Stop using the word psychotic wrong

Despite what social justice says, it's fine if you want to toss around the word 'crazy'.

Batshit. Loony. Nutty. Insane. Those words are fine.

The cringe-police will try to forbade the use of certain words, without fathoming that these worlds can be comforting and meaningful to us with lived experience. I speak for myself. I am proud of my waltz with madness.

I love the word spastic because of its jovial sound. Even if that overlaps into developmental disorders, it is also a suitable descriptive word for someone in a acute manic episode.

Those playful words are permissible because they are words that loosely describe a 'madness', and they stretch back long into classical times before anyone diagnosed derangement. They just shoved manic people in lithium baths which did the trick. Those words don't target any one mental disorder, but instead can describe anyone with chaotic unexplainable behaviour, which is a lot of things. It could also describe someone under influence of drugs or alcohol.

Right now however I have bigger matters to attend to.

People use the word psychotic wrong and I'm sick of this shit.

It's the same as slanging around autistic negatively. Yet autistic movements have taken off and fought hard to reclaim it positively. However this is mental health we're talking about here, the yucky Beast of Darkness....yessh, nobody wanna hear that.

Usually someone tosses the word 'psychotic' around to describe an axe wielding maniac or someone with a freakishly energetic nature, even if they are merely a spastic youtuber. Little do they know they are cheaply slinging around a word that is a horrific mental condition.

All these idiots keep confusing 'psychosis' with 'sociopathic' or 'psychopath'. Those last two both mean the same personality disorder that are defined as persistent antisocial behaviour, issues with lacking normal remorse and egotistical traits in general.

ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder) involves manipulativeness, arrogance, callousness and lack of empathy. While completely lucid, they are drawn towards criminal behaviours, because they have no sympathy for others.

If you check the thesaurus, it brings up these synonyms.

So wait, what...? Do you see there...

People going into the dictionary, trying to find other words to describe some serial killer will see the words 'schizophrenic' and 'psychotic'.

They won't do their research. They won't understand that two of those words are different disorders, they are mood and psychotic disorders which make them not a personality disorder.

I realise with a sad sinking feeling in my gut, that people don't care about psychosis. It is yet another unspeakable, mysterious thing that evokes pity and disgust in others. What the experience truly does to its victims is not talked about. I also have immense sympathy for schizophrenic people because I experienced hell too, even if only for a few weeks.

When I read up on it, it does say that 'psychopathy' isn't considered an actual condition. It even says online that at first it may be mistaken for BPD and Bipolar due to similar reckless traits. The big difference is, once those disorders are diagnosed and treated with meds and such, it becomes obvious that a Bipolar person is not psychopathic. They were merely manic.

My issue is that people fling psychotic around to mean anything that is evil and violent, without even knowing the actual symptoms.

I wanted to bring up a stereotype of characters who go 'mad'. They they are usually shown with a disregard for the suffering of others. A mainstream example of insanity off the top of my head is Jack Torrance from The Shining. I am too mad to think harder right now.

Evil characters in fiction like Jack Torrance, appear to be a mix of many disorders and neuroses into one big pool of insanity. He hallucinates and talks to himself. That is firstly reminiscent of psychosis. The issue is, what is the cause for his obscenely violent and malicious behaviour? Is he a psychotic pushed too far?

Or just a downright sociopath and his hallucinations are just added flavour for storytelling.

You might be thinking, jeez, Vela it doesn't have to represent any mental health condition at all, its just a horror film! That's ok. People love this shit. There is so much freaky potential when you draw upon darkness. Is it just a normal sort of darkness?

Well, Steven King and Kubrick give him hallucinations, and we can imply he has some sort of mental illness controlling him. It is similar to complete detachment from reality that Bipolar (psychotic) and Schizophrenic people endure.

These experiences are what keeps mental health sufferers as outsiders, because our symptoms are reimagined as frightening and potentially criminal. Cause everyone finds it way too fun, observing it vicariously via a movie. It's ok tho, I think its fun too.

Is anyone even aware of what the word psychotic actually entails? It means a complete detachment from reality. The victim is drawn into a vivid world of delusions, even hallucinations. The delusions are completely realistic in their mind and undeferential from actual life. You feel like you are god. I talked to 4 gods hovering above me, like Jack Torrance talked to the bartender. You may have trouble with motor control. At its worst, you have little-to-no recollections of the filthy, sexual and violent acts you may have committed.

