I am done mincing words.
Liar! Liar! Pants on fire! …Hey, those are mine!!
Comorbidity sounds really heavy, but it’s just a psychology term referring to someone dealing with more than one mental issue at the same time.
Psychologists have noticed some enduring patterns. It’s very common for someone to deal with, say, depression and anxiety together. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 7% of the US will suffer through a major depressive episode at some point.
There’s reason to believe it’s much higher than this. Besides life being hella depressing sometimes, the stigma surrounding mental and emotional struggles keeps many people from talking to anyone about them.
And it’s usually difficult to tease out what causes what. Depression and anxiety go together particularly well, functioning almost as a negative continuum between action and inaction.
I bring all this up to point out that mental illness also has some predictable effects on someone’s life.
Depression and anxiety both shorten your life because they change how you choose to live it. Depressed people are more likely to smoke and drink, so they have higher rates of stuff like alcoholism and cancer, too.
Whenever I hear about how trans people have a ‘very high incidence’ of things like suicide, poor health outcomes and violence (for varying definitions of ‘violence,’ I assume…) I find myself yelling at my screen, “Yes, that’s because they’re mentally ill!”
Everything seems to be en pointe lately, I can’t seem to get away from it. This week at church, Father Mike’s thesis was, “Crazy people are just like the rest of us, only moreso.” This got a good chuckle from the assembled group, but I found it to be a dangerous oversimplification.
He prefaced his speech – Sorry, sermon – by saying he first encountered ‘real crazy’ his first year in seminary. Which I guess is why he finds such glibness amusing.
Some of us had adventures in the Land of Make-Believe a lot earlier. Some of us went against our will, not out of the kindness of our heart. Some of us have been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and burnt it.
Some of us recognize this stuff when we see it as well as we recognize our own family.
There’s no place like home!
A video celebrating what’s become of Ellen Page made the rounds last week, and I couldn’t get through it. Hearing her talk about finally being comfortable in her body – only after having prominent parts of it removed – broke my heart.
Only finding happiness under the scalpel is mental illness, end of. That is not up for discussion. Anyone saying anything else is selling something. Find me proof the euphoria doesn’t wear off, that it’s not an addictive rabbit hole.
We all understand that people like Catman and the Human Barbie are both a little sideways, but they’re not hurting anyone. They’re not insisting laws recognize their right to live in a zoo, or to lay naked on the floor of little girls’ bedroom closets.
That’s the problem here. The Human Barbie is not going to sue you if she overhears you tell someone she isn’t the real Barbie.
Because she makes no claim to that. Even the Human Barbie knows that would be absurd.
Trans people suffer high rates of all kinds of bad outcomes because they are mentally ill. They lack the wherewithal to properly care for themselves. And they often do encounter prejudice in their daily lives, stemming from the stigma surrounding mental illness.
It’s all fairly run-of-the-mill stuff. Their need to be seen as a new, unique brand of creature just looks pretty damn narcissistic. Narcissism has a very high comorbidity with depression, because life never seems to quite live up to their bloated expectations.
I am sick of being told how vital it is that trans people get ‘affirming’ care. Because no, it isn’t. I’m sick of hearing how dysphoria that persists beyond puberty is a sign of real transness. (Gatekeep much??) This is exactly the opposite of my experience.
Dysphoria beyond puberty is a symptom of unhealed trauma, full stop. Healing is scary because we have to go to the dark places, but the only way out is through. How arrogant to suggest anyone is exempt from learning hard lessons in life!
Seriously y’all, I just can’t even anymore!
It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Marion Millar has been charged with two counts of ‘Malicious Communication’ for tweeting about women’s rights, which is so Orwellian they ought to make him an honorary Scottish citizen. Hubs has been cranky and the kids are all home from school, again.
But I couldn’t let this go any longer. All the droplets condensed into a downpour in my mind and it overflowed onto my keyboard.
Trans people are mentally ill. Indulging them in their parallel ideations serves no one but those looking to profit off of them.
I’ve learned not to be upset when someone accuses me of hating trans people, but sometimes it bites back at me in the form of a stubborn lump in my throat because nothing could be further from the truth. Sometimes loving someone means telling them a hard truth or two.
I can’t affirm someone’s destructive delusion, no matter how many authorities they may invoke. I won’t be beating about the bush on this point anymore, I have seen too many mastectomy scars. For all of the women who I love, I have to rise to the occasion.
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