The life of an individual who has a mental illness starkly contrasts and differs greatly than that of an individual who was born with an able body and mind. In this presentation I will be covering a variety of a mental and chronic illnesses that individuals afflicted by these disabilities suffer on a daily basis in the institutions of society as well as the solution to fix this evident problem within our society that has affected the lives of the silent minority in the mental and chronic illness community. First I will be covering the topic of ‘Sane Privilege.’ To understand what sane privilege is is to understand that the majority of able-bodied, sound minded people were born without a lifelong illness that destroys their body and mind. That people with Sane Privilege were fortunate enough to win the genetic lottery. The winning raffle ticket is that individuals with Sane Privilege are not treated as one of the vilified members of society who if a person with a mental or chronic illness should address this problem within themselves with another person who is of the Sane Privilege characteristic, the Sane Privilege person will label them by their illness and not as a human being as found among the general consensus of the mental sufferers. The state of Deviance in Mentally Ill people can truly be the state of their own selves as individuals due to their physical anatomical-biological difference from the Societal Norm of Sanity. This Deviation from the Norm is something a Mentally Ill Individual cannot control but only how the Mentally Ill Individual copes with their Deviation from the Norm.
From a Symbolic Interactionist Perspective mental illness sufferers may refer to themselves as “eccentrics” to themselves, in groups of their fellow patients, as well as to others to hide the shame or stigma of being a person with a disability while within the mental and chronic illness community, people gifted with Sane Privilege are referred to as “Norms,” a nomenclature for a normal or able-bodied person, it is a term used by mental as well as chronic illness patients to distinguish between the eccentrics being the group who is at odds with social and societal problems everyday that a norm does not face. A mental illness or chronic illness sufferer has a permanent tax on their existence for a disorder, illness, or disease which they have no control over. People within the mental & chronic illness are forced to pay this tax to alleviate their suffering so they may live an ordinary life with the same opportunities, pursuits of interests, and to build relationships at the costs of medical practitioners, various therapies, and the medication required in paying this price so they may do so.
The Mentally and Chronically Ill: The Silent Minority
The words “Anomie,” “Deviance,” and “Stigma,” are defined as:
Anomie: Social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values; personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals.
Deviance: The differentiating or absence of social-norms; to upset the status-quo.
Stigma: 1.) A mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. 2.) A set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something. 3.) Stigma is what Sociology would refer to as Discrimination and Prejudice.
Functionalist Theory — Mental Illness and Society
The Functions of the Mentally Ill Individuals in Society
Mentally Ill Individuals provide the social and societal institution of Healthcare with profits for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and medical professionals who treat patients as a customer and as a means to an end, showing the impersonality of a bureaucratic institution by stripping the patient of personhood through mental illness. It garners an Individual who is labeled disabled by society to cast their burdens onto enhancing the individual’s anxieties, the institution of family is forever burdened by the individual and their disorder. The institution of entertainment has a means to an end for propagating a villain in their media of fiction to generate a profit which also generates more misunderstandings or hatred of already misunderstood people who by the vast numbers are eccentrics who have a problem with their brain chemistry at worst. This prejudice and discrimination is called ‘stigma’. The Mentally ill has contributed many marvels of the arts and sciences to humanity but a social-label of mental illness inevitably negates a person.
Conflict Theory — Mental Illness and Society.
The Conflict of Mentally Ill Individuals in Society
The school of Sociological Structuralism known as Conflict Theory originated Karl Marx states that all individuals are struggling for resources. The individual with a mental illness in society is competing for the resource of their own well-being and livelihood, they compete for the means to produce the monetary amount necessary to the healthcare institution to provide themselves with the medications or therapies that allow them to function in society for without these medications or therapies they cannot function in the same society they are apart of. This is a grievously flagrant social issue of systematic prejudice and discrimination by society as a whole. The worst of societies barbarism towards the mentally ill was not the primordial asylums ranging from Bedlam to the asylums before medical revolution for the mentally ill of the 1980’s was labeled by the state or the barbaric nature of primal psychiatry being a more commonly known practice of antiquated social-norms of an earlier time of the 20th Century where Trepanation, Forced Chemical Seizures, Treatments for Hysteria, and Lobotomies were standard practice. A more unknown yet urban legend in nature is the idea of the MK-Ultra Mind Control Experiments. From these supposed Societal Treatment of Ill one could posit this following abstract: “The covert Central Intelligence Agency’s Project MK-Ultra experiments of the 1950’s-1970’s which proved America’s own disdain for the mentally ill as the social label of ‘unwilling test subject for mind control.” This is an abstract from surfaceweb public domain sources where one has to hold a suspension of disbelief from that abstract for the controversial and questionable nature of such a claim. I’ve dealt with conspiracy theories in other thesis as Social Beliefs to be held the same as Contemporary Folklore among Group Think.
