#i mean- this is me pretending I agree that that's true to play devils advocate a lil here

[snekdood]

personally, i dont see the fundamental difference between deleting your account and making a new one and deleting all your old posts, if we're talking about "running from ones past", then what are you tryna hide there, bud?

[funkymbtifiction]

Hi Charity!

I hope you’re doing well 😊

I’m the INFP who wrote the post about Dean.

I read the post about the different communication styles between feelers, and I found it very interesting and thought-provoking. Your reply really resonated with me. I know the original poster said they weren’t replying to me, but I still felt part of the conversation and wanted to respond to it, but then I got a bit carried away, so I tried to synthesise my thoughts as best as I could (so not that well haha). Here it goes.

Since you said I could edit / shorten it if I wanted, I'm going to, because if I don't, this conversation is just going to keep going in circles with me in the middle. But I'm going to keep what you said about Dean, because I think it's important to discuss.

In my original post I didn’t mean to speak for all Fi users, and didn’t mean to definitely exclude Fi when it comes to Dean, just Fi-dom. I didn’t mean either that if he were an Fi-dom he would behave exactly as I would have in the same situation, and I probably carried on too much about myself but I meant that if he were an Fi-dom, to me he would have enough emotional subtlety to understand that people are different, they react differently to things, and he would have given Rory the space to react in her own way. Maybe she didn’t feel it, but then again maybe she did and it was hard for her to express it, or maybe she needed time to figure things out and wasn’t sure of her feelings, which is fine too, especially at sixteen! Maybe he would have asked questions and been more curious about the reasons why she didn’t say it, instead of assuming that it must mean that she doesn’t feel it if she doesn’t say it back straight away. I just felt a lot of harsh energy coming from him, which I didn’t think matched that of a Fi-dom, but then again maybe I self-inserted too much, maybe it has to do with him being a sensor or unhealthy or his enneagram… It’s just, I look at Jess and Dean and I just don’t see the same type. Dean has that sort of traditional aura about him, like “this is what things are supposed to be like when you have a girlfriend and this is what society tells you needs to happen” and stuff, that Jess completely lacks, and that I don’t think is very Fi. But again, I could be wrong. It could also be that his characterisation is just not that great.

You did raise a good point, and I think you are right. Dean has a lot of expectations about what a relationship should look like, and the gender roles people should play in them. Do you remember that episode where Rory and her mom were scoffing at an old TV show? I think it was Donna Reed? He got a little offended, and said he thinks it's "kind of nice" if a woman wants to take care of her husband, and cook, and clean, and look nice for him, and both of them gave him a dirty look -- but then Rory went and dressed up in a 50's outfit and fixed him dinner to "try it." And Dean kind of liked it. My point is, I could see an ISFJ for Dean now that I think about it more. He takes his role as a boyfriend seriously and he wants to do it "right." He is overall tolerant and good-natured, and sometimes makes selfish decisions (but so does every person on that show :P) but you are right, he expects an immediate verbal response in a way an IFP might not. Compare him to Jess, who told Rory "I love you" and then ran away. Left. "The ball is in her court." He got all hurt that she didn't respond immediately or chase him down and tell him, and left / sulked. (Cue Luke going: you're an idiot. You wait around for an answer! You don't just make a declaration and run away!) Then there's the fact that when his marriage falls apart, Dean goes back to Rory. His old girlfriend. It's "going back" and "not moving forward." So your two cents is appreciated and I think you're right and my initial assessment was wrong.

I admire people who are so confident as the poster, because one of the reasons why I didn’t use to share my feelings with other people was in part because it was hard, in part because I didn’t think they were interested. I didn’t think it mattered, I didn’t think I mattered, in any case that I mattered enough that they would want me to bother them and take away from their precious time to have that conversation. I really don’t want to bother people. I’d rather just go away and lick my wounds in private and analyze it and learn from it and eventually be OK with it. (What makes me and my views and my thoughts more important than others’, why should they want to read about it? Answer: nothing, and they probably don’t, so I don’t say anything or send anything.) I’m working on it and doing better!

This is very 9. And it's true, 9s have trouble "taking up space" and feeling like their voice even matters. I also struggle with this a lot, and I just have a 9 fix. I want to do / say things and then think: but no one cares, so why bother? 9s shrink their space instead of expand to fill it.

