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REALLY_MAD

                                                 October 26, 2009

Of late, I've had to deal with someone who is
arguably mentally ill, and you might be
inclined to take the line that I should cut
them some slack because of this, their bad
behavior is supposedly not under their
control; it's something they should be pitied
for rather than reprimanded.

At this point, I am not inclined to
agree... and I would guess that anyone who's
really had their nose rubbed in a case like
this gets over that notion pretty quickly.

The way it seems to me at present is that the
"mentally ill" are often, to a large extent in
control of that illness, but they enjoy
indulging in it: The warped brain chemistry is
more exciting; the drama the crazy behavior
causes keeps life interesting.

There are cases where that's abundantly clear,
e.g.  medication exists and has been
prescribed to treat the problem, but they go
off the meds like a drunk diving back into the
bottle.

Even when it's not a case of "going off the
meds", usually there are obvious avenues of
treatment that are being ignored (e.g. the
drug addict that refuses to touch NA because
those 12 step people can be so annoying).

The idea that the mad are out-of-touch with
the real is an exaggeration-- I think they're
often well aware of what's going on, the
actual madness is they want to keep being mad
anyway, in spite of knowing that they're being
mad.

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