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London Zoo: What's your Mental Illness?

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  1.  (10999.1)
    Platonic lip kissing!? That's a thing!?

    God damn. Just when you think you've come to terms with the crazy ways people express emotion, along comes another terrifying invasion of personal space to watch out for.
  2.  (10999.2)
    I generally hate being touched, except by people I know fairly well, and even then only infrequently.
  3.  (10999.3)
    Wow. If someone tried to platonic lip kiss me without warning, they'd get yelled at, at the very least. And if I did have a warning, I'd give them a warning back. No one has the right to override my boundaries.

    Um... there's more that I could say, but I ran out of time. Mostly, I'm astounded at what this thread has turned into.
    • CommentAuthorFishelle
    • CommentTimeMar 5th 2013
     (10999.4)
    I am totally a hugger, and I don't mind getting a platonic kiss on the cheek although I do feel awkward giving them. But platonic lip kissing is strictly for young nieces and nephews.
    I used to not like being touched. The only person I've ever hit is my little brother and it was for hugging me too much. I'm not quite sure when that shifted. Maybe I just want the amount of physical contact I'm not getting.
  5.  (10999.5)
    My elderly grandparents used to kiss me - gross!
  6.  (10999.6)
    When it comes to physical contact I like going all classical - nemo me impune lacessit. No one touches me with impunity - although it'd probably be fairer to say no one touches me without a dirty look in return.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeMar 6th 2013
     (10999.7)
    Once had a...vigorous disucssion with someone over whether or not there were tacit implications to platonic lip kissing. Only knew one person who did it, to everyone, and, as far as my experience went, only after many, many drinks. My debating partner was vehemently claiming there had to be more to people's lips connecting than a novel, albeit misplaced equivalent to a peck on the cheek. I think this was the first time it had been me trying to explain the normalcy of an unexpected social situation to someone else who was freaking out about it. Surprisingly, I didn't manage to persuade them. Ho hum.

    [deleted thesis on PLK's definitions]
    •  
      CommentAuthorrazrangel
    • CommentTimeMar 6th 2013
     (10999.8)
    Eep didn't mean to get people up in arms about losing personal space. In the first place - the platonic kissing I've seen is among dear friends. Some of the common perpetrators are people I care about very much, and who would never up and smooch a stranger - they have their own space needs! But personal space needs is something very indicative of psychology. Though I've noticed that most typically it's teenagers that really hate to lose their personal space, don't like touching of any kind, etc. After that it comes down to culture and then tribe habits...and then personality. (Being bicultural this has messed with me a little, among Latinos I better be ready for some exuberance where hugs are preferable to handshakes. Among whites/people of British and/or German descent a handshake and very brief eye contact, if you please. When I get the confused or someone doesn't conform the situation gets very weird and I usually freeze up.)

    Re reading this thread I kept thinking of this Scientific American article from a little while ago, called "The Unleashed Mind." as well as this interview with Philip K Dick. I read the two close to the same time and they really did a number on my mind. I wrote a bit about it at my LiveJournal in a big harried mess because I couldn't keep all of my thoughts in any kind of order, but they just kept coming like a heavy rainstorm. While I was reading the SA article I wrote the following on facebook:
    1. Holy cognitive disinhibition, Batman! This gave me so much food for thought the mental gears about overheated. Going to have intellectual heartburn for a while. 2. Need to keep in mind that this article essentially postulates that all creative people are a little crazy while not all crazy people are creative. Uh, give or take. 3. I wish it didn't take till page 3 to get at the meat of the subject, but it did. 4. Blah. More fuel for the idea that I might be crazy. Hmph. *grump*


    To quote the article (which cites many famous geniuses with a touch of the cray-cray) "When asked why [John "A Beautiful Mind" Nash] believed that aliens from outer space were contacting him, he responded: “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.”

    So schizotypy may be creativity run amok? A possible explanation of things? The only thing is that in full blown schizophrenia facts just don't do anything to dissuade the person from holding on to the narrative they "discovered." Instead they (as I've observed in my brother and friends he's made from homes he's stayed in) develop paranoia about forces against them trying to shut down what they've found out. But even in a relatively healthy mind we have to walk in faith. It's the only thing that makes civilization work - the trust that our neighbors will abide by unwritten, assumed social contracts. We run into the bias of our narratives when we get annoyed with people doing even mild things that are not in keeping with how we thought things work. That's not at all considered neurotic, it's actually basic, essential programming.

