--- Nathan Cain <
IndieCrime@gmail.com> wrote:
> People lie all the time when they rear
the
> consequences of the truth.
> If that makes someone crazy then we're all
nuts.
> Even little children
> lie. Psychotics exhibit symptoms like
hallucinations
> and thought
> disorders. A psychotic doesn't think she's
lying,
> and there's the big
> difference. Brigid doesn't see things that
aren't
> there, and her
> actions, to me, seems more Machiavellian than
they
> do crazy. She's
> playing for keeps, and she has an ends justify
the
> means philosophy.
***************************************************** As with
all diseases, there are varying degrees of psychosis.
Hallucinations are not a required symptom of psychosis. Even
among the famous psychotics who claimed hallucinations like
David Berkowitz, the claims are questionable. Psychosis
implys a world view altered from that generally accepted. The
brother who thought he was Teddy Roosevelt in ARSNIC AND OLD
LACE was psychotic. The belief that there is a "dingus"
handed down from the Knights of Malta, encrusted in jewels
covered with lacquer, is fanciful. Killing people to get hold
of it, is psychotic.
Most children and even more teenagers display at some point
or other behaviors that can be classifieded as psychotic.
This is why, in civilized states, children are not tried by
the same requirements adults are. The belief in Santa Clause
or a world where Santa Clause-like beings exist is psychotic.
Very intelligent children never really buy into it. Most
people grow out of it. Most religious beliefs, having no
empirical evidence to back them up, represent a shared
psychosis which is why religions are so dangerous.
The Machivellian world view is largely a psychotic one. In
modern usage, it's Machivellian to take your boss out to
dinner regularly and buy him gifts. It's psychotic to
encourage him to sleep with your wife or murder him to gain
his job.
Ted Bundy was a psychotic. His psychosis made it impossible
for him to attain sexual gratification with living women. In
order for him to have dead women to have sex with, he found
it most expedient to kill them himself. He didn't have
hallucinations. In fact he was pretty shrewd. It was the
belief that he could only achieve pleasure with the dead that
drove him crazy.
Patrick King
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