To sum things up, as you also tried to convey, I think, Charity, I don’t think we can determine people’s communicative styles “once and for all”. Irrespective of type, people are complex and communication depends on many factors: the level of intimacy of the relationship, the presence or absence of conflict, the actual personality of the person in front of you, your history with that person, how you’re feeling in that particular moment, are you tired, anxious, busy, hungry… Your communication style is also likely to evolve back and forth, in one direction as you grow and mature, or in the other when you go through stressful times. People are complex and I don’t think they fit into neat little boxes.

Agreed, but I think some people are naturally more straightforward than others, and others send mixed messages. I had a relationship end last year and then received a Christmas card from that person over the holidays, followed by them wanting to be included in an ongoing multi-person project I had going on about two months later. They were sending me a lot of mixed messages (why are you here? is this you trying to talk to me?) because we had ended our friendship, so I mustered up the nerve to ask: "Does this mean you want to talk?" and the answer was "No."

This is pure attachment type behavior: I'm not sure what I want. Do I want to be friends again? No? But I need to feel still connected to you in some way? Yes? But it's also painful to be around you, and recall that we are no longer friends? Yes. So why am I here?

About a month later, they pulled out of the project, because... I guess... they realized the above. But that is my point: sometimes attachment types (3, 6, 9) don't know what we want, and we send mixed messages, and other people ask us directly what we're up to, and that forces us to think about it, and THEN we make a decision. So I may not like Rory all the time, but I understand why she does the crap she does and all about having to learn to be assertive in a relationship. That Dean thing really upset her, because one minute it was all fine and they were happy and the next, he was mad at her for not instantly saying "I love you." And she reacted largely how I'd expect a 9w1 to act -- what the hell just happened? He tore himself away from me, because I didn't have an answer for him?!

I'm also considering sx2w1 for Dean. Lots of (unhealthy, cuz no one on the show is healthy) intensity, emotion, and expectation that me doing nice things for you means I love you, and you should know that, and I need to hear it from you in return.

Thank you again Charity for being the catalyst for so much interesting thought and introspection! I don’t think I’ve ever written so much on the topic and I am in awe that you are doing it daily and still running this blog after all these years. Sending many good thoughts!

Thanks for contributing! :)

[madamebaggio]

Note: My dear friend Ully requested -as a birthday present -a modern AU with Gilbert and Anne from “Anne with an E”, just so they’d have a good excuse to properly kiss (You know, since the series has this sweetness and innocence to it).

So, here it is.

****

“Why aren’t you listening to me?”

“Why are you fighting with me? I’m literally on your side!”

Anne took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.” She grumbled. “It’s just… I can’t believe this debate exists.”

Gilbert sighed. “Trust me: I get it. But I’m just telling you an argument they might use. I’m not saying I believe this.”

Anne groaned. She loved debates -she really did -but this thing about climate change was making her truly angry.

Miss Stacy had brought to class the discussion about climate change. Anne -foolishly, now she could see -had assumed it was a given and that there was nothing to actually discuss about it, just its very real effects.

How wrong she was.

Billy Andrews -because who else would it be? -had raised his voice to say it was FAKE NEWS!

Really! With those words!

Climate change was fake news. Alarmism. A communist invention against capitalism.

Anne would’ve loved to say she was exaggerating the whole thing, but unfortunately, all of that had been quite real.

So at some point she started arguing with Billy inside the classroom and Josie Pye had risen to defend her precious boyfriend, and Gilbert Blythe had sided with Anne, and…

It’d turned into quite a mess, and Miss Stacy was not happy.

Once she managed to calm her students down, she proposed a proper debate for next class. They’d have to do research, she’d mediate, and that would be it. No screaming, no ‘that’s my opinion’, real information.

At that point, Anne had approved of the idea. That was until Miss Stacy declared she’d be pairing up with Gilbert, since Josie and Billy were clearly a team.

Why? Why did she have to be paired up with Gilbert?

If things were like they were in freshman year, she could go on pretending to hate him. But they weren’t! Now in senior year she…

She might like him.

She wasn’t saying she did! She just might.

As a remote possibility.

Yet to be confirmed. But very unlikely to be!