Contemporary Folklore: Urban Legends and Conspiracy Theories
Project MK-Ultra
Project MK-Ultra, sometimes referred to as the CIA’s mind control program — was the codename given to supposedly highly-unethical Intelligence program that included experiments on unknowing or unwilling human subjects. These experiments were designed and undertaken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the individual to force confessions through mind control. Organized through the Scientific Intelligence Division of the CIA. The project coordinated with the Special Operations Division of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Corps. The program began in the early 1950s which supposedly officially sanctioned in 1953, reducing in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967, and officially halted in 1973. The program supposedly engaged in many highly-controversial activities, including the use of unwilling or unknowing US and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its hypothetical legitimacy.
Contemporary Folklore requires a Suspension-of-Disbelief for this regards Conspiracy Theories and Urban Legends. These are beliefs shared among those in social-dynamics who believe in Contemporary Folklore concerning Conspiracy Theories and Urban Legends which share these ideas and events similar to a Internet Fandom concerning Fictional Media. Not to be taken seriously since the sources are just internet bloggers stating opinions on highly-questionable internet sites as the sources.
MK-Ultra: The Tale of this Contemporary Folklore
Shared by the Cyber-Community of Conspiracy Theorists. This is what has been stated among them of how this tale of Contemporary Folklore supposedly follows from my own objective understanding of this complex urban legend. Hypothetically, MK-Ultra was a highly-controversial program that use numerous methodologies to manipulate people’s mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, abuse, as well as various forms of torture. The scope of Project MK-Ultra was extensive with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, hospitals, and prisons. The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA’s involvement.
Caveat: This is a summary of the Contemporary Folklore concerning Conspiracy Theorists in their Milieu of Groupthink on Internet Sites.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: Mental Illness and Society
Popularly it is among the Mentally Ill Community to refer to themselves as “eccentrics” or in groups of their own social milieu of fellow mentally ill individuals to refer to them as such to hide Mental Illness and reject the label of something wrong but rather there is something unique about them. Able-bodied Others are known as “norms” to show pride among themselves or hide the shame or stigma of being a person with a disability in society.
Mental Illness, Homosexuality, and Society
According to the science of psychology, in the western society known as the United States of America, Homosexuality was medically diagnosed as an mental illness until 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association. Before this time, Homosexuality was considered in the same psychopathology of sex and crime in the Medicine and Law institutions of American society. Further studies have concluded that were propelled by the science of sex and gender or what is better known as sexology, sexology being a social science fathered by Alfred Kinsey. That according to the social science of Sexology that there is a degree or a scale which is numbered by varying degrees of sexuality within all humanity, that within all humans there exists a certain percentile of attraction to other members of the human race, whether they are opposite, same, or both.
The measurement is the attraction to traits within certain genders. More studies on genetics have decidedly found that being homosexual may be a genetic and environmental condition in the same aspect of argument known as ‘Nature Versus Nurture,’ in which the official answer to that argument is that who a human becomes psychologically is a amalgamation of both. That homosexuality is not an illness as the old views of the Medicine institution would say, it is not factually an abomination as the institution of the Religion would state, it is not a crime as the institution of the Law. which the institution of the Law would in past times enforce judicial force upon such acts with their power of authority. In contemporary Western societies, homosexuality is stated by societal and social institutions of society to be acceptable. However, there is still those who would discriminate or be prejudice, even those with power and authority in social and societal institutions.
The Scale of Mental Illness
The science of psychology had created a social-role for the practitioner of psychiatry and psychology over individuals who had traits that society deemed maladaptive to the conventions of societal and social norms so that these people must be treated and labeled as ‘maladaptive to society,’ this is another social-label for deviance. In times, predating this development of psychology, psychiatry, and the social label of mental illness. Mentally ill individuals such as those with mood and thought disorders were thought of in earlier human civilization to be spiritual leaders where they had a position in contributing greatly to their society due to the mentally ill individual’s gift of a greater intuition, heightened awareness, and sensitivity to things. The link between higher intellect and mental illness is a statistical reality; that many traits of higher intellect share many traits with one who is mentally ill. Much like the Kinsey Scale except in this case of psychological disorders; humans all score have their percentiles when it comes to the range of mental illness and to what degree an individual may show symptoms without it being fully developed as a mental illness.
