The Blue Elephant

I have a friend who I think has some degree of OCD/Schizophrenia. I don't think he realizes it. I just saw him and he's not doing well apparently. Not super bad, not at all, but not good either. There's this dimension to this sort of mental disorder where things that are a normal size take on super-normal proportions. And it's not just a fixation, it's a misunderstanding about reality. It's a belief in some dis-reality. I can see a stuckness in him. I've seen it before, in myself and another friend. A kind of frozen hesitation, a moment where no choice is the right one, where no choice leads away from the problem but only toward another same problem. A moment of bricked-in-ness.

It makes me sad because I can so easily see how he's misunderstanding things, but there's no way to convince him of that. He has to experience his own misunderstanding, I think, to somehow live out, in some fashion, how wrong he is so that he understands by feel until he can understand by concept. It's like staring at a standing pink elephant and being positive that it is a charging blue elephant. You're right that there's an elephant, you're wrong as to it's character and context.

Bad data is worse than no data. Bad data has to be ignored or discarded even though it continues to try to tell you something. Something which you find important and pertinent. Like a GPS system that is always telling you incorrect directions. If you're lost, even if you know they're wrong, it's still tempting to follow them.

Some think very highly of the potential of the human mind. I think it's dangerous to put too much faith in something so limited, something so fragile.

I hope he gets better soon.