Man, I am awful

[terajk]

Have I told you how horrible I am to imaginary people? Let me tell you how horrible I am to imaginary people.



A while ago, I read this book about schizophrenia. On the one hand, it introduced me to a lot of cool activists and others with that label/diagnosis. On the other, I had to put up wit the book’s author, who positioned people with schizophrenia as totally helpless/unable to speak for themselves without his awesome assistance (all while, you know, quoting from people with schizophrenia who were speaking for themselves). He would say how terrible stigma was, and then say things like: “The medical system is more thought-disordered than the people it’s trying to help.” Repeatedly.

This book is 700 pages long.

Did I say to myself, “Gee, this book is terrible. I should take it back to the library”? No. What I said was, “Gee, this book is terrible. Hey, Azula! Come see how terrible this book is! Snark at this jerk so I can tolerate his awful book!” Then I read her 600+ pages of it, including the part about meds, which I totally could’ve skipped over and in which everything got worse. (People with schizophrenia aren’t violent unless it benefits my argument they don’t take meds, which obviously work wonders for everyone. And by the way, the people who don’t take their meds make the rest of you look bad--I swear to Bob I am not making this up, including the last bit. Had he said: “No one needs meds, ever!” it would’ve also been bad).

Now, I admit--because I’m horrible to imaginary people--that the whole thing opened up avenues of discussion that weren’t open before. Azula has an easier time verbalizing to me when she doesn’t like something than when she does. If an imaginary person has trouble telling me things in words, they can use a bell and a flashlight: as in, “Hey, do you like this?” Ding-ding-ding! (Azula uses them a lot.) The fiasco has led to: “All these fools notice is [hallucinations/delusions/etc.], whereas I’m more annoyed by/would like help with [various cognitive/attention-rationing stuff, which Tera may be understanding incorrectly], which they think is laziness because they are stupid.” Which has become an important plot (ha! plot!) point in my queer_fest fic.

So, because I am panicked over my queer_fest fic and determined to write it, I got more potentially-faily books at the library. There was even another book by That Awful Dude which I almost got, but then Azula told me I’d used up my free pass and she would do something horrible to me if I made her read anything by that fool ever again.

But I totally almost checked it out. Totally.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I fully support being horrible to imaginary people. It's usually a good way to get them to express their opinions, and anyway they're quite capable of being horrible back.

Especially Azula.

[terajk]

I agree, totally, especially when the imaginary people are really good at telling you what they don't like. (The ones who stay with me are especially not fond of me. Even Osaka-san, who is new, told me: "I don't have an opinion about you right now, but I promise to hate you eventually.")