The Social-Mirror Effect and the Mentally Ill Minority
The social-mirror effect makes them see a monster which individuals with mood and thought disorders are at a rule, ‘eccentricities’ at worst in a generality. This social-mirror effect which is a root of anxiety disorders which also contributes to others suffering from mental illness is because of the stigmatization and are more sensitive in social and societal situations which a large part of the suffering from the disorder the mentally ill individual suffers from. Stigma is the what every individual in the Mentally Ill Community suffers from.
Stigma
1.) a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.
2.) A set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something.
The mentally ill are faced with a permanent blemish on their social and societal standing by being mentally ill. This blemish is known as ‘Stigma.’ Stigma challenges the Mentally Ill Community everyday in their lives whether they are secretive of their illness or they are open about it.
The Social-Mirror Effect and Mental Illness
The Propagation of Stigma onto the Mentally Ill individual regardless of their levels of functioning, medical maintenance, or where they come from to where the have climbed the social-ladder. An immediate assumption of mentally ill individuals suffering from the go to buzzword of ‘Bipolar’ when crimes warranting those weekly tragedies on the news warrant Malignant Narcissistic or Psychopathic Personality Disorders. The public remains at large uninformed on mental illness or has become resentful from venomous people mentally or possibly mentally ill/ *Personal Caveat* These individuals claiming to be such as it has become trendy in our day and age or their illness being a scapegoat for projection from a large surplus of social-media being a professional social-media site social scientist Admin. Personally, I suffer from Bipolar Type I, Mixed State, Rapid Cycling, with Psychotic Features or what some Psychologists and Psychiatrists have called Schizoaffective Disorder, (Bipolar Type). This diagnosis, I know to be true about my own self.
Concerning individuals who claim to be Mentally Ill or not. I have interviewed and tested these individuals to find some that they were neither diagnosed or medicated for an illness they claimed outspokenly they had. This is appalling to many who cannot go without his scheduled dose of medication to function yet this synthetic group whether real or imaginary, minority or majority of people claiming mental illness as an accessory to their personal identity exists to make people within the mental illness community to appear to be horrible people due to the idea that: “flaws now define you and we are no longer individuals but statistical data, project my authority as absolute upon everyone.” I am outraged by anyone who would only self-diagnose and never seek treatment or counseling on how to function, manage, and live their lives when monetary issues and insurance are of no problem to the vast majority of those who use mental illness as an identity accessory. People such as myself with a life-destroying illness such as Schizoaffective Disorder are shocked by this when looking at their social-media. Their constant posts detailing attention-seeking gratification are a constant trend on their feed with no actual diagnosis or seeking of treatment which most of these claim egodystonic illnesses when they after constantly surveyed as appearing egosyntonic in dysfunctions. Surveying these people do come across as mentally ill but for none of the reasons that appear not egodystonic but egosyntonic as they preach hatred to others and create a larger bridge in divisions between the Mentally Ill Community who are fine with Able People. These Egosyntonic Individuals are a growing trend of people. Many people who have knowledge of mental illness know the truth behind their disorder being among the Dramatic Cluster of Personality Disorders in how they post statuses making all egodystonic mentally ill people appear as the Hollywood-Made Monsters as the Entertainment Media portrays us as within these certain social-interactions including the fallout of people urging these person to get help for the Egosyntonic Individual to attack those persons, this is a constant, this is revealing that the disorder causing this behavior is observably not a egodystonic disorder as they claim, but a egosyntonic disorder. I know many among the Mentally Ill Community who have urged these people to seek actual help but are attacked for doing so, I have observed this personally many times. These mentally ill individuals have insurance and medical care, they chose not to seek treatment but continue to be problematic for people with the actual disorder they claim.
The Institution of the Media: Brutality Against The Mentally Ill
Stigma is mass-produced and propagated by societies institution of entertainment in works of fiction such as Hollywood movies and televised shows by half-witted talentless screenwriters who favor to choose villains with mental illness which are propaganda against individuals with certain disorders when the disorder and it’s symptoms being presented in the character are theatrical, exaggerated, which in the dramaturgy of the individual with the disorder and the character in the medium of Entertainment. The vast majority of the audience knows no difference and is apathetic to educate themselves on the disorder so when they do meet one of the minority of the mentally ill despite how high-functioning, upstanding, or just well-adjusted to social and societal conventions, if the mentally ill individual admits to that individual that they are a patient or sufferer of a disorder when the social-conditioning of media of what the disorder is to the able-bodied or sane person. The sane individual will have a preconceived notion of this mentally ill individual despite the reality of the mentally ill individual also being a member of the human species.
The Brutality of the Media: Romanticizing the Psychopath
The institution of entertainment the greatest perpetrator of violence against the mentally ill with a lack of focus on actual dramatic cluster personality disorders which are psychopathological disorders such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder which are in fact, glamorized in the institution of entertainment such as: the Christian Grey, the Dexter Morgan, the Alex Delarge, the Jordan Belfort, the Patrick Bateman, the Joker.
