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Can we really identify if someone is crazy or not?
Being crazy actually has no boundary at all. An "eccentric" behavior condemned in one culture may be highly welcomed in another. How to define "norm"? And how to define "craziness"? A person who transcends the limitation of the environment he or she lives in may be called "crazy". Like 1000 years ago no one ever will think about using cell phone to connect with others. So is it necessary for us to explore the world of those so called crazy people ? What may be the potential benefit and what may be the potential harm?
Winston Lake
It is important to remember that "crazy" isn't a clinical term. "Crazy" is an emotion response to an observed behavior or behaviors. it's not generic, it's personal. It's about how one individual relates to another.
The impulse to disguise "crazy" as mental illness is actually an impulse to hide the judgmental side of ourselves. It's one thing to observe a behavior and consider a possible mental health problem. It's something altogether different to observe the same behavior and think "CRAZY".
It becomes less about whether or not we an identify "crazy" and more about what it says about us when we do.
Cheers, Winston
Debra Smith 200+
We are gradually growing in our understanding but that understanding cannot come fast enough for many of the sufferers. What we can do is stop stigmatizing people by realizing that the brain is an organ that gets sick or damaged. Mental illness is a physiological disease of an organ whose job it is to generate thought processes that interpret the world. We have to reduce the stigma and understand that it is disease as certainly as diabetes, kidney disease or the disease of any other organ is and that sufferers deserve compassion rather than ridicule, avoidance or unkindness.
Edward Chin
"crazy" is a particular mental capacity that reaches a point where a person or group of people become a threat to those around them and/or society, whereas "genius" is when this party becomes a benefit.
The blurry line comes when we label people who are socially inept due to their divergent mental capacities, at which time their benefit to society in unclear.
But what if this party becomes a threat to itself?
Frans Kellner 100+
Every person tries to do his/her best in accord with their ability. What other people think of it has nothing to do with that person but with their own shortsightedness.
Ryan Lawrence
For example, if she were to walk into the living room and the couch was 2 inches to the left, she may think "the couch seems to be in a different place, i do not remember moving it, my doors were locked, maybe someone broke in and moved it, maybe god moved it to tell me something, or people are breaking into my house moving my furniture, i should be scared because if they can move my furniture maybe they want to hurt me, i am going to sleep with a gun under my pillow tonight just in case because i can't let them hurt me"
if i were to walk into the same room with the couch moved i might think "the couch is in a different place, did i move it and forget? did someone else move it? i was here alone with the doors locked, it doesn't look like anyone else was in here, i wonder if i bumped into it and didn't notice, or maybe it was always there and i am just remembering it wrong, either way, it doesn't really matter because there does not appear any imminent danger from the couch being moved and i have other things to do so forget why and move on"
Why this happens science still does not have an answer but all my research has told me this.. there is definitely a scale of what we will take as proof of a threat and how likely we are to react, and to paraphrase the wise Richard Dawkins "in terms of survival it was almost always better to get spooked and run from wind in the grass thinking you saw a snake than to always ignore rustling grass and get bitten by a real snake one day."
I see a correlation here in those traits being dominant in both the very religious and the mentally ill.. and what made us better fit for survival historically is now an impairment to modern life.
Allan Macdougall 50+
You have alluded to this already, but more specifically, I wonder what you think of the notion that schizophrenia is only seen as craziness from the standpoint of our current framework of reality? Some would say that in earlier, traditional societies, schizophrenics may have been revered - perhaps as shamans, medicine men etc, because of their propensity towards envisioning those things that others may not naturally see?
Maybe this is me being crazy, but I believe that many of today's mental 'illnesses' are unlikely to be illnesses at all, and that it is more likely that our current take on reality is the thing that is 'ill', with accepted thought patterns that are almost entirely scientific, linear, empirical. What has happened to thought patterns that are panoramic, far-reaching, metaphorical? It does seem as though pure scienctific thought has become the norm, but thinking in metaphor has now become crazy.
I wonder which thought pattern has moved society forward more rapidly and deeper into pioneering territory? 'Normal' science, or 'crazy' metaphor?