    But anyway back to unleashed minds - do any of you ever get monster creative dumps where you feel like your brain is just heaving and you can barely keep up writing or talking about things? I only do every once in a while and I'm not sure what brings 'em on. Acid flashbacks? CAn't say. They don't remind me of when I was on acid. I just have a ton of thoughts and every new thought or new bit of information comes in and explodes everything, like a tree bearing fruit on all sides, all at once. I want it to just fucking stop, usually. I can't operate when it's full force and I can't catch even a few of the ideas.

    Good lord I hope that makes some sense.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeMar 6th 2013
     (10999.9)
    @ raz/monster creative dumps: Only as I begin to doze off and I'm too sleepy or lazy to do something to have a remote chance of remembering them the next day. Apparently this isn't that uncommon but I've always assumed it happens because that's when my chaotic brain slows down enough for them to be seen/heard. I'd love to have one of those "grains" from Black Mirror's "The Entire History of You" implanted so I could "re-do" it all the next day. (Holy crap. Robert Downey Jr's adapting that episode into a movie? Sorry, wrong place, I know.)
    •  
      CommentAuthormister hex
    • CommentTimeMar 6th 2013
     (10999.10)
    @razr - Creative Dumps. Huh. Being In the Zone, as I call it. It is somewhat reminiscent of acid, in a strange way. It's as if you can see connections and it's all "yes, this, then that fits here, that over there, that's perfect and if that works, then this, that, the other thing slide right into place and we're done." I have had nights that seemed to me as if I were onstage in a smash West End Comedy That Was Entirely Improvised.

    @foamhead - interesting insight, vis a vis narcissm - It's not that I don't care, it's just that we can only walk together up to a certain point and then I keep going and you can go no farther with me. And I'll miss you, I'll miss you terribly but I can't stop walking.

    'The faintest ink is better than the strongest memory.' - old Chinese saying.

    re- touching

    • CommentAuthorDarkest
    • CommentTimeMar 6th 2013
     (10999.11)
    Just caught up with people's posts.

    Fortunately I'm high enough up the Higher Functioning side of things that medication was a non issue. I don't think I would have taken any meds even if they were offered, I've always done things the hard way if it was important to me. My study of philosophy taught me how important it is to have a clear understanding of your own identity.

    On the whole familiarity thing. I have an exclusion zone of personal space that I don't like people being in to the point that I won't sit down on buses/ trains if I had to sit next to someone. The only people I let in my personal space Are friends/ family/people I'm attracted to. Unless of course the booze has been flowing.

    I'm sure I had a point but it's late and I have a busy day ahead of me.
  12.  (10999.12)
    Creative dumps. Definitely. Sometimes there's a huge spontaneous flash, sometimes the weed triggers it.
  13.  (10999.13)
    In some ways, I do the slog work of creative endeavor just so I can get those creative dump moments. I haven't done drugs, but those moments... they're my drug. And really, they don't come as easy or often as they once did.

    Speaking of drugs, I think someone else said it, but one thing to remember is that just because someone had a bad experience with a particular medication doesn't mean it won't be magical for you. Or vice versa. Most of my medicinal experience was around my spine shit, but I can say for sure I'm the guy who gets the side effects so rare they don't even have to mention them in the adds. So yeah... the add says it can kill ya, but I can attest... it could be worse.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2013
     (10999.14)
    This thread's really been getting under my skin - not in a bad way - to the point I woke-up wondering about this today.

    I know conventional thinking decries recreational drugs for people with mental illnesses or problems along those lines, even more strongly than they do for the "neurotypical": hell, I was advised against drinking too often/heavily on the grounds it wouldn't help my ADD.

    So, do any of you brilliantly-flawed types think, suspect or know whether or not your pharmacological and libationary histories have or do play any part in how you are today?

    Ball-rolling getter thing: Been inclined to depression and unsocial behaviours (or "a moody sod" and "too much of a loner", as my mum called it back in the day) for as long as I can remember, but, seeing as I wasn't diagnosed with anything till my 40s, can't help wondering if my E/speed/acid diet of my late teens and early 20s somehow contributed to or compounded those existing issues. Haven't touched an illicit pill or powder for over 20 years, and no alcohol in close to 10 (no addiction thing - just finally got bored of pretending I like the taste), but when I did partake, I really got into it. Someone's earlier post mentioned loving being either drunk or stoned (can't remember who or which, sorry) because it enabled them to overcome all their usual social obstacles and that was exactly the same for me, too. I used to describe it as "turning-off my higher brain functions" because it "allowed" me to behave in ways I'd always perceived as how everybody else does all the time - I even danced, for feck's sake. I won't try to claim I ever got close to being addicted but it was only lack of money and opportunity which prevented me turning on, tuning in and dropping one every day because it felt like I was escaping being me as soon as whatever I'd necked took effect, and I still wistfully look back at that period as the best time of my life.

