164 replies to this topic

[coldethyl]

Mentally ill and mentally challenged are 2 different things.

This is the most offensive topic ever.  Just because you're mentally ill does not mean that once you die you'd choose 'not to go into the light' or whatever nonsense YOU believe.

Good grief.

[SSilhouette]

This topic wasn't meant to be offensive.  Some people may be hypersensitive to the subject of mental illness though.  It was meant to be exploratory.  For instance, many hauntings seem to surround suicides or murders, deep regrets or obsessive atttachments.  All four of those phenomenon are symptoms of mental illness.

[coldethyl]

SSilhouette, on 23 October 2012 - 03:24 AM, said:

This topic wasn't meant to be offensive.  Some people may be hypersensitive to the subject of mental illness though.  It was meant to be exploratory.  For instance, many hauntings seem to surround suicides or murders, deep regrets or obsessive atttachments.  All four of those phenomenon are symptoms of mental illness.

IF you believe in hauntings.  Murders have nothing to do with mental illness unless possibly committed by a serial killer and that would fall under sociopathy.  Technically Sociopathy is an antisocial personality disorder as is psychopathy and both are not curable and sometimes debated if they fall under the category of mental illness.  BUT serial killing is rarer than you think percentage wise.
As for as deep regrets, since when is that a mental illness?  I believe you need to research mental illness a bit further.
Obsessive attachments could fall under the category of OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder and I know of no cases where someone was killed or died from OCD.  People who are obsessed with someone and kill them are usually spouses/boyfriend/girlfriend and it is an impulse killing in the heat of a passionate argument.  Research murders and serial killers as I have.  You will find that an incredibly small amount of people are actually killed by people who are actually mentally ill.  
Some suicides but not all could fall under mentally ill.  But again, it's not a huge percentage of mentally ill people that go around offing themselves.  A lot of suicides are committed by men who have lost their jobs or elderly people who are terminally ill.

Please be a bit more respectful of people who are mentally ill before you lump us all into categories that do not exist and do a bit more research before you do the categorizing.

[SSilhouette]

No.  I'll still explore the topic as I stated.  But thanks for your input.

[coldethyl]

SSilhouette, on 23 October 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

No.  I'll still explore the topic as I stated.  But thanks for your input.

No what?  You're going to remain ignorant?

You're welcome for the education, proceed.

[SSilhouette]

I'm sure you'll have lots to teach me about mental illness.

Let's continue with the subject.  On many of the ghost hunter shows you find situations where they get EVPs saying things that indicate high levels of angst or obsession.  Mediums will also report great strife or megalomaniac personalities "controlling" other spirits and not allowing them to leave a location.  We're getting bits and pieces of information from these new technologies that allow us to emperically verify and record the presence of disembodied awareness [aka "ghosts"].  We are in kindergarten in that respect of the body of knowledge that is out there left to be discovered.

This thread is about how I've noticed a trend that ghosts appear to be mentally ill in a very large percentage of the time.  Mental illness is a wide spectrum.  Obsession is a form of mental illness and many times we find a spirit haunting a place because they are obessed with still owning it, lording over it.  Not letting-go is a sign of instability.

Now before coldethyl blows a gasket, bear in mind that pretty much all of us have traces of mental issues or full blown ones or anything in between.  Myself included.

[JGirl]

SSilhouette, on 16 August 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

Hi, Like many of you probably are, I'm a paranormal-show junkie.  It's really all I watch on the tube except the news and comedy now and then for ballast. What I've noticed from watching most of the shows is that instead of being ghost-hunters, what these people actually seem to be doing is reaching out to the mentally ill in a form of afterlife-therapy.

I think a sign of sanity is to move on after you die; to ascend to that other plane to work on more stuff there.  But for some reason, some people have stuffed back their spiritual selves and become monsters, or twisted or in such deep physical ruts that they cannot conceive of the fact that they've died.  In other words, ghosts seem to be just a simple manifestation of a symptom of gross mental illness.