Nope. No feelings there. None whatsoever…

“Can we take a break?” She asked, her voice a bit louder than strictly necessary.

“Sure…” Gilbert agreed easily enough.

They were studying together in the living room, as Marilla was preparing dinner in the kitchen and Matthew was still at work. Gilbert had been invited for dinner, since Marilla had a huge soft spot for him.

Anne had tackled the task with gusto: she found all the information she could, searched for trustworthy sources, researched the name of scientists and their works and then went even deeper, looking for simple examples -like unprecedented natural phenomena around the world.

Gilbert had been playing devil’s advocate. He was bringing every possible counter argument he’d found, so they could have the answers to them. Logically, Anne knew he was just making sure they were prepared, but every time he said something to discredit what she’d just said she felt like hitting him with a book.

Ever since Anne started noticing that she might like like Gilbert, being around him was complicated. When she was still competing with him for grades, it seemed much easier. Besides, back then, she’d been pretty sure he also didn’t like her very much.

Time and maturity -and yes, a few years in high school did count as maturing -made her realise he’d never really competed with her. He was just amused by the back and forth. Diana and Cole were certain that Gilbert had a crush on her, but Anne had never seen anything that confirmed those absurd claims.

Honestly, most of the time, she couldn’t even phantom what he had on his mind. If Gilbert did like her, he kept his feelings very much under control.

Which convinced her that there were no feelings.

Like… Why would he even like her? She was a freckled redhead. She wasn’t a beauty, and she was okay with that. Things were what they were. Gilbert was really good looking; he had great eyes, fluffy hair and a perfect smile. He could have any girl he wanted. There was no reason for him to like her.

“I’ll get us some lemonade.” She decided, needing a bit of space. She left before he could say anything.

She opened the fridge and found the lemonade, but no Marilla anywhere in the kitchen.

“Marilla?” She called, looking around.

Then she found a note on the counter, saying that Marilla had gone to Rachel’s house for a little bit.

She was alone in the house with Gilbert.

It wasn’t a problem. At all.

She got back to where Gilbert was and offered him a glass. He thanked her and they drank in an awkward silence, sitting side by side on the floor, all their work sprawled in front of them.

Anne was really bad with awkward silences.

“I think we’re going to be okay.” She suddenly said. “I doubt Josie and Billy are putting this much thought in this.” She told him nervously.

“You’re probably right.” Gilbert chuckled.

“I mean, they’re probably just using this as an excuse to make out.”

 The moment the words were out of her mouth, Anne regretted saying them. It felt wrong even saying ‘make out’ in front of Gilbert.

And she was pretty sure he’d just choked on his drink because of it. “Right.” He said, but it came out strangled.

“Not that they’re shy about making out in public.” Anne continued rambling, even though her brain was screaming at her to stop. “I mean they just go at…” She finally managed to stop talking, feeling her face on fire.

Gilbert was extremely quiet, but his shoulders were shaking and after a minute she realised it was because he was laughing.

“Shut up.” She groaned in misery.

He finally started laughing out loud. “I’m sorry. It’s just… This is so weird.”

“Shut up.” She said again, this time with much less heat.

“We should be thankful to them.” He teased. “If they spend all the time making out, we’ll crush them in this debate.”

Anne scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Right. Since we’re here studying and there’s no way we’ll make out so…”

They locked eyes, and Gilbert wasn’t laughing anymore. He wasn’t even smiling.

“We won’t.” He said softly, his eyes focused on her face.

And for some stupid reason, Anne’s eyes fell to his lips, before shooting immediately back up. “That’d be ridiculous.” She tried to force a laugh, but it came out sounding strained.

“Downright absurd.” He agreed.

She narrowed her eyes. “Ludicrous.” She said, remembering their past squabbles over who was the smartest one.

“Preposterous.” The corner of Gilbert’s mouth ticked up.

Anne bit her lower lip. “Outlandish.”

She didn’t know when she’d gotten this close to him, but the next time Gilbert spoke, the words fanned her mouth. “Like a dream come true.”

Anne couldn’t even process those words, because his lips were right there, and then they were on hers and she was…

She was kissing Gilbert Blythe.

