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Chris Howard's avatar

I have some experience with people in my household having mental illness. Reality is not a joke. Reality is not a social construct. It is not "romantic" or "prophetic" that someone's physical perception/detection equipment is giving them these signals and they are dealing with things which aren't real. Invisible wheelchair, that's an amazing term which I had not heard before. It is exactly right, but also maybe invisible blind-cane because being distracted by the unreal, it is so very hard to deal with the dangers of the real. They stand there and you can't tell what false reality they are seeing, what temptations to action... and then the raw faith required for them to choose to believe you when you say, no, that is not real, take my word for it. Reject that feeling of danger, I'm not here to harm you, I'm not an alien or a monster. There is no room for exaggeration or "kidding" or joking because for a moment I am your perceptor of reality and you need to be able to trust me implictly and reject your own mind. (As the old joke goes, "who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?)

Mental illness is nasty nasty terrible stuff. I'd rather have cancer. We all deal with false perception, hopefully to a small degree, but isn't it there?

Words are the little threads of life we use to try to connect our minds together and save ourselves and our loved ones from false perception. To purposely use those little life lines to deceive. It is better that a millstone be put around ones neck and they be thrown into the sea.

Using words to deceive people is bad.

That's how we talk 15 year old girls into sawing their body parts off, because perception of reality is fragile and people believe and we misuse their faith and abuse them.

Take everything I say, anyone says, as a hint about reality, sometimes helpful, sometimes completely dangerous and wrong. But I give this advice: try very hard not to lie, either to your self or to others, particularly your loved ones.

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JPWfEVG's avatar

Reality is not a social construct. Thank you Chris Howard. There is such a thing as Reality, Truth, however you say it. It is hard to find but worth the effort.

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T Reid's avatar

Best reply. Thank you.

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Chris Howard's avatar

But also, don't be afraid of faith. If you never believe anything you will be paralyzed forever. So you must pick a path and hopefully someone with love gave you a bit of an example to get you started.

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