In the past, when human civilization and their societies were not as developed, when various horrendous forms of crimes were committed on horrible monsters and the supernatural. This brought forth the vampire, the werewolf, the witch which all these supernatural character tropes are glamorized in the media as well. Mentally ill individuals such as those with mood and thought disorders, these mentally ill individuals were thought of in earlier human civilization to be spiritual leaders where they had a position in contributing greatly to their society due to the mentally ill’s gift of a greater intuition. The link between higher intellect and mental illness is a statistical reality.
Able Privilege: Sane Privilege
The mentally ill deserve their right to the same resources as everyone else that being their medication and treatment as well as the sensibility to not treated as one of the vilified members of the society they belong to. If an individual with a mental illness should address this problem within themselves with another individual who is of the socially-conditioned able citizen with the sane privilege social and societal characteristic. The Sane Privilege individual will label them by their illness according to their socially-conditioned perception of the illness and will no longer see the mentally ill individual as a human being.
To understand what Able or Sane Privilege is is to understand that the majority of able-bodied, sound minded individuals were born without a lifelong illness that destroys their body and mind. That individuals with Able Privilege were fortunate enough to win the genetic lottery. The winning raffle ticket is that individuals with Able Privilege, in this case for those with a disability concerning mental illness it is known as ‘Sane Privilege.’ Society’s focus on generating the message that everything about oneself must be good or you are unfit socially-conditions individuals to not seek medical help considering the psychological for that is viewed as the socially-conditioned ultimate weakness.
The Solution: Socialized or Universal Healthcare
The United States government in its fiscal spending year of 2015, the tax revenue collected was spent 25% on health care, 24% on social security, 20% on income security, 18% on national defense, 6% net interest, 3% on transportation, 1% on K-12 education, 3% other.
How We Can Do This
If the United States Power Elite allocated more wealth from the corporate subsidies in the income security field as well as more wealth from defense to focus on providing state-funded health care for all people with chronic and mental illnesses, which a large portion of our veterans returning from the defense budgets interests are diagnosed with a wide range of mental and physical maladies within practicality no budget to support the USA’s veterans. the Power Elite could make their social state and society a more functioning place for it’s citizens
Society has socially-conditioned its citizens to believe seeking medical help for mental health concerns is nothing less than weakness when in reality it is strength. Many horrible experiences in the individual regarding social and societal issues could be treated and or even cured thanks to medication and therapy. The socialization of the institution of Medicine to provide the mentally ill members of society with their necessity of medical needs to function within it would greatly improve American society as a whole, this extending to chronic illness sufferers as well. A healthy society is a well-functioning society. Out of a Random Sample of a Survey of 100 Men. 91/100 that is 90% of Men from this survey: Agreed that they will be viewed as ‘weak’ for displaying emotion and when they display rationalizations in their emotional intelligence. This included the factor that it can be disastrous for men to be stigmatized as ‘violent, psychotic, psychopathic’ through the Social-Mirror Effect from individuals who generalize a whole gender of the human population. This all proved the Social-Problem launched against men. Even when men expressed their emotions reasonably they were treated ‘lesser’ or in the belief that expressing their emotions in a healthy way will only label them as ‘weak’ and worthy of attack from others.
The Solution: Socialized or Universal Healthcare
A mental ill individual has a permanent tax on their existence for an evolutionary mutation they are disparaged for as a disorder or illness in the eyes of society which they have no control over whether they have it or not. Individuals within the mental illness are forced to pay this taxation of their own existence as an individual in a prejudice and discriminatory society with outrageous costs from the institution of Healthcare is to alleviate their suffering so they may live an ordinary life with the same opportunities, pursuits of interests, and to build relationships at the costs of medical practitioners, various therapies, and the medication required in paying this price so they may do so. Providing this silent and invisible minority that is subjugated to the will of the social and societal conditions of a world they have been thrusted into without the proper treatment or medication that they may function in society
Sources Cited:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: V
Michel Foucault, C. Wright Mills, Karl Marx, B. F. Skinner.
the Christian Grey, (50 Shades of Grey, Dexter Morgan, (Dexter, Showtime), Alex Delarge, (A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess), Jordan Belfort, (Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese), Patrick Bateman, (American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis), the Joker, (Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, DC Comics, Warner Brothers).
Numerous Conspiracy Theorist Blogs, Various Urban Legends, and other Contemporary Folklore sites on the Internet such as antiquated versions of conspiracy blogs likened to www.AboveTopSecret.com