Those unconscious acts however, usually don't involve picking up an axe coldly and calculatingly, with the intent of stalking and slaughtering your entire family. He is a troubled character filled with rage, that is an intentional evil that isn't specific to psychotic people either.

Will I claim more favourable evil characters as psychotic, if I like the way their madness is portrayed? Well yes I already have. I will however, analyse the massive impact of Gilles de Rais on me in other posts.

If I could take back the meaning of the word, I would. I would happily call him psychotic then, because when I use the word psychotic, I don't mean 'vile inhuman spawn from the pit of hell'.

I mean 'he is in a mentally dark place and unaware of the real world'.

In Gilles case he is detached from reality, grandiose and wild. Heck, he could almost have bipolar mania. Maybe we can't diagnose fictional characters, but I think it's ok to call him psychotic!

The psychosis itself isn't evil. His actions are.

He is deliberately deranged and regardless of him being chaotic evil, psychosis does fit into his warped way of seeing the world. Just don't use the term to describe a energized youtuber that screams a bit too much.

The majority of my episode I experienced ecstasy, misery and a desire to connect with others, to save others. When I did experience hatred or malice, I took on a frightening teasing persona. That's why I am attached to the character I mentioned above; he cries, grieves, scorns and loves from an incredibly deep place.

That's because when you are mad, your whole body trembles and shakes as God flows through you. It doesn't look like that to outsiders. Psychosis victims seal away their sorrow and quickly put this unimaginable experience behind them. Does everyone understand now, that appreciating this complicated experience is not what is intended, when someone slurs around that word?

It would be great to see a character deal with psychosis and be funny or heart-warming, but I'm afraid we will always be seen as scary or sad.

I interpret Gilles expresses some sort of mindless psychotic experience right down to his strange spaced out eyes. Something even I experienced, much to my horror.

It seems like I'm right, since the lecturer in the video below casually mentions the scientific reasons for those crazy eyes I cherish.

I know if I was left psychotic for too long and maybe if I lived far away from society where nobody could control me, I very well could have become violent. A lack of empathy just isn't a symptom of psychosis by itself.

The doctors told my dad in the hospital that there was a small chance I could never be healed. I could maybe not be able to write this. I would've been stuck in a sick fantasy forever.

In ye' old times, that's what happened to people. They were not treated. Like Gilles de Rais they were stuck in their dank medieval castle and could fall deeper and deeper into fantasy world. It might escalate into violence of course, because they believe they are devils and gods.

I want to see complex characters that are canonically psychotic, bipolar and schizophrenic, but it rarely happens. I love evil things by themselves. I just don't want other people thinking my experience was synonymous with evil. It wasn't.

For the most part, when you are psychotic, you do not have much conscious ability to plan evil, any violence is probably spontaneous and in wild self defence. The conscious mind isn't present here. It barely knows how to act on evil. On the contrary, I felt evil attacking me.

I kept saying I would 'escape from the ward' but instead wandered aimlessly. I drew secret messages as god whispered into my ear. I was not here. Psychosis is a wild screaming spirit, but it isn't lucid.

A personality disorder just doesn't have empathy at all while still remaining downright lucid. They straight up are connected to reality. It's also probably rude to call them evil. Evil is a societal construct.

A personality disorder is not psychosis, it is not schizophrenia either.

Lacking empathy is not psychosis. They are simply too lost in a daydream to be self aware.

Being violent and purposely wanting to hurt others is not psychosis.

But last of all I want to say, people with ASPD are probably represented like crap in media too. Who am I to judge, I admit I am not knowledgeable in everything.

I am not saying that all these evil characters have ASPD. I just am saying people keep mixing these definitions all up into one big gooey, chewy, crunchy, stupid nightmare stew.

People with ASPD probably have less malice towards the human race than I do like, snap.

I just hope for a future where we don't toss around words and continue to strengthen these (already rock solid) associations between criminal behaviour and mental health.

I am not policing what words you use. I just want everyone to acknowledge the real people with real painful memories behind those words. It's not the same as saying 'crazy', they are psychiatric definitions that change someone's life.

It isn't like saying 'minda'. Fun fact, that is specifically a delightful local South Australian slang. If nobody knows what it means it can't hurt anyone. ;)

By outright turning a mental condition into a insult, one that mainly describes fictional murderers and rapists, it shows a disrespect for good people who have actually endured it, and endured all the shame and misery it brings.

Maybe give a shit. Rant done.