    But 20-odd years on, riding a largely downhill emotional roller-coaster while barely keeping a conversation on topic for more than a couple of minutes at a time and forgetting shit even quicker...did I really "do my head in"?

    (and now I've got "The Drugs Don't Work by whoever it was trilling around my head. Thanks, drug-addled brain.)
    • CommentAuthorArgos
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2013
     (10999.15)
    @Foamhead - To my understanding it depends on the drugs. Hallucinogens really only have temporary effects as they go in and out of your system, though e in particular can leave you depressed the next day because it depletes some chemical you need to be happy (that being said, I do have friends who know people who have done themselves in by being on e for like a week straight).

    Really hard stuff like heroin and coke, on the other hand, literally destroy your brain. IIRC, coke deteriorates the frontal lobe. So if you take too much, well, you can't function like you used to because you've given yourself brain damage.

    Acid and e probably didn't do anything long term to you, but I don't know much about speed so I'm not sure if that could have done something.
    • CommentAuthormanglr
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2013
     (10999.16)
    @foamhead

    That being said, there is a fair amount of journal data to suggest genetic links between depression and alcoholism. In my case, there was a strong history of alcoholism amongst the Native American wing of my family. It didn't directly impact me growing up, but it was enough of an issue that I've never drank to avoid finding out whether I've genetic predisposition to it. However, the depression was definitely there...and does run through the portions of the family that avoided the alcoholism. Seems like we all got one, another, or both.

    So there may be predilections in play that are not directly related to the drug use.
    • CommentAuthorallana
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2013
     (10999.17)
    I'm most interested in the drugs part of this discussion, actually. I love to see people keep track of their medications/self-medications and the reactions.

    Personally I found out a fair amount about my brain functions when I finally discovered a class A drug I genuinely enjoyed. Most run-of-the-mill uppers and downers aren't really satisfying for me, but hit me with a dissociative anesthetic and I am there.

    I know most people with mental-health diagnoses will only ever have tried variants of the same thing (four types of SSRIs with slightly different additives and makeups, for example) so I'm hoping people have done enough research to really figure out what went wrong in the failed drugs.
    • CommentAuthorDarkest
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2013
     (10999.18)
    I'm fairly straight laced but I don't mind giving the fruits of my limited experience.

    I think booze is the best thing for me. Lowers my inhibitions, armours me against embarrassment and forces/ allows me to focus on one thing at a time and generally act like a normal human being. I don't drink that often due to finances and also because I don't go out much which is dumb but that is what it is for now.

    I have a morbid fear of hallucinogens. Haven't taken them, don't wan't to take them. I don't cope with surrealism very well (after all these years I still can't look directly at Salvador Dali's works) and having audio/visual phenomena doesn't sound like fun. Also I have a near pathological need to control things and do things on my own terms, in that way you could bend girders around my inhibitions normally.

    Weed is like booze except I get real talkative and then sleepy real quick.
    • CommentAuthorArgos
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2013
     (10999.19)
    Funny enough, hallucinogens are the only thing I'm okay with since they leave your brain in tact after use, but yeah, if you're not okay with surrealism and and audio/visual phenomena, definitely stay away from them.
    •  
      CommentAuthorrazrangel
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2013 edited
     (10999.20)
    Um... there was a drug use thread. Recounting using is not exactly the question, I think?

    I don't know if ongoing drinking or smoking anything changed my brain chemistry. I know when I drink a lot of the extra noise in my head goes down - those inhibitions, for example, but also all the flab that leads me to think about thinking about things and kills my motivation, etc - but it also leaves me susceptible to morose feelings.

    Smoking calms me. It may be the forced long breaths, though.

    Barely used any acid or meth compared to real users, I think, to get any kind of read. Intensive philosophy study has done more to alter the pathways of my thoughts, I believe.
    (FYI the US Federal Gov't takes the position that after five doses of acid you're well on your way to a psychotic break, and that is grounds for not getting a government clearance and/or hired by the FBI. The neuroscientist I used to know who was a regular user loved to cite that fact and then laugh and laugh.)

    I think there is a distinct possibility that regularly drinking coffee kept depression mostly at mild levels. It might not be the caffeine or anything else in coffee - could very well be psychosomatic. Coffee means getting up and getting to things, to deal with what comes next, to jumpstart everything. I might have my first cup in the evening (as I will today) but that is an internal flag of when my day begins and everything before that was just spinning my wheels.

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