Psychosis: The New Normal?

I've noticed a trend lately. Psychosis is gaining ground as an acceptable and new form of neurodivergent thinking.  My apologies to all our neurodivergent thinkers out there, by the way.  It was the only term I could come up with to explain the acceptance of a "different" way of thinking and perceiving reality that deviates from the mainstream.  Neurodivergence, by the way, is associated with individuals who think outside the box (all things being grounded in rationality that is!) when compared to their "neurotypical" counterparts.  Except with psychosis, it involves thinking outside of reality (irrational thinking!) and liking to remain there for whatever reason(s) spoken and unspoken...

Psychosis, by definition, is abnormal.  And what is "abnormal" in the first place you may wonder?  It is that which causes real harm to self or others without regard for the damage(s) being inflicted (to self or to others).  For example, "avolition" is a common behavioral pattern that often accompanies psychotic thinking.  People who do not initiate, do not pursue, and are unmotivated to "do" their own life's personal responsibilities on a daily basis (you know, "get up, dress up, show up" for one's own life!) will often view this pattern of thinking and associated behavior(s) as not a big deal.  "I want to do what I want to do and you can't stop me!  Especially when I don't want to do anything at all!"  

Please do not confuse avolition with significant forms of depression and/or grief.  Avolition is a desired outcome.  Those who practice it like being disconnected from reality.  Like someone who is addicted to all things virtual reality.  It's its own lifestyle "choice" based on an abnormal condition of mind, life, and soul.    

We may not be able to stop you, but it is YOUR own functioning that is severely impaired when you choose to just lay around in bed all day or on the couch...and that's how you roll more days than not.  This damaging pattern of ongoing disconnection may prevent you from making and maintaining authentic friendships....graduating from high school/college/trade school....getting and/or keeping a job...perhaps driving a car...learning new skills....and/or otherwise "functioning" successfully enough as a person your age in this world you inhabit.

How does this happen?  Well, since our brains are naturally wired for connection, trauma definitely rewires them for disconnection.  How about that?  Another topic for another time.....

Today's blog post is all about psychosis and how our thinking about it is being politicized as the next "anything" to become okay to accept/pursue/be about/do in our current culture.

The term psychosis comes from the Greek "psyche" which translated means "mind, life, and soul"...and "osis" which translated means "abnormal condition".  As such, "psychosis" is an abnormal condition of the mind, life, and soul.  

Of course, in today's world when dressing up like a demon, or Dora the Explorer, or a lumberjack in a tutu is "acceptable" when it's not Halloween----guess what?  We have mainstreamed new standards of what constitutes public civility and associated (public) behavior(s).  I was at a market last year when I saw my first "demon" (thanks to Ferndale for that by the way!) cross paths with me.  Between the contact lenses, the body modified horns out her forehead, the tats everywere including her face, the outfit, and her hairdo...wtf?  I mean, she'd be a great character on the next episode of some random horror movie---but strolling through fabulous Ferndale, really?  Yep, it was a really for her that day just saying!  (Believe me, I know all about histrionic presentation styles, but this one took the damn cake and the box with it!)

Doesn't anyone remember the fairy tale "The Emperor Has No Clothes"?  I certainly do.  To be brief, the Emperor was being duped by a con man who charged him a King's ransom for creating clothes that were, in fact, non-existent.  Utilizing his skills of the con, this tailor sewed with invisible thread on invisible cloth to create a wardrobe for the Emperor beyond compare.  Everyone was too afraid to say they couldn't see the Emperor's "new" clothes...so they all agreed how beautiful and wonderful and amazing the tailor's finished work was.  Until a little kid showed up and pointed at the Emperor to proclaim aloud:  "The Emperor Has No Clothes!"  End of.  Finally!  It took a little kid to wake up the world around him about the aberrant reality of the present moment. 

