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In certain circumstances, people smell blood like sharks. If you're a 'normal' and successful person, with a functioning ego, you will either naturally or semi-

by benched 14y ago

In certain circumstances, people smell blood like sharks. If you're a 'normal' and successful person, with a functioning ego, you will either naturally or semi-consciously put out a vibe that lets other people know you're going to hold your own. Your personality and sense of humor will interact in some reasonable way that strikes a balance with the egos of others. With mental illness, it's as if people smell it on you. You become a target. People sense your vulnerability, and they can become angry with it, attack it as if they're attacking the spectre of insecurities or uncomfortable truths in their own shadow-selves. The fact that people will use the socially plausible explanation of your mental illness to explain away such bullying becomes one of the impossible double-binds that mentally ill people live with. One man's analysis.

orionblastar 14y ago
I can show this in this thread, and I assume the people are not even aware of it that wrote it. There seems to be a common theme that if a person like me is mentally ill, I must be imagining the harassment and bullying, and because I am mentally ill I am not valuable anymore and should be given a lower position and lower salary. I mean the people who wrote those things don't really mean me any harm, and they are not technically harassing me or bulling me. But they misunderstand that if a person is mentally ill they are a liability, they will do less work, be less productive, they will imagine things and all the stress is in their head, and they have a lessor value than someone who is not mentally ill so they should be demoted for it. Yes there is a semi-consciously bias here, and over time it grows into a mind-set, and when a group is using group-think they will gang up against such a person using the bias that because he/she is mentally ill, it makes things worse for us, so they have to do whatever they can to get rid of that person. I cannot hide my mental illness, I don't have the 'passing skill' which is acting like a normal person and blending in. I don't have very much in the way of social skills because the mental illness affects the part of the brain that controls social skills and sometimes I don't get social clues. It is not the same as Asperger's Syndrome but it will make some people think that I have that. The mental illness affects the speech center of my brain and from time to time I mispronounce words accidentally and have a speaking tick that others make fun of. For example for breakfast at a meeting that had bagels and butter I asked "Can you please pass me the butter." but I mispronounced butter only to have a few people mock me saying "Butter, butter, butter" and laughing. Yes they are like sharks who smell blood. If I ever do go back to work, it will have to be the right company, with the right people, and the right management that does do things that ones in the past have done. One that does not discriminate against the mentally ill. Imagine if instead of becoming mentally ill, I became blind instead. "Well Orion because you are blind now, you don't have as much value as a programmer than someone who has sight. So we are going to demote you and lower your salary to a position you will be able to handle." instead of "Orion we will help you by installing software that converts text to speech for your PC and other equipment to get you back into programming."

by benched 14y ago

orionblastar 14y ago

I can show this in this thread, and I assume the people are not even aware of it that wrote it. There seems to be a common theme that if a person like me is mentally ill, I must be imagining the harassment and bullying, and because I am mentally ill I am not valuable anymore and should be given a lower position and lower salary. I mean the people who wrote those things don't really mean me any harm, and they are not technically harassing me or bulling me. But they misunderstand that if a person is mentally ill they are a liability, they will do less work, be less productive, they will imagine things and all the stress is in their head, and they have a lessor value than someone who is not mentally ill so they should be demoted for it. Yes there is a semi-consciously bias here, and over time it grows into a mind-set, and when a group is using group-think they will gang up against such a person using the bias that because he/she is mentally ill, it makes things worse for us, so they have to do whatever they can to get rid of that person. I cannot hide my mental illness, I don't have the 'passing skill' which is acting like a normal person and blending in. I don't have very much in the way of social skills because the mental illness affects the part of the brain that controls social skills and sometimes I don't get social clues. It is not the same as Asperger's Syndrome but it will make some people think that I have that. The mental illness affects the speech center of my brain and from time to time I mispronounce words accidentally and have a speaking tick that others make fun of. For example for breakfast at a meeting that had bagels and butter I asked "Can you please pass me the butter." but I mispronounced butter only to have a few people mock me saying "Butter, butter, butter" and laughing. Yes they are like sharks who smell blood. If I ever do go back to work, it will have to be the right company, with the right people, and the right management that does do things that ones in the past have done. One that does not discriminate against the mentally ill. Imagine if instead of becoming mentally ill, I became blind instead. "Well Orion because you are blind now, you don't have as much value as a programmer than someone who has sight. So we are going to demote you and lower your salary to a position you will be able to handle." instead of "Orion we will help you by installing software that converts text to speech for your PC and other equipment to get you back into programming."