small piece of the picture for some of us. Sometimes hearing voices is just the tip of the ice burg. Ultimately the clinician needs to understand more of what is experienced to provide people with revolutionary guidance that the survivor must assert to contribute towards making the world a better place.

It’s true, normalizing voices by estimating that one in every ten people hear them is a very positive thing to do! Taking away the pathology helps! However, I believe that in many situations, it is only a piece of what is going on when someone is experiencing an emergency, a “break from reality,” or what I prefer to term a special message crisis. Getting a full understanding of their experiences is imperative to help direct them to the social action they must take to heal.

I believe there are hosts of other experiences that a clinician needs to be aware of when working with someone who has experienced or is experiencing a crisis or emergency. Examples of these types of experiences are: intuition, dreams, spiritual enlightenment, serendipity, nonverbal interpersonal feedback, coded slang words, numerology, and symbolic associations. I’d argue that most everyone can relate to these experiences.

However, at some point these experiences can conspire with or without voices to overwhelm and push someone into an emergency state. Sometimes coincidences with these phenomena may be natural and sometimes they may be gaslighting by systemic agents of abuse. This can be hard to understand and differentiate. When a person is in an emergency state, the frequency of all these experiences are more intense and can fully preoccupy a person to lower their ability to contribute in a meaningful way.

A Longitudinal Approach to Special Messages in Treatment:

Like voices, all special message experiences need to be treated as real. Often, they are more real than many people want them to be, but there is some gray area in which they can be tricky to interpret and inexperience, social corruption, and trickster spiritual experiences can lead to errors.

When the chronically normal class detect these errors, they are quick to dismiss them as being the “d” word, delusions. However, instead of declaring the “d” word and dismissing all these other experiences as irrelevant, it is important to do longitudinal studies with the person over time paying acute attention to the emergency state, past or present, to uncover and understand all forms of these kinds of experiences.

Eventually it is possible for a person to get a sense of when they are being tricked. Spiritual tricksters become important to understand. Sometimes they can be the result of secular corruption, and in most mystical systems the spirit world can play tricks on the spiritual person like they did on Jesus in the wilderness.

People who have survived emergencies need to understand how they have been tricked to move them back to a place where these other experiences become more manageable. It may be important to understand the skewed regulations of the social world that tricks them. It may be important to trust people again instead of just messages. It may be necessary to change the survivor’s relationship with their message experiences because messages will always be there. Maybe in some cases they just don’t need to be so loud and carry so much impact.

In fact, once the trauma and danger are removed, these experiences like voices can become very helpful to a person if they are managed well. Indeed, I believe people who are sensitive about this aspect of life may have a valuable and acutely keen sense of reality if they work at it. Encouraging them to work and study can be beneficial. They can play valuable roles that have meaning and purpose for them.

Why Letting People Share Their Stories Becomes So Challenging:

In many modern societies there is a norm of managing all associated experiences through means of suppression and control. There is a history of institutionalizing people who become too sensitive to these realities. Meanwhile, chronically normal people continue to be influenced by these experiences and even act out based on the same experiences without being reprimanded. There has become a medicalized notion that these experiences are illness for some and okay for others and the injustice that can result can appear to be horrific to the person in an emergency.

All mental health systems that I have worked for train a person to suppress these experiences and deny that they exist. There is a strong sense of punishment that teaches people to suppress what could otherwise be valid. Learning to suppress is not always bad. It can teach us to dissociate and respond rather than react. This skill is taught in our institutions and through job training by forcing the individual to honorably submit and focus on behaving in ways that can earn them cultural capital. The problem is it doesn’t teach people to be mindful of when their messages are happening and which to believe. The result is often social withdrawal and inaction.

By the time I get to work with people, the stories of special messages are so suppressed that many will conceal them even when others are talking about them. It takes a great deal of time and trust to get people to talk and be mindful about these experiences. There is much fear that doing so will result in incarceration de-habilitating doses of medications, or isolation and restraints. Although I believe in things like trust and mindfulness, I am careful to convey that talking openly about these experiences may lead to random consequences elsewhere.