Ryan Lawrence
3000 years ago when no one could explain why it rained someone who could easily jump steps in logic and believe it was the result of an angry god in the sky throwing his spear into the ocean was likely to be revered because no one else had any other explanation. A true schizophrenic sees that this is true in spite of any evidence or logic placed in front of them and preach their conclusion with great conviction, if no one knows enough to fault their logic they would indeed be seen as visionary.
In the modern world we have done research and we now know why it rains so when someone makes that same jump in logic to reach the same conclusion and will not accept any other answer that their logic is faulty we know they are incorrect.
As far as perception of reality goes.. we know posiden is not making it rain with his trident, therefore what we really need to achieve is a way to help the schizophrenic understand reality and train them to reach more logical conclusions and reduce the noticeable symptoms of the disease.
stephen dalton
When these categories were defined, what happened is that perfectly ordinary people were going to doctors asking to be cured of what they interpreted as divergence from the norm - a norm that nobody realistically conforms to anyway. We have in a sense been conditioned to expect or move towards perfection, and anything other than that is deficient in some way.
I also firmly believe that we have filters in place. The world is full of detail, sound, visual, olfactory, and we couldn't hope to process it all all the time, so our brains tune out the things it doesn't think we need. If these filters are not in place, it seems reasonable that we could become distracted and tortured by the things that other people just aren't aware of (if thats what we are conditioned to think) or equally we could become powerful witchdoctors, or psychics, or holy men.
Check an Adam Curtis documentary called The Trap. Has a fascinating first part about psychiatry and the development of psychiatric treatments. Game theory and social pressure seem to play an extremely important part, which seems to be why psychiatric treatments and drugs are often only effective while you take them. They 'cure' nothing. They only mask symptoms.
Jennifer Dees
I see sanity as a scale. There's a range that is called normal. When someone steps outside of that range, either he or somebody else is going to feel uncomfortable.
Craziness is usually defined by the people who aren't crazy. It's something we decide for ourselves. We invented tests to decide it for us, so instead of simple observation, we get it all down on paper.
Wondering if someone has a mental illness? Does it interfere with their life and with other people's lives?
Did you know that if you have an illness, but it is not in the DSM book, insurance won't pay for it because it's not "official"? Addiction to TED videos could end up in there someday, and then great! Won't that be an excuse for money?
Craziness is indefintely in our minds, but like the great Professor Dumblore once said "Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
anthony bruni 30+
Renato Moraes
There is no craziness; there are people with clearness to believe and to be.
I can't myself live someone else's life or place myself inside other bodies. I'm living this experience and I hope not to become a selfish judgemental person in any way, because if this happen I'll probably be crazy and certainly in suffer.
Bob Van Oosterhout 20+
You can tell someone is psychotic by interacting with them and observing if they are responding to the same sensory input that most of us believe to be our version of reality.
Matthew Hadley
Thomas Jones 100+
Yes.
But, of course, it depends on how we define crazy.
Proposing that the world is spherical or that the universe has 11 dimensions might be considered crazy by some.
Thinking you are Kong Zi (or a hedgehog) might be considered crazy by others.
Bob Van Oosterhout 20+
"Thinking you are Kong Zi (or a hedgehog) might be considered crazy by others."
On the other hand, Kong Zi and hedgehogs would probably think you were the only one of those crazy humans who was actually sane.
Thomas Jones 100+
[Not ever having been a dog - that I can remember - I am not sure if the saying is really true.]
I'm not sure about Kong Zi either. He might not have taken too kindly to someone claiming to be him.
As Mark Knopfler said: "Two men say they're Jesus - one of them must be wrong."
Jacob Finn
Thomas Jones 100+
I suppose we could say there are two kinds of "crazy:" the "crazy" of nonconformance; and the "crazy" of organic brain syndromes.
One would essentially be a social evaluation; the other a congenital or pathological condition.
So, I suspect both have been with us for as long as humans have been around.
What do you think?
zhang ruoyu
Allan Macdougall 50+
Eva Wang 500+