I was watching a YouTube video today about MKUltra. MKUltra was a CIA program that wanted to see if a test subject could be brainwashed into assassinating someone without realising/forgetting that they had been brainwashed. The program was declared a failure.
Now there's a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding MKUltra. That you'd be a fool to think that the CIA truly failed or that they've moved onto other forms of more powerful brainwashing. But I think differently.
I studied psychology for 5 years and after having read 1000s of research papers, journals and books, the conclusion I've come to is that we know fucking nothing when it comes to human psychology.
The father of psychology is Sigmund Freud. Now this guy is a top retard. Also most likely a massive pervert. This guy really tried to suggest that sons want to fuck their mothers and grow to envy and hate their fathers. It's called the "The Oedipus complex" for those interested. He's so retarded that he fails to realise in the original story of Oedipus, the son unknowingly kills his father and unknowingly marries his mother. When he finds out, he kills himself. So. Good one Sigmund, you fucking incestous perv. If I've ever seen someone projecting, it's this guy. "I don't want to fuck my mother, everyone else wants to fuck their mother" - Sigmund circa 1856.
This guy being the father of psychology fundamentally undermines psychology as a subject matter for me. Read his books and you start to realise, he was an incredibly troubled man and really he should be called the father of hot takes because there was zero scientific evidence to support what he was saying. Just chatting pure shit.
The only thing that's worth learning about is the Placebo effect. Now this shit is psychology's magnum opus.
I think the best example of the placebo effect is Mr Wright. Mr Wright had late stage lymphatic cancer and was days away from dying. He was selected for a new experimental treatment called Krebiozen and after his first injection he showed a positive response with his tumors eventually halving in size despite a different cancer patient in the same hospital showing no response. He was discharged after 10 days but 'Mr Wright' would read some bad press that questioned Krebiozen's efficacy causing him to eventually relapse and he was readmitted to the hospital. His doctors decided to adminster a doubly effective version of Krebiozen. Mr Wright made a miraculous recovery and was able to leave the hospital symptom free and was healthy for a couple months. The crazy shit is that the doctors had lied. There wasn't a single drop of Krebiozen in the 2nd injection and Mr Wright only died after reading a report that exposed Krebiozen as complete bullshit and his cancer came back. The important thing to note here is that Mr Wright only relapsed when his own reality of Krebiozen being an effective treatment was overwritten by what he percieved as an authority figure.
The human mind is a crazy thing and we haven't even begun to understand the capabilities it holds. You hear stories about mothers lifting cars off babies despite them struggling to open a jar lid in normal circumstances. Now you may say "I'm a fucking retard but that's adrenaline, nothing special". And you are definitely correct. In biological terms it's the fight or flight instinct kicking in that allowed that mother to lift a fucking car up. But from a purely psychological perspective, do you think it would've been possible if it wasn't her child in that car that she needed to save? Her mind overpowered her biological limits to allow crazy fucking shit that we can't even begin to fathom, to happen.
This is what upsets me about mental illnesses nowadays. Instead of people addressing depression and anxiety as momentary feelings they address it as character traits, as if it's something that they lack control over. I am depressed, I am anxious has replaced I feel depressed and I feel anxious. You fail to realise you have more control than you think you do and instead internalise negative feelings. It's the same arguement I had about the alphabet people. They feel a certain way yet they confuse it with a state of being.
The real issue is that you think that about yourself. You think of yourself as having depression, anxiety or ADHD. You have formed a self image of suffering in which you can't escape from as it's formulated in your mind. It's a mental illness. In other words, it's in your mind. If having complete faith can overcome cancer, there is no reason that you can't overcome feeling depressed or anxious. It's about how it's framed in our minds, how we approach the issue and what steps we are taking in a physical or spiritual sense to find comfort, confidence and most importantly, belief in ourselves.
I hate calling someone crazy. You aren't crazy. Are you sad because some fucked up shit is going on/lost a family member? Do you find it hard to concentrate because your childhood was filled with memories of your parents screaming at one another and zoning out became an automatic defense mechanism? Did you live a secluded childhood and fail to socialise as a baby and are now socially awkward? There is a reason for the way you are. To call someone crazy and wrong for being a certain way is dismissive; however it's your choice whether you want to think that there's no escape or to die fighting.