Why Suppression is Thought to be Important:

One reasons that voices and special message experiences may be systematically attacked, even though many people can relate to them, is because in crisis they may invade the space of peoples’ privilege of secrecy.  Often, people who get punished for their special message crisis do so because their sensitivities to reality cause them to challenge the hypocrisy of others in a revolutionary manner.

In short whether to the social structure of the family or to the social structure of the world’s most powerful Cabals, madness ensues when special information becomes threatening to people who use boundaries and mechanisms of oppression to protect themselves.

People in power don’t like to be accused of being evil. When you hold a position of power your reputation is on the line when a mad person confronts you. Thus, this medicalized illness also serves to protect you and support the part of you that is good. While people who are in crisis are less likely act out with physical violence, they are revered as being dangerous. I’d argue that it is because their inexplicable power is a threat to others, that fear loss of privilege and power. Or maybe those others have done their best and just feel hurt by having their ills highlighted.

Alternative Solutions:

Additionally, the revolutionary behavior of the person in crisis (which significantly varies from person to person) becomes very difficult for people to manage. It may target power in meaningful manners on a small or grand scale.

This is precisely why it becomes key in the exploration of special messages experience that people be trained to use the acts of suppression so as not to act out on the secrets of the mechanisms of power. Because the message receiver is often correct, there must be a slow enduring effort to change things within the bounds of rational input.

Respect for power and acts of revolutionary change are often guided through religion, philosophy, and metaphysics. Thus, there can be much guidance within these subject matters that teach people how to use discernment and judgement to promote change. I believe these are subjects that clinicians need to be ready to work with to be successful at bringing people back to social functioning.

I believe that teaching people to use discernment and judgement in this manner can also be done to improve the mental health system. In the process, the message receiver becomes able to function at most jobs without being a threat to the power structure. Instead, they may need to accept that as a paid worker they are only afforded a contributing voice that can be used to improve things and make things better.      

Transforming Valuable Perspectives into Meaningful Contribution:

I think normalizing voices is a good starting point for many people in their journey to find meaningful ways to contribute.  However, to be thoroughly affective, a clinician needs to remember that voices may not be the predominant source of special message experiences for a message receiver.

In fact, they might be the easiest to discern, but once they are better managed, it may be time to work on other real special message phenomena like telepathy, premonitions, energies off other people, reading into media for special meanings.

I like to argue that no special message experience is more or less sick than another.

When I was in crisis, and I was asked about voices I had no experience of which to speak. It wasn’t until I came out of crisis that I was able to discern that sometimes when I was upset, I may have been hearing voices.

In my experience of running thousands of special message groups, people have different sources of alternative information available with different levels of truth attached to them. That is why groups that enable people to explore associated conspiracies and compare and contrast their sources of alternative, intuitive knowledge is so important

Message mindfulness is extremely important to maintain as it enables people to use discernment and respect for power structures. It is extraordinary how helped people can be by merely having the freedom to explore their experiences with others.

I don’t think doing so really puts power structures at risk. It cultivates relationships and builds social support. It helps people. It gives people a fighting chance to find a meaningful role and contribute to making the world a better place. I think the world can be a better place, especially for those stuck in the mental health system!

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When in the throes of what is commonly termed a “psychotic break,” people often become focused on good and evil causing interpersonal friction. Whether you are a parent, therapist, spouse, or a friend or colleague this can translate in you being viewed as evil. Perhaps, this projection is not a comfortable feeling for a supporter to sit with.

Often, providers and family members are systematically trained not to go down the rabbit hole with the subject. Often the rationale for this is that we do not reinforce the delusions. Many people think this is a sign of good boundaries. But I am writing today to primarily wonder if this strategy is little more than a just a systematic fear reaction. Those who go down the rabbit hole may get pinpointed as being the root of all evil! Perhaps it is reactive fear of this that prevent us from learning about what our loved one is experiencing.

Case in point, I regularly go down the rabbit hole with people at the inner-city clinic where I work. When I do so, I share my own history of being diagnosed with a schizophrenia disorder. I also share associated stories. I often find myself the subject of being assessed for evil. Sometimes it can be hard to get out without becoming a villain. Occasionally I get a person who concludes that I am the head of their persecution system.

