Healing And Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 59

This is what really sticks in my craw about this bogus diagnosis I was given for schizotypal disorder. If my shrink was going to pin this one on me, he had only his personal animus against religion in general and Christianity in particular to go on. (Christians, like the poor and the mentally ill, remain the last socially-sanctioned targets for discrimination and stigma. And no, I am no longer buying the lame excuse that Christians deserve this kind of treatment. Maybe once upon a time, but now this is blaming the victim, and there is no excuse for treating us like crap and getting away with it!). Some Christians have a strong mystical orientation to their faith. I am one of those Christians. It seems my shrink decided to go to town on pathologizing me because my spiritual reality didn't square with his atheist and mechanistic view of nature. Naturally he would throw into this garbage category his opinions about magical thinking (something I am well aware of and do not practice) and superstition (ditto) and conclude that I must have a personality disorder, since I appear to not only believe in someone he is sure could not possibly exist, but insist that I have a relationship with this being. So, those were the one and a half categories that I scored in the online test for schizotypal disorder. On the other hand, we are not supposed to have any close friends and we have trouble making friends and sustaining friendships. When I was seeing this quack (so sue me, Ed!), I was in a period of huge transition. I had three fairly close friends at that time, but found it difficult connecting with new people because of the huge holocaust my life and just been through. This series of personal tragedies were not brought on by mental health issues, but the resulting trauma certainly brought them on. I have since lost those three friends, but as a clear result of the success of my therapy, despite my shrink's rather shrunken worldview. I was becoming strong and they didn't want me to challenge their pet fictions (and, no, Gentle Reader, I was NOT being a jerk about it!) so they all dumped me. I began to make new friends. Most of them are still friends, closer than ever. Two of them are people I knew when we were in our twenties and we have grafted ourselves back into each other's lives over the last decade or so. I have new friends as well. Some have gone away, either from losing interest, or they turned out to be not very nice people and really I am better without them. However, given my life circumstances, for having decent people in my life, I am doing pretty damn good, so, no, Duckies, I do not have schizotypal personality disorder. Apparently we are also supposed to dress funny. I don't dress funny. My usual outfit? Loose-fitting military-cut button up shirts, neutral colours, sleeves rolled up to just above the wrists, and the top one or two buttons undone. Always tucked into my pants. I usually wear blue jeans, rather loose-fitting. And sensible walking shoes, black, nothing unusual. In hot weather I wear a bandana on my head for solar protection (doctor's orders), because I like the look, I don't like baseball caps and it's too warm for toques. I don't wear any kind of jewelry, don't have tattoos (thank God), and I never wear cologne (showering every day and deodorant are enough, please and thank you!) What is left of my hair is always kept very short and neat. So, I look pretty darn normal, and, no, Gentle Reader, I don't wear lingerie or women's underwear, or black leather and bondage gear in the privacy of my home, nor in the privacy of anywhere, and I don't wear stuff like that out in public, either. As for having eccentric beliefs, other than my Christian faith, I tend to be curious about astrology and psychic phenomena. I am not exactly sceptical, nor am I a confirmed believer, but I do believe that there are phenomena at work in our universe and in our lives and world that cannot be scientifically-determined. And, no, I don't base my life or decision-making on things like that, so, no schizotypal disorder here. I do sometimes, on very rare occasions, recognize signs and omens, often in birds. For example, the seven eagles I saw flying overhead a few days before I went on my first trip to Bogota, Colombia, or the white raven I saw flying one morning less than two months ago. And the white eagle feather I found in the year 2000. The reason I believe why these might be signs? (notice that I am not one hundred percent persuaded, so there is some healthy skepticism here, therefore, no schizotypal disorder!) Because of significant changes and transitions that followed in my life shortly after. But I would also like to add here that before the Enlightenment and before our academic bigheads decided to disembowel our humanity of all the spirituality and sense of wonder that makes our lives so much more tolerable on this sorry earth, everybody believed in the numinous, in signs and omens and that the whole freakin' universe was alive and pulsating with meaning and glory and wonder! Artists and poets still have this sense. Does this make us sick? Only if it doesn't make us shitloads of money and make us famous as well, I would imagine. Neither am I particularly uncomfortable in social situations, but really, isn`t everybody at least a little bit uncomfortable in social situations, especially in a room full of strangers? As for talking funny, I don't talk funny, therefore no schizotypal disorder. I do have a way of sounding educated and polished and perhaps rather sophisticated but this could be because I happen to be those things? No personality disorder. Schizotypals also tend to believe that people are out to get them and do them harm. There were a few years in my life when I really pissed off certain people in positions where they could harm me and they certainly did try to harm me, and it took me a few years to work through some of the resulting trauma. And I have evidence that those things occurred, which also cost me a couple of friendships when I tried to ask some of those individuals if they could please tell me what was going on? Rather than 'fess up, or deny, they withdrew and simply will not bother with me now. Suspicious? Hell, no! But if you are already poor and vulnerable and marginalized, the psychiatric profession is going to be all the more likely to pathologize you, even if there is really nothing wrong with your psychological health. Another symptom of this bogus disorder: unconventional beliefs that are not compatible with current societal norms. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel, but here I go! I do not subscribe to many of the so-called values of contemporary society. I am vegetarian, partly for health but especially for the planet and I don't like being party in the suffering of animals. Does this make me crazy? I have never learned to drive a car, simply because I did not want to contribute to environmental pollution and degradation. Given that we are already in the midst of catastrophic climate change, and it is expected to get even worse, would you say I'm crazy? I have always been poor, even though there is this rather stupid-ass expectation in Canada that everyone has to make a nice living, have two cars, a nice home, and tons of savings and investments. I was not able to access this dream because my life situation was thrown out of whack from my parents' divorce and from childhood abuse. So, having to struggle to survive I could not finish my post-secondary education, could not find decent-paying union work since no one would hire me (it helps to know the right people to secure those kinds of jobs) and the struggle to pay the rent every month made going back to school even part time unrealistic. I was working in home support, a stressful and low paid occupation and simply didn't have the spare emotional energy to do evening classes. So, I stayed poor. But it also squared with my values, because I have long been anti-consumerism, as our wealth is not in the size of our bank accounts, homes, or paycheques. Our wealth is in the quality of our souls, our characters, our willingness and ability to reach out to others in love compassion and care and our capacity for enjoying the beauty in the world that surrounds us. So, I was not competitive. Does this make me crazy? According to the psychiatrists, it at least means that I have this bogus personality disorder, and all because I happen to have ethics and values, unlike any of those pretentious bastards. So, if you don't conform, if you want to live in a way that is beautiful, kind, ethical and compassionate, then you must be crazy because you are not fattening the economy nor participating in this mad dance of death that we are all being plunged into. We may feel all the richer and all the more joyful despite living in this state of dissonance but, not wanting to put our own interests and desires first, there must surely be something wrong with us. Yeah, I get it. If your goal isn't to be your own little god, to be a selfish, but well-off narcissist, then you are not participating in the death dance. You must be sick. You must surely be crazy!