You're Not Crazy (but you might be CrazyWise)
“What if a mental health crisis was viewed as a potential growth experience instead of a disease with no cure?”
Are you a trauma survivor living with a mental illness? Have you had a mental breakdown or psychotic episode? What do these words evoke for you? What difference would it have made for you, for your mental health crisis to be viewed this way? What if when you said: “I think I’m going crazy” someone had said: “Anyone with an ounce of consciousness would be going crazy in a world like ours. You’re just waking up.”
At the Sanctuary Northwest, your story matters. We agree with Phil Borges, producer and narrator of the 2017 film Crazywise, who says: “It’s very very important that we have story- telling from people who have lived through psychosis.”
Have you seen this film?
If not, look it up right now (find links below). It’s so good.
The film follows the journeys of Ehkaya Esima and Adam Gentry. They each survived childhood traumas and experienced frightening and debilitating symptoms of mental illness in their early adult life. Each was heavily medicated, in and out of institutions. They struggled with homelessness and suicide attempts, with varying degrees of familial and communal support.
The film tells their stories interwoven with interviews from experts in mental health and anthropology, as well as stories of people from diverse cultures where mental illnesses are viewed and treated very differently than they are in most of the Western world.
For example: Linza was a shaman of the Nani people in northern Siberia, where the term shaman originated. She was a respected healer of over 60 years, and when a neighbor girl named Sasha started experiencing fainting spells and hearing voices, which in that culture are considered signs of “shamanic potential,” Linza took her under her mentorship.
Or: take Thupten Ngodrup, who is now the state oracle of Tibet. His calling began with a frightening sequence of intense dreams, severe mood swings, and hearing voices. He thought he was dying—and in the West he would have likely been institutionalized. The older monks recognized these as beginning signs of someone with the ability to be a kuten or oracle, and met Thupten with “tears of joy.” He was brought to the Dalai Lama, who invited him to consider the spiritual calling.
In fact, Dr. Gabor Mate makes the compelling research-backed claim that:
“…the best place in the world to be a schizophrenic is not North America with all the ‘Pharmacorpea’” but rather “a village in Africa or India where there’s acceptance, where people make room for your differentness, where connection is not broken, but is maintained, where you’re not excluded and ostracized, but you’re welcome.”
“[Can you imagine being in a community] that allowed room for you to...express whatever you need to express, [a community that] might even sing with you, chant with you or hold ceremony with you…maybe find some meaning in your ‘craziness.... ?”
Such a response is all but unheard of in the Western world.
Thankfully, Ehkaya is an example of a “survivor” of Western mental health care system who finally found stability, relief and purpose as an initiate to the Sangoma tradition of South Africa. She began to work as a healer herself, to transformative effect. In her words:
Finally, I know why I’m on this Earth, I know why I’m so sensitive to all these things and energies, I understand why I have visions now…You tell you therapist or your psychiatrist and they say you are ill, they say, you have borderline personality disorder, you have chronic depression, and these are the drugs you need to take, this is what’s going to help you, but nobody told me you know this is a spiritual matter, and you are gifted. And now it’s time for you to hone these gifts…I know who I am without a doubt, a hundred percent; I know who I am, and it is the best feeling ever. I have a purpose and I have a reason to live…to help humanity, help other people that have experienced the things I have experienced, to connect with Earth to connect with this universe, it is magical, and I am so grateful.
—Ehkaya Esima
SOME NOTES OF CAUTION
Now, let’s make sure not to treat non-Western cultures monolithically or to universalize the attitudes of indigenous communities towards mental illness worldwide—not everyone with mental illness in these cultures becomes a shaman or healer. As a white-led organization, we strive to be (imperfectly) in a non-anxious relationship of honor, respect, restoration and reciprocity with the cultures and modalities that model ways of being that are more healthy than our own.
There’s a lot to unpack here. We hold that traumas at the personal and systemic level, are inseparable. You can read here for more info on our decolonizing and anti-racism efforts, and stay tuned for our Racial Justice Learnings from/for White-Led Health and Wellness Organizations.
Still, we can’t help wonder with Borges: “What if a mental health crisis was viewed as a potential growth experience instead of a disease with no cure?”
Ok, sounds great…but Can you show me an example??
Christine Karczewski, a friend and colleague of the Sanctuary Northwest, has wondered the same thing. She is the founder and director of the Mt Tahoma Sanctuary in Tacoma, WA. When her son underwent a mental health crisis and institutional options failed to see him thrive, she opened the Sanctuary.
She wanted to create a “village for our loved ones,” “a spiritually uplifting home environment” supporting those “interested in learning, healing and transitioning to a higher level of social, emotional, mental, spiritual and physical wellness.”
Christine and her husband Po are both psychiatric nurses with a deep respect and resourcefulness for the tools of western medicine. At the same time, Christine believes strongly that there are many paths to healing, and hopes that within the Sanctuary that people can have the space to find their own path—“because everybody’s path is different, unique.” She elaborates:
“We hoped to create a…model, for how people can heal through psychosis, that it doesn’t have to be a death sentence, which sometimes it literally is for people; [I’m convinced that many] kill themselves…not always because of voices telling them to do so [but] because they’ve been told they’ll be on medication…that they have a serious mental illness for the rest of their lives…how damning that is for people, you know?”
Driving home her point, she insists:
“[Psychosis and mental illness] is not a broken brain. That’s a myth.”
Ugh. How did we even get here?
There are innumerable factors that have given rise to the modern medical field’s response to mental illness, not least of them being the field of modern psychiatry in which there has long existed a "strong tension between the psychiatric world and the religious or spiritual world.”
In fact, Freud believed that spiritual and religious inclination in a person made them by definition “delusional.” Thanks a lot, Freud.
However, there are small pockets in the psychiatric world that are beginning to support the possibility that…
“...what we believe is psychosis may in and of itself be a transcendent experience...but because [a person experiencing psychosis has] a mental illness, the experience is not investigated or it is ignored or pathologized.”
We have observed and believe that western medicine inevitably has repeated the values of the white, patriarchal, reductionist world from which it arises, locating problems in individual people in need of treatment, while missing the systemic power dynamics as the original pathological source.
To quote the queer poet Andrea Gibson:
“It is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.”
If you have experienced a mental health crisis, it doesn’t have to mean you are defined by your diagnosis or destined to a medicated, institutionalized, dependent life. Our friend Christine advocates for such times to be seen as a phase of life that can be moved through with the right support and tools. You might even discover hidden gifts.
Let’s conclude by affirming:
“If we took more time to be with and listen to those considered to be mentally ill, we might find that there’s a relationship between crazy and wise.”
Are you a trauma survivor? Are you struggling with your physical and psychological symptoms? Do you experience isolation and the stigma of mental illness? Are you longing to make meaning of your experiences and live a balanced life? Let’s connect! We’d love to hear your story, and how we might walk with you and nurture your gifts.
You can schedule a FREE 30-minute one-on-one conversation here.
OR consider joining us for our next FREE community practice, get dates and details below.
If you are having a mental health emergency, please call Pierce County Crisis Line at:
1-800-576-7764
or visit the link HERE.
SOURCES
Crazywise, directed by Phil Borges, 2017.
Gibson, Andrea. “The Nutritionist.” Filmed May 2019, Ted-Ed, 4:36.
Hozumi, Tada. “The key to healing whiteness is understanding cultural somatic context.”
Lucas, Shawn. “Assessing Transcendental Experiences vs Mental Illnesses.” The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 71 no 4 2017, p 267-273.
Additional thanks to Dr. Jennifer Fernandez for her support in this research and writing effort.