Um, Claude, I hate to tell you this, but I witnessed your incident. You weren't hanging from the cliff of sanity. You casually walked up to it and swan dove over the side.

Everything else is just an illusion.

Sometimes; My brother was schizophrenic. Part of him knew that the voices were coming from him. But it didn't matter. He still heard them. They still told him to do strange and dangerous things. When he was in his late teens, he started showing signs of being disconnected. I would talk to him, and intellectually he knew that his behavior wasn't normal. But that soon passed. And he couldn't tell the difference between illusion and reality.

He simply saw the world in a different way. And there was no convincing him that his view was skewed.

I agree, that if you question your sanity, you're still sane. But you can have mental problems and still be sane. Depression is real, but you can still reason.
You can have a very strong phobia, and know that it's baseless...but you still have it.


But the people that are in hospitals? I suspect they don't know that their worldview is way off.

That's a guess.

It's a very good question. Very important to distinguish awareness.

I think in rare instances - such as schizophrenia -people
do not know they are insane. My nephew has schizophrenia.
Onset was when he was about 25. (Very bright guy. Working his first job
after college. Headed for Law School...) During his first episode, he
tore up a train station and got arrested because he thought
"they" were after him. When beginning to explore his condition,
he would insist that if a character in a book had his name, then
the book was about him. You could not convince him of the
coincidence.

In the majority of other instances, people are conscious of what
they are thinking and doing. And they use crazy verbal or physical
behavior as a way to manipulate, intimidate, abuse, or otherwise
get their way. This is why it is very important to distinguish the
awareness and consciousness of what someone is thinking and doing.

For example: If you become aware that someone is intentionally cruel
to you, then it's time to end the relationship and stop excusing the alcohol,
or saying "that's just how they are", or they are just crazy...

In other cases, you can call their bluff and stop their manipulation.

Dan

I think I can answer that for you.

I was in a car accident when I was 18 and got a closed head injury. I was in a coma for a week. When I sort of regained consciousness, I could hear the doctor and nurse talking but I couldn't see or move. It was like the only thing I could do was hear. I didn't remember what had happened to me or know where I was. I seriously wondered if I had gone crazy.

When I completely came around, I told the doctor what happened and what I was thinking. He told me that if I could reason enough to wonder if I was crazy, then I wasn't. He said crazy people don't know they are crazy, they don't even consider or question it.

That is what I was told anyway.

Terra

The marshmallows bit I can understand, but the other . . .well . . I never knew you were that way inclined. Still, to each his own.

Enjoy . . .

Oh yeah. I've been telling people for years; "Don't put 'away' unless I get violent.":p

To answer your question, Larry...

When my kids were little, they would "Mom, Mom, Momma, Momma, Mommy" me to death when I was on the phone, or answering the front door for a delivery or just otherwise preoccupied with something. I felt like I was on the edge of the ledge and really just wanted to scream at them. But I didn't want to crush their little spirits or hurt their feelings so I devised a method that worked for me.

To keep me from falling over the edge, I just would go, "Whoop, whoop, whoop" very loudly, like a warning signal. They would say, "Oh no! She's gonna blow!", start laughing and run down the hall towards their rooms.

It was a fun way to let them know that I had just about had it with them and they thought it was a fun game and stayed away for a bit. It worked for both them and me and allowed all of us to keep our sanity, lol.

Terra

Ah, you've been to Claude's house, too?

Well, I will give him this: he is clicker trained.

Could you be more specific, please?

Got a pencil handy, Claude?

Ha!

Now that is a fact that I am well aware of considering some of the banter we have had here.

And let me just add that I wouldn't have you any other way!

Terra

Come on, Claudes a big strong man, he wouldn't have brought his brother up had he not felt comfortable with it and I admire him for doing so.

I'm just saying, he wouldn't have brought it up if he thought anyone would have thought they, had offended him.

I'm not for one minute saying it's easy for you Claude. I just know you're a cheerful chap and I don't think you'd be annoyed with what anyone has said in this thread.

Bizgrower, personally I think you're scared. I too read the post where Claude admitted to some 40 odd years of Kung Fu training. I'm fortunate enough to have a big pond between us but Ip Man could almost fly, so I'm not sleeping easy either.

Dan; Around he fifth or sixth year of training, I started to be told things that I knew were simply not true. About chi projection, and Chinese superstition. In my class, we were all so involved, that everything was accepted without question. There were "tests" to see if our training worked. The tests were using simple tricks...that we were fooling ourselves with...but I dared not say anything. Eventually, I got fed up and quit. Sad, because most of the training (before the religious stuff) was top notch.

It wasn't until later that I learned some real...real Kung Fu. My previous training gave me endurance, some techniques, and strength. But my next instructor was a no BS, my way or the highway, kind of guy. Not really a nice man, but he sure knew his stuff.

On my first day, he placed his hand on my chest, and shook slightly (it was almost invisible). I dropped to the floor. Eventually, I could do that, but never as well as he could. He's the one that placed 5 patio blocks flat on top of each other, and said "Pick a brick". I said "Four" and he laid his palm on top of the stack (about 10 inches of concrete). He let out a little grunt, shook a little (his hand didn't move)...and the fourth brick as broken.

None of these things were useful in self defense, but they would show what we could achieve with practice. I asked him how long that trick would take me to master. he said "Ten more years".

I think I stayed another 8 years. I got to the point where I could break the last of three bricks. That's pretty good, but far below what he could do.

All great skill looks like magic.

The problem is, to the uninitiated, complete BS looks like magic too.

Dan; I didn't break three bricks. I broke the bottom brick, of a three brick stack.

Much harder. And my palm starts out about three inches from the top brick.

Not at all like what you see on TV, or in martial arts demonstrations.

The bottom brick just falls, and you're left with two bricks.

I never could break three bricks. We never used spacers.

And I never sparred until after my third year. And then it was just drills. None of this ever had a sport aspect.