There are some that appear though to be here to help, as part of their work.  They would not be classified as mentally ill; and they seem to stay in the background for the most part.  But the vast majority of obvious hauntings are of beings who were so strapped down in life that they refuse to consider alternatives.  My pet theory is that many of these people have so much repressed guilt and shame and secrets they did not air to the world, that they intuit [or have been shown a preview?] that if they move on, they will have to face the music of what they did.  And the fear of doing that keeps them lodged on the peripheral of the physical world,

Discuss.

you want to discuss this in a serious manner?
you are a self confessed paranormal show junkie. this in itself leads me to suspect that you are also very suggestible and perhaps even a bit gullible.
to suggest that first of all these shows are in any way to be taken seriously is my first clue.
to suggest that a spirit could suffer from 'mental illness' is another

as for the portion of your post i highlighted;
these people are not there to provide afterlife therapy for gawd sake. they are there to make money, to have a hit tv show, to feed off the gullibility of the viewing public and to ride that gravy train until the interest veers to some other stupid nonsense.

[JGirl]

SSilhouette, on 23 October 2012 - 03:24 AM, said:

For instance, many hauntings seem to surround suicides or murders, deep regrets or obsessive atttachments.  All four of those phenomenon are symptoms of mental illness.

the stories are about suicides murders deep regrets or obsessive attachments because that's more interesting than dying of old age naturally.

[coldethyl]

SSilhouette, on 23 October 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

I'm sure you'll have lots to teach me about mental illness

Now before coldethyl blows a gasket, bear in mind that pretty much all of us have traces of mental issues or full blown ones or anything in between.  Myself included.

You better tread lightly.  I have been civil and tried to explain the difference between mental illness and personality defects and things that are just plain not mental illnesses.

There are rules on this board for a reason, my friend.

There's not one ghost program anyone over 12 should take seriously.  Except maybe Supernatural just because the Winchesters are hot.

[Hilander]

Well there are mentally ill people so I don't see why there couldn't be mentally ill ghosts.  Maybe there were mentally ill spirits first then when they were born they were mentally ill people.

[coldethyl]

Does anyone even know anything about mental illness?  IF ghosts exists they would have to have a brain to be mentally ill.  Mental illness is about chemical imbalances in the brain.  Mental illness is no different than having diabetes or cancer, so by the same logic ghosts would have to have diabetes and/or cancer as well.

Please visit www.nami.org or something.

[Bling]

As a mentally ill person.....I don't know.

[DancingCorpse]

It is certainly true that most 'active' ghosts appear to have suffered greatly in their lives (and died in horrendous circumstance) , they would appear to have 'motive' for haunting and dwelling in a place both mentally and physically (as we consider it). So I guess they could be deemed to be in a bleak purgatory.

There is very little knowledge on how to communicate adequately and have complex conversations or get a good look, a question of strength of whatever form of material a ghost is formed from and how existing/travelling through our realm affects it? Heck it's rare that one ever stays around for more than a very short amount of time. I doubt we will ever be able to ask them why they stay around in our lifetime or whether science can ever touch that aspect, perhaps it was designed that way lol.

There are also other 'active' spirits who are attached to places because they loved being there whilst alive and it has been known for these types of spirits to frequent a location just as strongly as the other extreme. I think strength of emotion has more to do with it than being 'mentally ill' but I get the jist of your thoughts. All we are at the base of it is energy so it makes sense to me that areas attract the dead as they did in life, in the physical. Mayhap it is a lesser sentient form of the person as they were alive, like when a bee is attracted to colourful flowers or some kid's vivid clothes heh.

Edited by DancingCorpse, 23 October 2012 - 10:51 PM.

[Amy the Mighty]

It bothers me that "mentally ill" becomes the catch-all explanation for behaviours and phenomena we can't understand.

[SSilhouette]

For the purposes of this discussion we've talked about mental illness being obsession, suicide and murder.  And those three themes seem to really show up a lot in discoveries and observations of ghostly presentations and habits, haunts etc.

And we are talking about dead people.  Not living ones.

Edited by SSilhouette, 24 October 2012 - 05:53 AM.