Insanity

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

    How can it be proved that insanity is real?  In a world were everyone's opinion is supposed to be reconized, how is it possible to say," S/He is insane."  Mental diseases can not be proven to be a disease.  Perhaps illrational fears are really rational, no one can prove that a fear of arachnids or numbers shouldn't be had.  I believe that insanity is only used as a way to discriminate against people different than the average mass.  If a man goes "insane" and kills twenty people, how do we know that his murdering was illrational?  Faith?  Who among us can prove through indenyable evidence that a murder was completely illrational.  All animals, including humans, have an instict that tells us to live at all costs, just like an instinct to eat, sleep and drink.  Someone is not "insane" for listening to those insticts, and if someone feels threatened why should the populace be able to deem a man or woman insane?  Now I am not saying it is moral to kill, in any light, but I am saying insanity cannot logically be blamed.  In light of this, temperary insanity should not be a liable defense to any crime.  Hey, if a man or woman was insane to murder and you give him or her the death penalty, aren't you insane by your own standards?  Think about it...
Gorgon the Wonder Cow

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Point in case, being that, of which everyone knows, will point a finger towards me. But thats their opinion, right?

[fuzzyoctopus]

So who are you anyway?  Since most of the people on this board know each other already, I think you need to introduce yourself in the News section.  Just because we're an introverted little message board and I'm nosy and would like to know who this new person with the really long nick is.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

actually, they can demonstrate that a wide variety of mental conditions are health aberations in the dy. These are just as much disease as any genetic illness or cancel. Many are directly due to failures in the organs (specifically the brain, but sometimes the nerves and the hormone releasing mechanisms).

You do a lot of talking when not knowing what you're talking about.

Where's Entropy, he's needed here.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

   Dear Saint,
    I understand how mental conditions are created and classified, thank you very much.  My point is not supposed to be that mental and physical conditions do not occur, but the classification of "insane", as it were, should not exist.  A mental condition due to a failure of an organ is most often refered to, not to be rude in any way, retarded or impared.  The way I see it, personally, that is a huge difference to being classified as "insane".  Of coarse that's just my opinion, I could be wrong...
Gorgon the Wonder Cow

[House of Mustard]

I may be wrong, but is anyone ever simply classified "insane"?  Isn't there usually a medical diagnosis (such as schizophrenia, or the like)?

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

You are correct, sir, one hundred percent, to my knowlage.  Medically no one is ever just classified as insane.  But socially many a person is.  I try to fight against the social crutch of the label "insane".  And I do reconize that some people are mentally inmpared in some way, and that could classify them as insane.  However, in the tense I am attempting to use it, insane should comeacross as a reasoning for some behavior, such as crime or difference in opinion/attitde.  I was brought to think about the subject when reading an article on this site about a person recently out of a mental hospital, and I thought," Well, can they really classify him/her as insane?  I mean really, what distinctly makes a person insane.?"  If I bore you, I apologize, and if you can prove to me that insanity is not a social crutch please do so.
Gorgon the Wonder Cow

[fuzzyoctopus]

Well, then I would ask WHY people label these people socially as insane.
Insane, generally, means "This person lives in a different reality than the rest of us do." Or "This person thinks in a way that is not recognized as valid."  If you act in ways that make people think you are insane, then it's really your own fault unless- as mentioned above- you have a mental disfunction.  Because humans of normal intelligence are able to discern "this is normal behavior" from "this behavior will make people think I'm insane."

If a person doesn't care, and doesn't mind being socially labeled as insane, then there's no problem.

*Thinks of that crazy chick from The Breakfast Club*

As for crime - the laws regarding insanity are  different in every state.   If a person wants to get out of a crime by acting insane it depends how good they can act I suppose.  But I think it's hard to really fake being insane with all the psychiatric tests they put prisoners through.

[Entsuropi]

Ok, first up. Paragraph breaks exist for a reason. Please try to use them so that i can actually read your posts without getting a headache.

Your first post was, frankly, illegible. I fail to understand what the HELL you are talking about. I think maybe you contracted mad cow disease.

On the subject of 'mental issues' - be warned. You are not gonna get far with random comments on the subject. Most of the people on the forum have experienced first hand the effects of insanity, whether by suffering from them like SE and 42, or by having close friends and relatives with them (like me). In other words, we know more than you do, which is a safe assumption to make on any possible subject you can think of.

Also, i have never heard "insane" applied as a disease name. That would be like a doctor saying someone was suffering from "ill". Its a catagory.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I don't know if I'd say I was "insane" at any point... well... maybe..

but the reason is because "insane" and "sanity" are properly used in this age only as a lega/judicial term describing the relative capacity of a person to make rational judgements in a particular moment.

Yes, I believe that is a conclusion that can be reasonaly made.

[JP Dogberry]

/me points at Gemm

and just a quote:

"One day all men will go mad, and they will point to a man who is not mad, and say to him "He is mad, he is not like us..."

[stacer]

I think there are more of us than we realize that have had personal experience because of family or friends with mental illness. I have a family member with both schitzophrenia and manic depression. I think Saint's right on the usage of the term "insane" nowadays--I usually only hear the word on Law & Order or pejoratively in common conversation to refer to someone who is acting abnormally, who isn't really mentally ill.

How do we judge? I think a lot of it has to do with norms and social expectations. As a general rule, people don't see or hear things that aren't really there. Hence, when someone says, "the voices in my head are telling me to drive the car in circles around the town square for 4 hours/make my children stay in the apartment hallway because there are evil spirits in the apartment/accuse my daughter's best friend's dad of dancing around my room naked in the middle of the night," we generally tend to say to that person, "I think this is abnormal behavior and we should do something about it."

[EUOL]

When I sat in on some psycology classes back in my undergrad days, they always implied that the true definition of 'insane' was something along the lines of 'having a mental condition that impaired one's ability to function in society.'

So, two people could have the exact same condition, and for one it could simply be a personality quirk (because he or she is still able to function despite it) and for another it could be insanity (because he or she cannot function normally because of it.)

Yes, it's subjective, but a lot of psycology is like that.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Id definately say your insane, Saint... but then Im insane too.

[fuzzyoctopus]

I thought I'd resurrect this thread with an interesting question:  Can animals have psychological disorders, or just humans?  Does it take a certain level of intelligence to have a 'psyche'?   What about things like dogs or cats that are mistreated as babies, that then grow up incapable of trusting strangers afterwards?