Today at a gathering of people suffering from an alcoholic nature, it was mentioned by someone in recovery from that malady that there is a version of reality in which he truly believes that is often completely different from the more objective truth of an event or situation. I am in agreement to a large degree, but I have also found that I have undercut my own understanding of something as discreditable to even myself because of my conditioning as a mental patient. For a while, it was probably most advantageous to question everything I tell myself. At some point, I began to obtain a degree of lucidity over even my own psychological conundrum and found such high level of self doubt was removing any foundation of beliefs by which to act upon. I had to learn to understand who I am.
I’ve got that to a reasonable degree now. I have to commit to act accordingly and not merely assume I am wrong about how I relate to my environment. I am bipolar, which means that I am over emotive. However given sleep and reasonable self maintenance, I am not delusional. I may still say the obvious that I’m not supposed to say, but I need to be able to trust in my observations and assessments or I am frozen to act.
I mentioned in the previous chapter that looking at the progressive reduction in the field of medicine towards routine infant circumcision, I probably was correct about my assessment that it was bullshit some 25 years ago before that was something to even be considered by American society. It was just an assumption that it should be done. It upset me that almost everyone rationalized it in college when it was obviously a source of contention for me. Quite frankly, the fact Americans don’t know what the frenulum is, is about as ignorant as not knowing what the clitoris is. All, or most of it, is cut off during cirucumcision and it is pretty much always restructured in a way that destroys the ribbing and effacy of what remains in functionality. Most of mine is gone, but it’s by far my favorite part. I no longer feel the need to describe to traditionalists why it is morally reprehensible to mutilate the genitalia of a child. It is most certainly a surgical manifestation of how we feel little empathy towards men.
The arguments for it are weak, but they persist. I no longer feel the need to debate it. Almost everyone felt the need to debate me in college as to the right to genital integrity to the point to where it was obviously greatly upsetting me. When I was put inpatient for the first time, most of my anger and rage was directed at that. I am bipolar. I am over-emotional. I wasn’t psychotic though. I was correct and ahead of my time, whether the reader chooses to empathize with that or not. I did have to learn to not expect empathy or understanding from the world around me. Just because I care about other men, doesn’t mean that this is a relatable concept to others.
I do have psychotic aspects to my cognitive patterns. Certainly during a period of sleep deprivation and substance abuse, I can get quite dissonant as between what I perceive and reality. My mind never changed about circumcision, but the fact that about half of American society now agrees with me vs 1% does tell me that perhaps psychological abnormality isn’t a good way of determining cognitive lucidity. My belief remained firm. It didn’t become ‘not psychotic’ simply because the social psychology of America came into an acceptable proportion of agreement. Beyond my argument that it is without intellectual rigor to determine a delusion by implying that a belief is psychotic relative to mass acceptance, time, or geographical location, my underlying emotional discord as to being gas lit in this area was also a huge set back in my psychological recovery. I’m still mentally ill. However, a lack of empathy towards others, especially men, greatly contributes to our problem with mental illness, especially when individual mental illness is acted upon with violence or suicide.
Nothing I say detracts from feminist views. I can say that it is cruel to cut off sexually sensitive tissue of a boy, without someone else launching into a diatribe on the cruelty of FGM in Africa as a self-perceived counter-argument. That’s a basic false dichotomy that only furthers my point about a lack of empathy towards men being normalized in my social reality. I once again do see the progress. However I can never get back the stint in my mental health recovery that tying in my opposition to circumcision had on my acceptance that I am bipolar. I am bipolar. I still want my frenulum back. I just had to accept that can’t happen. Reality can be cruel, even when it doesn’t have to be. I can still fight for the ‘ought’ for others though. Accepting life on life’s terms as being they way it should be invites contempt. It neglects to strive for progress, and demonstrates social apathy towards the next generation. Accepting I was bipolar never had to be tied into accepting circumcision as morally inconsequential. I just had to accept the amputation was done and the best I could do was have limited impact on the future of others. I can accept that. I can accept I am bipolar, too. I wish I could have sooner. They’re separate issues. At the very least, they hardly relate as people typically relate them to me. Life has an abundance of aggressively argumentative idiots. I was hurting. I grasped what I lost and it delayed my recovery to entangle to two.
Joker's Wild 