When is that going to happen to us?  Who knows?  I do my bit for humanity in this regard;  how about you?  Living a life without truth attached is what allows us to do whatever we want, when we want, without a thought to how our growing romance with psychotic thinking genuinely affects ourselves...and the lives of those around us.  I know I am sick of being bullied into believing that "anything" is o.k. because a psychotic state of mind is something the culture decides to aim for rather than aim to eradicate!  (If you have ever had a convo with someone talking about their acid trip(s) and how "great" and/or how "traumatizing" they were...you do understand what I am talking about here!)  Authentic spiritual awakening and transformation comes from the inside out, not from the outside in.

Until you have seen psychotic thinking acted out in inappropriate ways, you may be tempted to believe that it's "not all that bad" a condition for those who have it.  I mean, aren't we all a little psychotic when we believe we still can do something we haven't done in years---let alone when that "something" involves physical agility, strength, balance, and core strength?  Reminds me of when I went back to the gym in early January and couldn't lift my foot and leg up off the ground for 30 seconds like everyone else did.  We are really good at deluding ourselves about reality more often than not.  I have done it.  You do it too.  However, my own "reality check" regarding my current physical condition inspired me to do my work to keep myself in present day reality.

Psychosis as the new "normal" inspires us to keep ourselves out of present day reality and live inside the middle of our delusional thinking for as long as we like without leaving it.

If you know anybody with dementia, you may begin to understand what I am speaking of in today's post.  Sadly, I have too many friends and acquaintences who have been diagnosed with dementia.  It is a very unsettling reality when someone you "think" knows you doesn't recognize you at all when you go to visit him/her/them.  Even more unsettling, when the person with dementia starts talking about "stuff" that is clearly not of this world---but of the world inside their own mind.  "I need the car!  I'm going home!  I hate it here!"...when the person is at home, his/her/their driving privileges were taken away months ago, and now there is a meltdown to follow as part of the search for car keys.  No, nobody wants to go through that, let alone witness it.  

The drug and alcohol use of our recent generations adds gasoline to the pre-existing fire of those who struggle with mental health issues...and then psychosis shows up as a drug-induced by product of this groups' lifestyle choices.  Now that marijuana has been legalized, there are MANY users who have no clue how smoking or ingesting their edibles have served as a new gateway to psychotic thinking and behavioral responses they can't/won't/don't acknowledge.  For example, if you are bipolar or remain undiagnosed with a major mood disorder.....drug and/or alcohol use is NOT YOUR FRIEND!  You run a high risk of psychosis entering into your picture and staying there for longer than you anticipated.  I have often shared with clients the story of a patient who I saw back 25 years ago who "went psychotic" (which represented the venacular we used back then!) after taking a single hit of Ecstacy at a rave.  She didn't come back to baseline and ended up in a group home.  She was in her early 20s.  It can be like that.  You want to believe you are "fine" when, in fact, you are not fine.  You are struggling with an ongoing state of psychosis and you don't even know it.

Next post, coming out of the fog of psychotic thinking/psychotic episodes with "proper" care and treatment...

Be Present. Be Grateful. Be Real. (Part II in a series)

Last time, I blogged about what it means to practice being present as  part of our own healing and recovery path for 2025.  Before moving on to the topic of what it takes to practice being grateful, I wanted to add a footnote about the practice of being present...

Many of us find it challenging to practice being present because we are dissatisfied with the current status of our life generally speaking.  Whatever it is or was that happened, we are deeply unhappy and lonely as a result.

In these types of scenarios, the practice of "being present" may seem ridiculous because we are already acutely aware of our "present" day reality and it, in a word, stinks!  When this is the case, we need to recognize, at the very least, what it is we genuinely "hope" for and want to see change in this new year ahead.  Then, at the very most, we need to do what we need to do in order to live in the middle of that hope during the time we have to facilitate the change(s) we seek.  For example, someone who truly seeks a primary love relationship is NOT living in the middle of that hope by staying home most of the time and overthinking "everything" as has been the usual habit for them for the past XX weeks/months/years/decades. Overthinking only leads to sadness and self-incriminations.  Period.  At the other extreme end of that spectrum are those who go out with "everybody" without any firm boundaries in place.  If you don't know the difference between what you will and will not tolerate, you just set yourself up for standing for nothing because you fall for anything....

