So What is "Crazy"?

There is so much misunderstanding about what psychosis or “crazy” is. I think that once we take an evolutionary frame of reference it becomes much clearer. Once we know that there are deep brain imprints that resonate with higher brain levels to produce ideas and delusions, we are well on our way. We are the evolutionary result of all of history, personal and ancient. So “crazy” is to encompass all that history, as well. So when we equate bizarre ideas with psychosis we will need to delve deeper; deeper in our personal history and that of the species. Because psychosis must include all of that as the end-point of a process.

What if the pain does not get elevated to the neo-cortex and remains fixed lower down? What if the pain is gated somewhat so that the pain remains on the limbic level and below? What if upcoming pain is partially blocked so that there is no obvious neo-cortical affects that makes us delusional; having false or crazy ideas? In other words, depending on how early and how severe the input we can go "crazy" on different levels of evolution and brain maturation.  And infancy “crazy” has a different configuration from that of an adult who has the capacity for words as part of her psychosis. Autism has a different shape from adult psychosis.

So we see that hallucinations, false perceptions, hearing and seeing what is not there, impacted by feelings of danger are lower and earlier in time from delusions of persecution. We see worms crawling on the wall or see images of the devil as does one of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court. No one says he is psychotic because there are no obvious delusions; they are obvious to me, however.  And yes, that is "crazy". Actually seeing the devil is seeing an image that you manufacture, unless you believe there is a devil and that devil can be seen. If you believe that you need to close ranks with the crazies.  When we take terror and pain, very deep and remote pain, out of the system those "devils" take a hike, not to be seen anymore.  They do not go away until after months of primal therapy where the patient reaches catastrophic suffering and terror, the imprint, that gave birth to the images, in the first place. Again, why is that? Because pure terror is mostly a brain-stem affair and when the fear is strong enough it propels that delusion. Then we say, "the devil made me do it". And this is reinforced by the Catholic Church which does recognize the devil and has certain priests who specialize in Exorcism.  To say that the man in the booth over there is sending me messages, is slightly different from conjuring up a devil to explain what is happening.  Did you get that about the Catholic
Church? They have specialists who root out the devil!

That is one way we know where the culprit, I was going to say, "devil" lies, but I will leave the pun alone. When patients in Primal Therapy go deeper and further back in their evolution the "devil" diminishes, which is one way we know what is behind the illusion.  Illusion is a false sense; delusion is a false idea. Generally, false sense is more remote in origin, as it was in our personal maturation.  We smell odors before we can think about what to call it.  And, as I reported in past blogs, there is evidence that the specific sense of some smells occurs during womb-life. The mother’s odor is recognized right after birth by the baby.  If we smell odors as an adult we can almost be sure there were real early memories behind them. And those memories will lay way back in our lives, so strong that it stayed untouched for decades.

But, on the other hand, as the patient relives first-line deep brain imprints (terrible suffocation at birth) some of the delusions begin to disappear.  We can actually observe the shaping of a delusion. In a lesser fashion, when a spouse wants to leave her husband because he is "suffocating her", we may find the origins deep in the brain. Of course, there may be real external reasons; but still there is a crucible for all this.

So what is crazy? It is a deviation of the whole system and a rerouting of the neuronal, brain-path circuits. The great level of early pain, we saw two brothers both pre-psychotic whose mother took heavy drugs throughout all of her pregnancy, who were "crazy" from the start; very delayed talking and walking slow mental development and great difficulty in focus and concentration.  They ended up being diagnosed as psychotic because they showed evidence of delusions; crazy ideas. That is the contribution of the cognitivists who believe that we need evidence of false ideas, delusions, before we name anything as psychotic.  We can "see" that kind of psychosis before our eyes. We rarely can see the deep anguish that lies deeper. In that sense, organs can go crazy when the cells overspill their banks and become cancer or later Alzheimers disease.

It would be strange, indeed, to think that only the top level cortex can go crazy. That is a narrow view of our complexity. We go crazy in different ways depending on our genetics, epigenetics and later life experiences; fighting a war, for example. Although I fought many battles in the war, I believe that my family life did me in, far more than battles. That is, I fought a much more serious battle as a fetus and infant, with no one to help me; all alone with no one to turn to, and no one to lean on.  Those early battles change everything and for life. They are embedded deep in the brain and we fight that battle for the rest of our lives.