Don’t worry. I’ll explain the title.
To begin:
We seem to be living on earth in the 21st century AD as a morphing mutant species.
Did you ever stop to consider that the single word “species” functions as both singular and plural! Which makes our current (but what’s current? when did “it” begin, how far back is far enough) situation? condition? transmogrifying flow? Or, even more impossible: how to figure out (that’s left brain talk), discern (might be right brain too), intuit (definitely right brain, supposedly linked to “source” (but what’s Source? Whose god we talkin’ about here?) Oh shit! let’s just stop now shall we? Enough of the verbal nonsense that pretends to cover REALITY, whatever that is!
A childhood memory pops in:
My mother, throwing up her hands in dismay: “Ann! Just who do you think you are?!”
Well, here are a few labels that, had I ever agreed to “go into therapy” at any point, might have stuck, at least for awhile.
Look ’em up!
GAD generalized anxiety disorder
OCD obsessive-compulsive disorder
ODD oppositional defiant disorder
The label of the last one sounds closest. But maybe the label “contrarian” is precise enough. That’s what my older son called me a few years ago. I had to look it up! BTW: given the way the world has morphed since then, he’s becoming more and more contrarian himself. Welcome, son!
Please remember that whichever behaviors and linguistics (or lack of) count as mental “disorders” depends on who you ask, or more generously, says this sarcastic bombastic Sagittarian —thanks to all the many psychiatrists for their ongoing contributions to the latest DSM — here is one response via somebody’s version of rapidly mutating AI . . .
Oh wow. Over 450 ways of pretending to cutting up human psyches into tiny atomized slices, all of which “require” treatment, i.e., one or more psychiatric drugs. (Get “diagnosed” and you automatically to get “treatment” i.e., drugs). And that was 2022. How many more in the past 2.5 years . . . less the the obedient jabbed folks who have already died . . .
Hmmm . . . so how many humans in the U.S. supposedly suffer from a “mental illness”?
Well, again from nearly three years ago, according to
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness
In other words, more like one in four in 2022, that’s already 25% of the adult population.
And children? From the same source, same year:
Aside from the fact that the census is undoubtedly wrong (nobody in my house wanted to be counted . . .) I don’t believe these statistics. Way way more than that. Let’s face facts: it’s now “normal” to “suffer from” some kind of “disorder” and get on psychiatric drugs! BIG PHARMA’S WET DREAM!
Hmm . . . how’s DOGE treating you, NIH? A quick duck duck go search, on first page:
Now let’s add to the population of supposedly classified (or unmentionable) abnormal “disorders.” Examples:
ETs posing as humans? (I can’t help but see Elon that way). Shapeshifting reptilians? Hybrids? How about those unclassified, just out there, and either celebrated, despised, or feared: like elite bloodlines? Jews? Zionists? Drag Queens? Transgenders? Woke Democrats endorsing DEI? Some of the above so-called or not-so-called disorders are supposedly visibly “different” than “the majority” (whatever that is; and what’s the sample? All humans on earth? In your town, your state, your country?), some not. I.e., skin color is a tell. But so are behavioral and linguistic cues. But what’s real, what’s pretend, or fake, or pretending to be faked? Or masked?. Or clones of all the above? How about NPCs?
Then there’s the autism spectrum, currently in the public eye, thanks to RFK Jr. What is it, 1 out of 31 children now labeled “autistic”? And clearly, this is not just a matter of loving to stick labels on people. All these syndromes, etc. mirror largely unaddressed, unprocessed increasing environmental and cultural toxicity. Where is the grieving process that needs to attend our terrible discoveries?
At this point, who the hell knows the “Real ID” of seemingly human or humanoid creatures walking around upright on the face of this earth at this seemingly end-point in history? This point of no return?
The point is (yeah, I mean a larger point, even though a point itself has no dimension . . .): however we label the multifarious “Others,” they, i.e., WE all deserve both empathy and compassion. Which, however, does not automatically guarantee or even denote the ability to understand one another fully (to “walk a mile in each other’s shoes”) by means of the linguistic and bodily signals my now fading generation could count on 7 decades ago. I.e., the usual, traditional, common-sensical means of “coming to terms” with one another do not apply, and have not applied for a very long time. No wonder we experience internal, interpersonal, societal and cultural chaos!
All this is to make a more general point. I applaud Charles Eisenstein’s articulate, compassionate efforts to both comprehend and ascribe value to, not just autism, but to all forms of what we used to be able to assume was “human” life on earth. Frankly, this article mesmerized me. Thank you, fellow ODD! You taught me that newly self-applied label!
There is nothing “wrong” with anyone, and . . .
Eisenstein is very good at elucidating his own biases. Here’s mine:
I cannot help but notice that anyone medically diagnosed as mentally ill and therefore, on psychiatric meds, seems to think of him or herself as a victim, i.e. to believe their supposed cut and dried psychiatric DSM classification; I assume that this (logially?) (emotionally?) “follows” from their continuing trust in doctors and all kinds of authorities as gods to be “obeyed.” On the other hand, who knows what the drugs themselves do to their native ability to think, both critically, and imaginatively. To actually take charge of their own ensouled, sovereign lives!
So many do seem to turn into NPCs!
REALLY!
STILL?
FIVE YEARS ON FROM THE COVID CON?
Oh, and for readers also “suffering from” my addiction to contrarian mind-bending, how about this? What if conservatives, instead of liberals, dominated universities? Would that be any “better”? You decide.
https://www.sensible-med.com/p/what-if-it-were-the-other-way-around
