Reading AS the mentally ill

Like an iceberg most focus on the bit above the water line...

There is plenty going on beneath the surface of every living and deadded person...

An interesting introduction to that sub level is a book called...30 YEARS AMONG THE DEAD by Carl A Wickland,MD. ISBN 0-87877-025-9

A comment on the book by, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
"I have never met anyone who has such a wide experience of invisibles . No one interested in obsession or the curing of insanity by physic means should miss this book..."



I feel that it was the root of Electro therapy...which was later perverted .... I was told that this book is OoP but is available in pfd format...this I don't know for sure...


He talks of regaining patients from the Bin...hard cases or lost causes...with the help of his talented wife and an 'electric treatment device'...I think it was a Tesla device...

[QUOTE+Mi-Shell;Many can at that stage not even adequately express this frustration. More than once I heard : “I feel like I am in a glass bubble filed with stale air and I can only perceive the world through its milky grey glass.....”![/QUOTE]

Exactly how I felt and still do sometimes, I have a tattoo on my wrist with Outsider in Chinese letters, so strong is this feeling of not belonging.

Sorry not that great on the Quote thingy!

acidrica said:

Well, I know normal -isn't- thinking you're in a coma and that the band Queen is contacting you from the dead with their music and that their lyrics hold the key to you waking up.

True story. Fun times.

Now to be fair, doing this: '>>' is hardly a threat at all. It's more of a joke, though one that may just be popular among my own friend circle. Apologies if I wasn't clear, I've been having extreme insomnia lately, so I'm not 100%.

As for me giving my opinion on things that are harmful to people like me...yeah, you're right, I see nothing wrong with that. Though it's less 'not doing what I want them to do' and more 'coming into yet another thread about mental illness and tarot and being disrespectful/beating a dead horse/ect...'

I think you're reading a bit far into my anger at people ostracizing me just because I got the short end of the genetic/environment stick. Yes, I'm angry. I think I have a right to be angry at this point. Not at singular people, but in general. I'm sorry that it seeps into what I type, but quite frankly I'm tired of being compliant in a society that treats me like I should be locked up, no matter what or how much medication I'm on. :/

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Some here would gladly label me as well...after this ...

A personal outlook is that this planet is a penal colony for wayward souls that refuse to toe the higher party line...

If you were a higher intelligence would you want to visit this place ...ducking bullets, pollutions , the scientists dissecting tables or the reverse engineering that would be done on your transport device...as well as the mental probing to access potential threats...All of this before the "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER" could be uttered...

I'm sure that will stir up the hornets nest...

I recon 4 out of 4 are off...some a little more than others...

Yes I read, knowing the general mental mess of all here on this planet...including myself.

gregory said:

I forget where first heard that (and I've had to change one word as it is no longer politically correct to use it in this context )

WHY do my posts keep going black on me

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'black on you ' ? ... black ... ? woopsa - there's that 'no longer politically' correct thingo again

gregory said:

ETA @ ravenest. The statistic is actually that 1 in 4 people will at some time in their lives suffer a mental health problem. Not QUITE the same thing, but yes indeed, 25% (I used to work in public health...)

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Now THAT sound more reasonable !

This has never been a problem for me just because I would never want to read cards while dealing with mental illness. Just imagine...clinically depressed and with a horrible amount of anxiety...the last thing I'd want to do would be to contemplate the problems of others! It's the apathy of depression combined with the crippling self-doubt of anxiety that would make reading tarot nearly impossible. I'm incredibly thankful for my supportive partner and for finding a medication that actually worked for me (Paxil). Coming out of depression and anxiety, it feels like my baseline emotions have now become correctly calibrated to what is generally considered normal, so to speak, instead of being incorrectly calibrated many notches too low.

Cocobird55 said:

I have depression and PTSD. I can still read tarot -- it takes me out of myself and puts my focus on the cards.

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I agree on both counts, though I am not prone to depression, my PTSD does hold sway on my general outlook. I love how tarot can take me out of myself, like you said, and I need for it to do so, often.

ravenest said:

'black on you ' ? ... black ... ? woopsa - there's that 'no longer politically' correct thingo again

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For the PC record - I had copy pasted from Word and the text changed colour - and it keeps happening. OK ? Worse was the time the text of a PM went lime green - the recipient was not happy.

I think it's fairly clear that those of us here with mental health problems do actually know when we can and can't read.

Maybe those delusions you experience are from your intuition, but it's just a thought though.

I think you'll do fine if you read tarot. You're just looking at a story, and seeing what kind of little things you can interpret from it, and each person's take on the story might be different.

I mean, everyone's eyes are different, and you'll never know what the other person is actually "seeing", because simply, you're not them! Are they really seeing that purple shirt that you're wearing? What if they're colour blind and see that purple shirt as a dark blue? How different their world must look like from yours.

It's not that you're interpretation of the cards are going to be wrong, but perhaps just different, and a little unique

gregory said:

For the PC record - I had copy pasted from Word and the text changed colour - and it keeps happening. OK ? Worse was the time the text of a PM went lime green - the recipient was not happy.

I think it's fairly clear that those of us here with mental health problems do actually know when we can and can't read.

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yes, and I would say that should go for all ... we all have off days and if we dont think we are clear or suited to do a reading ... we dont have to. (Unless your dinner depends on it.)

acidrica said:

but I saw none about whether or not it's ethical to read when -you- are the one who is mentally ill.

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It has been touched on in passing, in threads based around other subjects. I don't want to out anyone - they'll come along and out themselves, if they want.

Instead I'm going to ask -how- you read when you're the one who is mentally ill. I'm going to be assuming that if you're here, and you're mentally ill, then you've already figured out that ethical dilemma by yourself.

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Mental illness is as different and diverse as physical illness. A physically ill person might have a head-cold, or might be a quadriplegic. A mentally ill person might have an equally diverse range of problems, some of which the establishment sees as a syndrome but they might see as a blessing (read synaesthesia, for starters). The thing is, our society tends to regard mental illness as shameful for some reason and cover it up, whilst we don't regard physical illness as shameful (well, in fact I do, and I'll go to great lengths to avoid letting people know when I'm physically unwell). It's a measure of how indoctrinated we are by this tabu that when I read the thread title I immediately felt uncomfortable even though I try not to stigmatise mental illness, and noticed this in myself with some disapproval of my own reaction. It's as if we all automatically regard every form of mental illness as being out of touch with reality, and with a risk of violent behaviour, whereas only a minority of conditions might be like that, just as only a minority of physical conditions might put you onto life support in hospital.

So what kind of mental illness are we talking about? Something where the reader is totally out of touch with reality and gives readings that reflect that or might randomly attack and kill their client, or just a case of depression? A clinically depressed person is "mentally ill" but I see no problem getting a reading from them. I would have more of a problem getting a reading from someone whose intelligence or whose view of the world were compromised, because what they find in the cards may have nothing to do with the world I live in. I would have most problems receiving a reading from someone with a violence-related condition.

We can't really talk about all of these things - and others - under teh general banner of "mental illness" and think that one answer is appropriate to all of them. It just isn't. Talking physical illness, someone with a head-cold can still go long-distance hiking, but someone with a compound fracture of the tibia can't. And mental illnesses are as different to each other as that.