Theory on Psychosis

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It's a difficult concept, Xlegic. In a way all psychosis is both natural and man-made. Psychosis can come from brain chemistry that is out of whack, both a product of an unstable environment and a genetic risk factor. I guess that's what most people would call natural. It can also happen from "exposure". Any person, no matter how sane, will eventually lose their mind after going a long enough time without food or sleep, for instance, or under extreme situations such as torture or stuff like that. Everybody has a breaking point. There is also substance-induced psychosis which is relatively common and often a source of misdiagnosed mental illness. When under prolonged drug influence, and combined with stuff like little sleep and lack of food or excess stimulation, psychosis can occur not as a product of the mind naturally but because of the influence of drugs. That's why drugs are supposed to be considered carefully before psychological professionals decide on a diagnosis.

One of the things that occurred to me on GLP was that the place is like a psychosis farm, particularly the paranoid variety. The greater the extent to which you believe others are "out to get you", like in the case of gangstalking, the more likely you are to expend energy on "high alert", suspicious of everyone around you. Because humans are social creatures by nature, isolation from trust and support of a community can be detrimental to mental health. The more paranoid you get, the more you will withdraw and isolate yourself. We see this a lot as people get sucked into GLP and begin to find unnatural synchronicities that makes them believe they are the targets of surveillance or conspiracy. Sometimes mysterious strangers on GLP will appear and say things that nobody should know that relate to our lives.

There is a well-known saying: "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you". The danger in that is that if you wanted to make somebody go insane, it would be possible. If you were a hacker for example, you could find intimate details from their computer or webcam and use them to harass your target cryptically. The question being, why would anybody go to the trouble of doing this to a stranger? It's unlikely. To be constantly wary such a thing is happening is likely to promote an unhealthy attitude, increase alarm systems, stress, and risk of psychosis. On the one hand, the sane person will offset their paranoia by being confident that nobody cares about the issue of their personal lives. But if they are continually exposed to weird coincidences, or if there ACTUALLY is somebody messing with their head, it's very likely that after a certain amount of time you could make this person mentally unstable. They'll end up doing something that'll ruin their own credibility, if the gaslighting is real and goes on long enough. They'll end up in prison or in a psych ward. Anybody can be made to snap, with the right amount of dedicated effort.

How likely is anybody to experience targeting to the extent of losing their minds? It's not very likely at all. But then again, it's not impossible. We can't live our lives in fear of this, but it may happen to people. It's a fine line. Can we ask ourselves how real it is without going insane in the process ? I used to believe that in order to examine the subject and not become psychotic, you have to stop caring whether or not there are people out there watching you. Be okay whether or not paranoid ideas have a basis in reality. That was how I handled sanity on GLP for as long as I did, but even that only went so far....

Social scripts are how people know what to expect in day to day life. People around us are on script. The cashier is friendly and helpful, we say "excuse me" when we bump into people, we know instinctively that if possible we ought to give strangers in public a bubble of personal space and we know instinctively when is "too close" with a stranger. We are wired this way the same way we are wired for learning language. It's natural, unconscious and powerful. We learn it in our culture as we grow up. So, what happens when we are in a situation where people willingly defy social convention? It is extremely confusing, because once people go off script, "anything goes". We don't know what to expect. Let's say somebody in a work environment, a coworker, is loudly and intentionally interrupting you every time you get midway into your sentence. The second you stop talking they go silent. You are in a room full of other coworkers and employees. All of them act as if nothing strange is happening. What would you do? What would you think? Do you think eventually your mind would stop working, like a stuck gear, and you'd sit blankly, just staring at them? Or start yelling loudly, asking what the hell was going on? Probably, after awhile.

My point is that intrinsically, psychosis is an antisocial behavior. But also, that antisocial behavior could probably produce a degree of psychosis. How do we measure whether we are "going crazy" or not? Necessarily, we must compare ourselves to the behavior of others in order to decide whether we fit the bill of the norm or are "acting strange". If the people around you give you no basis for comparison, if they act in such a way that makes it unclear how you are expected to behave, the effect is severe, especially in a situation where established social conventions exist, such as school or work.

It may not ever happen, but you could conceivably ask a group of people to deliberately fuck with one person. Now, to believe people are doing this is downright dangerous thinking. But to believe it cannot be done, is pure delusion. It could be done, and it would be very, very effective.