Remembering that there are Good Reasons I May Get Called the Cap Villain:

There are many reasons I might be singled out as a Cap Villain. Sometimes, I come from a different race and class background than many of the people I work with. One could rightly argue that my approach to establishing rapport is different and that makes me suspect. Also, it is arguable that it is my karma that causes me to get placed in such a villainous position. I once thought my father was the cap villain and now it is my turn.

When I become the cap villain, I know I need to work, but believe that I am in a particularly good position to do a lot of good. I personally feel I am lucky am I to be given the chance to do this valuable work?

Perhaps there are reasons for my good fortune. I have advantages that people who haven’t experienced what it is like to be in a break don’t. Maybe that’s why I am so eager to break the mold and jump down the rabbit hole. Of course, there could be other reasons to fear the rabbit hole, but still I wonder if sometimes it might be fear of the conclusion that you are pure evil that keeps people from learning about their loved one’s experiences?

As a survivor, I have advantages.  I know some of the language of “psychosis” and am able to occasionally anticipate from where a person is coming. Perhaps it is because many conscientious family members can do similar things that some people in crisis come to believe their loved ones are evil. Maybe it seems like if you go down the rabbit hole you are only going to get false accusations and hatred. That’s why I am here to embolden you.

How I Respond as A Clinician:

When I sense it is going down, I tell myself that this may mean I am one of the safer people the person has experienced who can communicate with them in their language. I tell myself that a high percentage of providers and family members avoid going down the rabbit hole because they fear or distain being viewed as evil. I remind myself that the unfortunate result is that the persons experiences are presumed to bear no semblance of meaning. We all have good and evil in us, why fear if someone has insight into our evil side?

Still it is hard to do. Sure no one wants someone in a profound state of knowing to hold them in contempt over things they cannot control. It’s uncomfortable, I get it. I have had victims of sexual abuse see visions of me having sex and get mad at me in front of a group of people. It’s hard not to feel embarrassed or defensive. It can feel like I am personally threatened by such an accusation.

But maybe that person is viewing that for a real reason that we can’t understand easily. And if they don’t have a space to work these things out, they will have to live under their explanation for why it happened in silence without support.

The tendency to get defensive and take it personally may be particularly painful for loved ones who revere the person and fear they have done a bad parenting job. But if you can remember to try to feel good about it, perhaps it becomes an opportunity.

As a survivor who sometimes knows how my patients feel, I am constantly trying to absolve myself from having done things that hurt the person, like making a living off their poverty. I remind myself that it is possible that a lot of good can be achieved if I hang in there. I think if I don’t, I become just a cog in the mental health wheel and it becomes less likely the person will benefit.

Things I Look to Accomplish:

I look to the survivor to test me to see if they are accurate. If I see them testing me, I do my best to pass the tests. I pass test by being good, healthy and supportive to them. I will do so repeatedly until I get it right if I need to.

When I am open and curious, I can pass the trust tests they may put upon me. I hope that by proving to the person that I am not defensive and that I want to learn about the evil within me so that I might change it I think that when I do that the survivor will be challenged to realize that the whole world is not against them.

In contrast, if I am defensive and reality test and am righteous about my world entitlements to not be abused in such a way, I believe I am likely to reinforce the vileness of my position as the cap villain. I believe this does make the situation worse and might cause a lasting rift in the relationship.

When someone holds on to their views of you over time and you are not able to wiggle out in such a gentle manner, it is important to remember that you don’t know what they are experiencing. It is a good idea to inquire and respect that what they are experiencing is real and valid for some reason.

Remember that those experiences may rear up from real hardships that the person is going through. Consider what else might be going on to cause a spike in your level of evilness. Perhaps the participant is being neglected over the holidays, or there is neglect in the board and care home, or there is a grief anniversary of a deceased love one. Perhaps, then, instead of being defensive, I can try to be compassionate about the source of the disturbance. I try to share this compassion non-verbally first and foremost and then verbally if it is working.

Reflections on What I Went Through that Support This Process

I remember that in my crisis my father was the head of the mafia that was tormenting me. It is true I accused him of things for which he was not responsible. It was also true that he had done things to me when I was younger that I was ailing from; and yet he was the safest person in my world both as a child and within the dimension of reality I was enduring.

