What's with the "us vs them" stuff?

DX'd - Other
21

I’ve only recently emerged from my hermit-cave to seek help and be more open about my MI with friends.

I can honestly say that the stigma was already there, and I walked face-first into it.

Work broke data protection laws and shared my sensitive information then accused me of being dangerous without seeking an opinion from a trained medical professional, then tried to manage me out (breaches employment law in EU)

Friends threatened to cut me off if I was dangerous (not all of them, but it still stings)

Charity is refusing me treatment without written evidence from a pdoc that I am not dangerous, despite admitting I’m one of their calmest patients, explaining that it’s just to cover their asses if I up and murder my counselor.

Community health team verbally said I was fine, but their report phrases everything in terms of ‘at risk’. When I saw it I said no one as at risk because I’m not dangerous, and they spent the next our listing scenarios and asking, ‘would you be dangerous then???’. He pointed to the fact that I owned a lighter as evidence that I might burn down a building. Sheesh.

My point?

‘They’ have already demonised whatever the hell it is they seem to think I am a part of. I don’t think it’s a clean divide between NT and ‘us’, but there’s a rift in there somewhere.

4 Likes
22

I’m really sorry you’ve experienced such discrimination. It’s terrible and shouldn’t have happened. Having known you, albeit briefly, on the forum, I can’t imagine you as a dangerous person and think it is unfair you’ve been typecast as such.

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23

I don’t think of it being us vs them with neurotypicals or ‘normies’ as it were. More of a case of having to work go along to get along. Certain things upset them so I conform my behaviour to fit their expectations as best I can. Less stress for everyone at the end of the day.

I admit to not understanding them, but that doesn’t make us enemies.

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24

I’ve called people normies before. Of course only to myself and not to their face. I think it sounds cool and makes me feel a little better about being different. I guess it would kinda be like if I started calling people roundeyes. Even though mine are kinda round too. Don’t do it to people’s faces though because I don’t think that would be productive at all.

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25

true. it’s interesting that people can go from MI to normie, but people can’t easily go from non-roundeyes to roundeyes. that’s the cool thing about MI stigma: nobody can hate until they know the diagnosis. until then, we’re normies to them.

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26

I am a late bloomer. I was a total ‘normie’ until I was 46, a year and 9 months ago, so I don’t feel a huge disconnect with ‘them’. I am delusional as hell and I can feel a big difference in my thinking but I understand ‘their’ thinking 100% so I don’t feel like it’s ‘us’ vs ‘them’.

27

I see no difference I come to this forum and find peers becoming friends with each other like normies, defending each other like normies, becoming popular like normies, very opinionated like normies,

I see this forum as a place to become popular and missed when a person becomes popular then dissapears for a while. Same type of behavior as normies.

I see poeple here put responsability of my schizophrenia on me as much or more than normies it seems at times.

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28

i just think its a cool term. it reminds me of how the rolling stones called people that worked ‘earnies’

29

true, but I find the people here more empathetic, even moreso than family sometimes. when people here put more responsibility on my MI, it’s usually out of love and out of relative understanding of what happens when we don’t take meds and etc.

then again, I don’t talk with normies much