I’m not the OP, but I guess they’re referring to things such as over-pathologization and dependency on (non-natural) drugs.
I’ll use myself as an example: since two/three years ago, I’ve been a follower of a syncretic, solitary left-hand path spirituality, centered on the figure of Dark Mother Goddess (whose main name, among Her many names, to me, is Lilith), while also following/honoring other complementary figures such as Lucifer and Stolas (from Solomon’s Ars Goetia).
Back when I first started to experience deaphany (my neologism for theophany, where dea = Greek for “goddess”) and pursuing this belief, I was so excited about it because I never felt any spiritual experience before, the whole thing was quite a novelty to me.
Roughly at the same time, after having been compelled by my own parents (who are both followers of Kardecist Spiritism, a religion where Lilith and Lucifer would be likely seen as a “haunting/obsessive spirit” or something “to be banished”), I sought a psychiatrist once again in my life.
The psychiatrist diagnosed me as having StPD (Schizotypal Personality Disorder, a diagnosis I never got before), mostly driven, I guess, by its DSM-5 bullet points “magical thinking” and “eccentric beliefs”, in a highly-christian country (Brazil) where the recounting of my spiritual experiences would be otherwise normal if said experiences involved Our Lady of Aparecida or similar “socially-sanctioned” figures (if I were to say “I felt the Holy Spirit and started talking in tongues”, it would be “normal” as a recounting of “glossolalia” typical of Pentecostalism; but when I say “I felt the chilling presence of Lilith at 3AM and heard a deep owl hoot outside after reciting the R.V.A.L.L.”, it’s “magical thinking” for a psychiatrist accustomed to christianity in a heavily christian-influenced country, even when said psychiatrist isn’t necessarily christian themselves).
Worse, I was RXd anti-psychotics such as escitalopram, risperidone and aripiprazole, all of which messed up with my creativity outlets which later proved essential to my spiritual development (i.e. Lilith guides and inspires me mostly through artistic expression).
Against the medical recommendations and at my own personal discretion, I took a calculated risk and stopped both the psychiatric treatment and the non-natural drugs on my own, partly because of financial matters (medication and treatment costs money which I can’t truly afford being unemployed), but mostly because it was clear to me that psychiatry, at best, wasn’t considering my own religious aspects and needs. Neither psychiatry nor psychology could deal or even bother to account for spiritual matters (e.g. in my last consultation with a psychologist, my relentless infodumping mostly regarding issues bigger and external to me (from ongoing geopolitics and technology to philosophy and spirituality) was quite dismissed with a follow-up question about my physiological behaviors, as if everything I told was a joke or similar).
So I can sort of understand anti-psychiatry and mostly agree with its points, because I’ve felt what it was like trying psychiatry and psychology to deal with my non-mundane musings only to be dismissed as someone “unable to function” in society due to “magical thinking”, “ideas of reference” and “eccentric beliefs” as the DSM-5, an “off-the-shelf psychiatric instruction manual”, doesn’t account for non-mainstream (thus, not socially-sanctioned) religions (that is, if it even accounts for religious needs at all), especially personal and independent (“temple of one person”) belief systems, ending up echoing the very problems (societal religious intolerance leading to social alienation and existential crisis) regarding which the patient tried to seek treatment in the first place.
Nowadays, after two or more years, with a somewhat more stable spiritual belief (wherein I got to understand a bit more about my own journey through gnosis from Lilith Herself, still I still got so many unanswerable questions), my treatment involves Freudian-oriented psychoanalysis, because, to me, it feels like the best approach to my specific case. Far from perfect, but still the best.
Thanks for sharing - it’s quite courageous to do that here, where your experiences are likely to be dismissed. I’ve had similar experiences with spirituality, although I never approached a mental health professional after they started and can only guess how they would have reacted if I told them the landscape is alive and conscious.
Mainstream reactions to personal spiritual encounters make it obvious how afraid society is of so-called ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘psychosis’ - it’s like the ultimate horror story to drive people into the arms of psycho docs and pharmaceutical industry. God beware the mind starts making up its own narrative, we might all find out that the already existing narrative is made up as well!
So you think people should not get treated by trained professionals?
!mentalhealth@lemmy.world
I’m not the OP, but I guess they’re referring to things such as over-pathologization and dependency on (non-natural) drugs.