It's one thing to take anti-depressant medication to feel "better";  it's another to do the work, every single day, to place oneself in new or existing situations and circumstances where networking and/or getting to know other people better becomes a lifestyle.  Medication can work to give us the "Oomph!" (as one of my clients put it!) to get up, dress up, and show up for our own lives.  The quality of our life and social interactions, after we do that, is genuinely up to us.  And if you need help with that, that's what we psychotherapists and self-help/support/therapy groups are for.  So do it.  It IS for you...not for anybody else BUT you to do and practice on an ongoing basis...

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Now, on to the practice of how to be grateful.  Being grateful means focusing in on what you do have rather than what you want but don't have---or fear you'll never have.  What I have found about the practice of gratitude is that it changes the way you fundamentally think about "everything" and everyone.  How does this happen?  Well, it happens as we practice being present, for one thing.  Some of us are so conditioned to function on autopilot, we miss out on all kinds of "glimmers" (positive cues and observances) as they occur in real time.  Instead of searching for that prowling lion wherever we are or go, adopting an attitude of gratitude genuinely changes our brain function to be more open and willing to experience new things and people without fear and/or negative judgment(s) attached.  

As an example, some people really do fear and negatively judge people who are assertive communicators.  How does this happen?  It happens because people who are not assertive communicators themselves will confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness.  Not a good thing to do.  People who practice saying what they mean, mean what they say, don't say it mean, and say it in a timely manner are NOT being aggressive.  They are being appropriately assertive.  End of.  "Why" we negatively judge assertive communicators is often due to the fact that these folks know how to comfortably say "No thanks!" or "Not now thank you." or "I'll have to think about that and get back with you." OR "I don't know the answer to that...so I'm not the person to ask."  And then there is us.  Those of us who do not know or definitely struggle with saying any of these things because we are people pleasing "Yes of course!" kind of folks even when we don't want to do that which we are being asked to do by someone else!  So now you know.

A friend and I were just chatting this morning about this very issue.  How does an attempt to be understood by someone else, in an appropriate manner, translate to being perceived as aggressive?  To be an aggressive communicator is to overtly or covertly manipulate, push, actively gaslight and/or threaten another person to bend to the speaker's will.  This is NOT the same as assertive communication.  HOWEVER, as I just alluded to in the previous paragraph, those who struggle with the inability to comfortably say "No" to others' requests---can very easily confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness.  When we practice being present and being grateful, we actually learn how to experience what we see and hear more objectively than subjectively (with that false positive spin attached!).  When my friend asked "What do I do when someone responds to me being assertive as if I am being aggressive?"....I suggested she neutralize the situation by saying something like "I notice you seem offended by what I just shared;  can you help me understand what's going on right now?"

Often, this is all we need to say to clarify for the other person how we want to achieve mutual understanding between both parties as our primary goal....

Practicing gratitude puts us in a mental space and place where we are more neutral about what is going on around us than tilted towards being more subjectively negative about our own life's experiences.  For example, can you recall when a stranger has approached you anywhere in public....and your first thought was "What do YOU want?!"  I know I have.  And then when I heard statements like "Oh, I love your coat.." or some other random compliment---those moments served as reminders to me that not "everyone" who is a stranger to me is as bad as I believe(d) them to be generally speaking!  How about you?  Has an inabillity to practice being grateful prevented you from seeing life and your relationships more neutrally than negatively?  Perhaps now is the time to think about that and what you really do have to be thankful for each and every day!

Nex time, what the practice of being "real" means and how we can learn to be more comfortable showing the people around us who we genuinely are....unless we are a hot mess in need of serious intervention.  That's another issue, but I'll still address it somewhat in my next post.  :-P

Until then....