See, in the dimension of reality that I was living in, people were really corrupt, dangerous and guilty. I do still believe there were people like that for real. In my mind at the time they became my father’s minions. Blaming or holding them accountable for the hell I was enduring simply was not an option. If I did confront them, in reality they may have seriously harmed me. And ultimately in my journey I needed to forgive them and be friends with them again. I often observed consequences for blaming things on my Dad. Sometimes they came directly from him.

I feel bad for taking things out on my father, but I also faced a lot of real threat and abuse and I needed to express it to someone. Maybe I pinned everything on him because I thought unconsciously that I might best be able to work it out with him.

I try to remember how I was truly appalled when my father would get defensive and yell at me. They were real low points and I will forever remember how hideous I felt. Feeling alone, pissed, and righteous only made me shut him out longer.

Working Things Out with My Father:

I still feel that my father did have real power and responsibility for me and when I had a break. He did somethings that were right. He flew all the way out to Montana to see me. But when that did little to impress me, he didn’t believe a word I said. I told him things that I knew for a fact were true and they didn’t matter. This strengthened my conviction that he was a mob boss. When he thus sided with the establishment, it gave me gumption for staying away and avoid him longer.

My father did call out a missing-persons report on me and then did not want me to leave the horrific institutional living in which I was confined. He suggested that the same thing would happen to me again if I was set free. That was power he had, and using it the way he did was not helpful.

I ended up homeless and destitute and indentured to low wage work for a year. In the process he did step in and support me again. The time we spent together really did matter! The real connection we have did function as a reality check to me. Somehow, we both had to change and we were able to do so.

Eventually, over time we were able to get it right. But if my father hadn’t persisted to support me in my efforts, I might not have changed my mind about what was going on with me. And from my vantage point it was often I who took the lead to change my negativity toward him. This helped us work together again. I also might not have been willing to take medication which helped me with the process of changing my mind.

Understanding Why Your Loved Ones View of Good and Evil Has Amplified:

As I mentioned initially, already the issue of good and evil is amplified naturally by special message experiences which some find to be spiritual, and others find to be responses to trauma. I believe unpacking those stories and getting people to teach you what they have learned about good and evil is important.

Consider that in modern civilization, many with special messages spiritual connection have their experiences defined in mental hospitals as illness. The result can become a profound mistrust of power and a struggle against the power structure that wants to institutionalize them. Suddenly the world becomes full of evil people. People in institutions may seem to nullify all gifts and abilities. When there is a sense of interconnection, and loved ones have initiated institutional care, evil is more likely to be projected onto the loved ones.

Let’s not forget that the institutional system may be traumatic and violent at times, thus, amplifying an amplified process. In many locales, public institutions seem to purposely show people in crisis the door to institutional living as if to say: this is what will happen to you if you don’t shape up.

It can be argued that institutions are set up this way because they aim at curbing behavior. Of course, how the person takes the “treatment” is different for each of us. Additionally, different staff people use punitive, irrational interventions in unique manners some for the better and some for the worse.

Don’t Take it Personal, Explore and Work it Out!

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what your loved one may be thinking of you and whether they have ways they are correct and ways they aren’t. In this blog I have tried to speak for myself and how I navigate these dilemmas as a patient and a therapist.

When I was in crisis, I was told by my therapist to avoid the issue of good and evil so I wouldn’t be crazy! It was true, I didn’t think she was a very good person to me when I was vulnerable. I listened to her and honored her keeping my true feelings buried. It did lead to recovery.

But I don’t deal with that therapist anymore! To her credit, she did encourage me to write. Perhaps she would change her mind if she knew how I had to write about her to recover from the treatment. Ultimately in my world, I escaped the control of my cap villain and went on with my life.

But moving forward I encourage loved ones and therapists who want to be supportive instead of a thorn, to explore what they’ve done with an open mind and learn about whether it was good or evil. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is only good and evil. We all have the capacity to do both. If you do a good job you will get the truth. If you do a poor one you will get fake answers.

Keep exploring even if all answers are fake. That can be part of the work that may not happen if you don’t persist over time.

The post What Do You Do When Your Loved One Thinks You Are Evil? appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".