I’ll use myself as an example: since two/three years ago, I’ve been a follower of a syncretic, solitary left-hand path spirituality, centered on the figure of Dark Mother Goddess (whose main name, among Her many names, to me, is Lilith), while also following/honoring other complementary figures such as Lucifer and Stolas (from Solomon’s Ars Goetia).
Back when I first started to experience deaphany (my neologism for theophany, where dea = Greek for “goddess”) and pursuing this belief, I was so excited about it because I never felt any spiritual experience before, the whole thing was quite a novelty to me.
Roughly at the same time, after having been compelled by my own parents (who are both followers of Kardecist Spiritism, a religion where Lilith and Lucifer would be likely seen as a “haunting/obsessive spirit” or something “to be banished”), I sought a psychiatrist once again in my life.
The psychiatrist diagnosed me as having StPD (Schizotypal Personality Disorder, a diagnosis I never got before), mostly driven, I guess, by its DSM-5 bullet points “magical thinking” and “eccentric beliefs”, in a highly-christian country (Brazil) where the recounting of my spiritual experiences would be otherwise normal if said experiences involved Our Lady of Aparecida or similar “socially-sanctioned” figures (if I were to say “I felt the Holy Spirit and started talking in tongues”, it would be “normal” as a recounting of “glossolalia” typical of Pentecostalism; but when I say “I felt the chilling presence of Lilith at 3AM and heard a deep owl hoot outside after reciting the R.V.A.L.L.”, it’s “magical thinking” for a psychiatrist accustomed to christianity in a heavily christian-influenced country, even when said psychiatrist isn’t necessarily christian themselves).
Worse, I was RXd anti-psychotics such as escitalopram, risperidone and aripiprazole, all of which messed up with my creativity outlets which later proved essential to my spiritual development (i.e. Lilith guides and inspires me mostly through artistic expression).
Against the medical recommendations and at my own personal discretion, I took a calculated risk and stopped both the psychiatric treatment and the non-natural drugs on my own, partly because of financial matters (medication and treatment costs money which I can’t truly afford being unemployed), but mostly because it was clear to me that psychiatry, at best, wasn’t considering my own religious aspects and needs. Neither psychiatry nor psychology could deal or even bother to account for spiritual matters (e.g. in my last consultation with a psychologist, my relentless infodumping mostly regarding issues bigger and external to me (from ongoing geopolitics and technology to philosophy and spirituality) was quite dismissed with a follow-up question about my physiological behaviors, as if everything I told was a joke or similar).
So I can sort of understand anti-psychiatry and mostly agree with its points, because I’ve felt what it was like trying psychiatry and psychology to deal with my non-mundane musings only to be dismissed as someone “unable to function” in society due to “magical thinking”, “ideas of reference” and “eccentric beliefs” as the DSM-5, an “off-the-shelf psychiatric instruction manual”, doesn’t account for non-mainstream (thus, not socially-sanctioned) religions (that is, if it even accounts for religious needs at all), especially personal and independent (“temple of one person”) belief systems, ending up echoing the very problems (societal religious intolerance leading to social alienation and existential crisis) regarding which the patient tried to seek treatment in the first place.
Nowadays, after two or more years, with a somewhat more stable spiritual belief (wherein I got to understand a bit more about my own journey through gnosis from Lilith Herself, still I still got so many unanswerable questions), my treatment involves Freudian-oriented psychoanalysis, because, to me, it feels like the best approach to my specific case. Far from perfect, but still the best.
Thanks for sharing - it’s quite courageous to do that here, where your experiences are likely to be dismissed. I’ve had similar experiences with spirituality, although I never approached a mental health professional after they started and can only guess how they would have reacted if I told them the landscape is alive and conscious.
Mainstream reactions to personal spiritual encounters make it obvious how afraid society is of so-called ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘psychosis’ - it’s like the ultimate horror story to drive people into the arms of psycho docs and pharmaceutical industry. God beware the mind starts making up its own narrative, we might all find out that the already existing narrative is made up as well!
Check out the YT channel, Betwixt: the story of you. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you won’t.
nah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
too eepy to describe
but i dont mean that treatment shoudnt be, but isnt the way which psychiatry view