Let's face it - the mentally ill act up

I can see that and say that because I’ve been stable for quite awhile. Not perfect at all, but not creating an uproar over anything either. One of my housemates acted out tonight and I am so grateful that my mind has healed enough so that I don’t need to do things like that anymore.

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I never really thought about it but yes I guess I did act out when I was younger, I can’t remember the last time

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Is the acting up just a cry for attention? for someone to help them?
Does the squeaky wheel get the grease, or replaced?

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I’ve never had outbursts since sza but I guess if you look at my arm I did quite a bit of acting up. Not really better myself but it’s been six months since my last stay so yay

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Yeah, but do we have to get attention in such awful ways? I mean aren’t there healthier ways to get attention or do we just want attention from the morbid?

My genius has been to get the attention I crave in positive ways.

But yeah, I have done tons of emotionally immature stuff.

Jayster

Yes, but it’s not something your born with, and unless your parents were taught by their parents (who were taught by their parents…and so on) you will learn to behave in a way that gets you what you need-be it good or bad.
Kids are easy to redirect, you stop them by never rewarding bad behavior, and be consistent about it.
It don’t take long to learn that they have to behave to get what they want.

God knows I’ve acted up when I’ve been psychotic before.

I think spontaneous punishment is a negative reward. So, those of us who had punitive parents probably have more difficulty with behaving well than those who had parents who were in control of themselves when something went wrong.

Yeah they call that “externalizing” in the psych field. That’s the official term for acting out :joy: Not everyone w mental illness does that though, there’s internalizing too.

It’s hard to be consistent when teaching kids to behave when the little parasites seem to suck the energy out of your life by simply being in the same room as you. I think they recharge their batteries with the energy of all the adults in the room, how else do you explain their surge of energy and the lifeless drained bodies of the adults around them.

Kids are always hungry. Maybe keep a snack handy. I used to reward my students with 3oz of juice after their lesson. (It changed to Kool-Aid when I couldn’t afford the juice anymore.) Parents told me it really worked to motivate them.

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Act up…yes its bad. But mentally ill people are very capable of controlling their behaviour if they wanted to.

Like this 80s song said…we are never gonna survive if we dont get alittle crazy.

I consider psychotic to mean out of control. One only learns control after one comes out of the psychosis.
Yeah, I’ve heard statements like that. Like “You don’t have to go crazy, but it might help.” If you ask me, nobody needs MI and nobody deserves the disease although some doctor’s theory is that it’s all about self punishment for whatever reason.