by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The manual identifies a new mental illness called “oppositional defiant disorder”, or ODD, which is being defined as an “ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior,” the symptoms of which are said to include questioning authority, negativity, defiance, argumentativeness, and being easily annoyed.
I would like to add here as to the “free thinking” part, the new mental illness of ODD, that the system has become aware of the fact that all over the world people are beginning to question what they are being told by their governments and the media and the system now is finding a way to cure those who think differently, those dissidents, of their tendencies and make then “normal” like everyone else.
Other new mental illnesses identified by the DSM include arrogance, narcissism, above-average creativity, cynicism, and antisocial behavior. In the past, these were called “personality traits,” but now they’re diseases. And, obviously, there are treatments available.
All of this is a symptom of our over-diagnosing and overmedicating culture. In the last 50 years, the DSM has gone from 130 to 357 mental illnesses. A majority of these illnesses afflict children.
Although the manual maybe an important diagnostic tool for psychiatric medicine, or should we say the psychiatric industry, it has also been responsible for social changes. The rise in ADHD, bipolar disorder, and depression in children has been largely because of the manual’s identifying certain behaviors as symptoms. A Washington Post article observed that, if Mozart were born today, he would be diagnosed with ADHD and “medicated into barren normality.”
According to the DSM, the diagnosis guidelines for identifying oppositional defiant disorder are for children, but adults can just as easily suffer from the disease. This should give any freethinking American reason for worry. Obviously, the system has to catch them early before they become adults and can become dangerous to the powers-that-be.
In Stalin's Soviet Union, and Stalinism was not defeated and dead after Stalin died – far from it – new “mental illnesses” were used for political repression. People who did not accept the beliefs of the Communist Party developed a new type of schizophrenia. They were regarded to be suffering from the delusion of believing communism was wrong or, if not communism, for many did believe communism itself to be right, then the Party and the Party was never wrong. They were isolated, forcefully medicated, and put through repressive “therapy” to bring them back to sanity.
When the last edition of the DSM was published, identifying the symptoms of various mental illnesses in children, there was a jump in the diagnosis and medication of children. Some US federal states, and also other countries, have laws that allow protective agencies to forcibly medicate, and even make it a punishable crime to withhold medication. This paints a chilling picture for those of us who are nonconformists.
Although the authors of the manual claim no ulterior motives but simply better diagnostic practices, the labeling of freethinking and nonconformity as mental illnesses has a lot of potential for abuse. It can easily become a weapon in the arsenal of a repressive state.
The system is in its last death throes and is fighting tooth and nail to keep alive. And, while the authors of the manual claim no ulterior motives, as said, I don't completely buy that story. And even if they are innocent of ulterior motives this manual can easily, nay will very easily, become a weapon of repression by the state and the powers-that-be above the states.
It would appear more and more that governments all across the world have misunderstood that “1984” was intended as a warning and not as a handbook. It is a shame that the general public who may have read the book did not see the warnings on the horizon and allowed the governments to get such power which is not due to them. They are meant to be answerable to the people but that all is smoke and mirrors and nothing more.
Seeing that I am rather a nonconformist and a freethinker it is obvious, according to the symptoms, that I must be seriously ill. Well, I don't think so. But then I might be delusional as well.
© 2014
