Aff Yer Head

This article is an attempt to create a description of mental illness, from a first person perspective, after having been through the mental health system and wishing to save the experience of madness as a valuable one, with links to the general social critique of anarchism.

The most marked experience of serious mental illness, or of those labelled schizophrenic by an essentially oppressive psychiatric profession, is the assumption of a new identity. This entirely takes the place of the sufferer’s old identity and, in essence, the "lunatic" becomes an entirely different person. Now, this is not to deny that there are not large difficulties faced by anyone who has suffered a total mental breakdown. The most marked aspect of this is paranoia/confusion, where language itself becomes oppressive and the person begins to hallucinate. But I would argue that the reasons for this experience are entirely rational, and based on the problems of living in an entirely antagonistic society.

I would like to begin my analysis with a general outline of identity. For me, identity is entirely social. A person learns to co-exist and interact with other people, and develops in themselves as a result of this interaction. They are given an identity by their parents, and this develops through interaction with them, other children and adults in their environment. In modem bourgeois democracy for the early part of their lives, most people are allowed a certain leeway, in that their identity is a result of their association with other people, and not imposed by the antagonistic state/capital machine. This may, however, only apply to the children of middle class families. I would argue that it is this leeway of identity that would survive in an antagonistic society, where who you are is not important, you will be valued as a member of the human race regardless. I would argue that for most of the sane majority, their identities have not been challenged in their indeterminateness. They are more than just a name. In mental illness, however, it becomes impossible to exist with your previous identity and an escape route is sought, albeit unconsciously. The reason for this desperation is that their social identity is removed, i.e., their social situation has become antagonistic, or they find no more avenues for development, they have been cast out of a previously supportive social situation, or they have been punished as a result of their official identity. As a result of this, an intense feeling of worthlessness sets in and you find nothing left to fall back on. Your social identity, built on the people around you, has been negated. This may take the form of physical or sexual abuse, betrayal of trust or, under capitalism, the adaption of your social situation to antagonistic society by it itself becoming antagonistic. This is witnessed in basic atomisation, where people become mendacious, self-serving, manipulative and generally cold.

A prime reason, therefore, for the delusions of mental health sufferers, is their total alienation. Alienation from language, from other people, and therefore from their social identity. The action of capitalism expropriates a man’s soul by turning the basis of that soul, his society, against him.

I would now like to turn to the process of mental illness itself, or the ways in which a new identity is found. Most mental patients assume an identity taken from history, be it Jesus Christ, Genghis Khan or in my case a descendant of the leaders of the last Jacobite Rebellion. The reasons for this are manifold.

Firstly, there is a lack of conscious historical purpose or identity for most people under capitalism. A lack of the ability to play a part in improving society as a fully functioning member of the human race. Most people are consigned to the herd of wage slavery, and as a result, are subject to expropriation of their very souls. Secondly, assuming the identity of a great person from history allows you the symbolic power that goes with it, people are more likely to value Finn McCool than nonentity no. 5 from the South Side of Glasgow. The term historical can also be used to cover heroes from mythology, who represent powerful entities and are part of the cultural history of mankind. Thirdly, the person feels an unconscious affinity with this new character, which they may have developed earlier in life. The new personality allows the development of dreams from childhood, when development was on a more unconscious level. This basically ties in with the Freudian return of the repressed. Fourthly, there is an element of redemption, the sufferer believes that they can become this person and therefore return something to the glory of their name because, the sufferer, themself, is such a good person. While of course, becoming a better person themselves, being absolved of all their sins. Fifthly, they may feel that elements of their experience mirror these historical characters. And lastly, the sufferer needs a powerful identity to rationalise all the pain being felt. Manic Depressives and Schizophrenics share in common a feeling of great unhappiness or actual physical pain caused by their relations with other people and rationalise in moments of breakdown that the reason for their persecution is their powerful, previously hidden identity. They also feel that they have power because of the abnormal amount of pain they are suffering. A first step to reaching the mentally unwell would be to help them understand that suffering is universal in present society.

I would now like to turn to the response of the system and society to mental illness and the potential for liberation that mental illness reveals. Basically, the system works by re-imposing the person’s former or official identity. This is a continuous process starting in the family and the world of work and only intensified in mental hospitals. A person’s official identity is a stick to beat them with. As a child, consumer (of anything, as long as you pay for it) or labourer you are placed on an unequal footing. Anyone who thinks they control your identity can use this fact to completely disregard your humanity, if you know personally the people who oppress you, it becomes worse because the oppression takes on a physical and manifest form. A person only develops when he/she can approach other people without fear. Living with or working for a person who thinks they control your identity automatically puts them in a position to create fear in you. This is the psychological consequence of capitalism, where people turn other people into property. A main tactic can be, in fact, labelling or calling someone mad in the first place, when they are not. This implies that the person is not human, is already an outcast, has created their own suffering, or, has brought about their own punishment by acting in the way they do. An argument analogous to the one where Jews deserve to be exterminated because they are weak. Of course, this is the main problem with mental hospitals where people are treated as self-made outcasts from an otherwise benevolent society. The existence of the state ties in with this as everyone becomes a piece of property or a subject and thus expendable. Those who value themselves and their independence are deemed insane.

I would now like to turn to more concrete matters by focussing on the effect of psychiatric hospitals on patients. Firstly, the patient is ignored. Nurses, doctors, do not talk to patients. This is because the suffering person is deemed irrational and therefore basically impossible to talk to, no longer a social being. That this ignorance may be the reason for the patient’s problems in the first place, and he/she may be dying to talk to people about his/her new identity and how the world can finally be a better place, is concealed or ignored. Perhaps consciously, to further weaken the person’s psyche. People are denied basic human rights on the most innocuous of pretences. Wanting to leave the hospital, or basically confronting the psychiatric profession with the truth, that you are being oppressed unjustly, you are not irrational, and being somebody new doesn’t mean that you are, can lead to you’re being sectioned. This means that for 28 days, soon to be 6 months, you cannot go outside the ward, have to take medication and have a nurse follow you everywhere. Everyday situations in mental hospitals go beyond the Kafkaesque. Medication itself is designed to suppress your mental activity, your delusions, which are basically an essential part of yourself at that time, and as such to cut you off from your physical existence, suppressing your very will to live. Witnessed by the high number of suicides among mental patients after leaving mental hospital and after returning to the person you most hate, yourself, and the same environment which caused your emotional destruction, most likely friends and family. The system does not even treat you as mentally ill. If you were, you could be talked to and reasoned with, but this is not the way of modern psychiatry. Besides, some people get banged up just for being activists, as in the case of Greg Minns in Burnley.

Lastly, I would like to emphasise the liberation found in mental illness. Firstly, a mental patient is entirely sociable. They depend on other people for warmth, kindness and solidarity. The usual picture of mental hospitals is completely false, they are usually very quiet and subdued places. The change in the sufferer’s identity is also accompanied with a change in the identities of those round about them. The happiness found in escaping from your life needs to be shared, in a way. Also they are left no doubt about their own goodness, although you are totally alienated the mere fact of you having a body with which to associate with other people means you can intuitively follow your own will and power to do good rather than evil, evil no longer has any hold over or attraction for the totally insane. Basically, your experience becomes proof of the power of the individual. But as a social being your wants are basically the same as those around you, love, comfort, peace and happiness. But, to say that these can be achieved in anything other than a stateless communist society would be a blatant lie.

In conclusion, the experience of mental health sufferers is one of unending pain, but that all that is needed to end their suffering is compassion and understanding. With the ending of Capitalism and the state, not only would suffering not arise, but people would be free to be forbearing with the mentally dispossessed