It was slow and tentative, only their lips touching and discovering. It was simple and even sweet, until Gilbert cupped her face, and Anne gasped into his mouth.

He pushed his tongue into her mouth and Anne noticed he tasted like sweet lemonade.

Which made her think about Marilla and immediately pull back.

Anne scrambled away from him, making her glass of lemonade tumble in the process. “Oh no!”

She pushed the papers away from it, looking for something to put over it.

“Anne.” Gilbert called.

“Marilla is going to kill me! Lemonade on the carpet!”

“Anne.”

“I need to get something to clean this.” She got up in a flash.

“Anne, wait.” Gilbert stood after her. “We need to talk about this.”

“No.” She turned to him immediately. “We really don’t.”

“We do.” He insisted. “I didn’t mean to kiss you…”

“Of course you didn’t.” Anne scoffed. “Why would you want to kiss me?”

“This wasn’t what I meant. If you let me finish…”

“There’s nothing to say.” She insisted. “We just got caught up and… And…”

His shoulders sagged. “So it meant nothing to you?” He asked, sounding defeated.

“I didn’t say that.” Anne defended herself fast, because she didn’t want him thinking she went around kissing boys just because they were there.

“Then what are you trying to say?” He asked.

Anne crossed her arms. “Why did you say ‘a dream come true’?” She threw back.

Gilbert took a deep breath in. “Screw this.” He marched in her direction, and Anne couldn’t move for the life of her.

And then his mouth was back on hers and she was stumbling back, her body hitting the wall.

Now it wasn’t that innocent anymore; it was intense and open mouthed and Anne had never been kissed like this before. She could only think of him, and his smell and his hands on her waist, her face, her hair -everywhere at the same time.

She sank her fingers on his hair -like she’d always dreamed of doing -and pressed her body tighter against his, wishing there was no more space between them.

She could feel this tingle on her body, something that was growing bigger and hungrier with each shared kiss, until she could only think of Gilbert.

Pulling apart was almost impossible, and Gilbert himself was having a hard time stopping with the kissing. He kept going back to her mouth for one more kiss, one more peck.

It felt like forever before they finally broke apart.

“I meant this.” Gilbert spoke, before clearing his throat -because his voice sounded wrecked. “This is like a dream.”

Anne thought she couldn’t blush more -all things considered -but his words and the way he was looking at her made her blush even harder.

“And now we…” She started then stopped talking, because she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to ask him.

“Now we could try going on a date?” Gilbert offered, although it came out much more like a question.

“A date? Like a real one?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, a real one. Just us.”

“Sounds nice.”

They shared smiles.

“We can also continue…”

“Studying?” Gilbert suggested.

Anne bit her lower lip and shook her head.

Gilbert opened a huge grin. “Ok, that too.”

They went right back to kissing.

And they still destroyed Josie and Billy in that debate.

[sapphicgarlic]

Tbh, not a fan of her bc she's the epitome of white feminism and her whole "Lena Dunham taught me how to be a feminist" phase was just not it. Like I respect her way more now after watching Miss Americana and essentially I have nothing against her, but I just think she's not a good example for feminism like people love to pretend she is and I feel like only white girls don't get it bc, again, whiteness. It all relies on the white feminism and being obsessed with a girl squad that was just a bunch of white skinny girls prancing around while everyone praised it as girl power. Like... what? Also the whole Anaconda/Bad Blood issue.

 i agree 100% with you but, in my opinion and totally playing devil´s advocate, any - especially white and in the 2010´s era- celebrity is not a true “good example for *insert cause here*” 

i think the whole girl squad thing was a learning curve -- meaning i think she grew from that and probably doesnt agree with what she made 100&-- AND a defense mechanism because, everyone was coming for her so, in my perspective, that was her way of “hey! not everybody hates me!! some even have my back!” not the right move but..what she was supposed to do too you know?

i had to research the anaconda thing and, i agree but playing the davils advocate yet again, its not like nicki posted that on a random saturday evening about a mild thing that came into her mind. it seems like nicki wrote something among the lines “if the shoe fits, wear it” but like nicki made the shoe exactly for taylor and put a huge sign with “miss taylor!! for you!!” so everybody would know it was her nicki was adressing. if she didnt respond, people would probably be like “taylor is quiet because she knows it was for her” so in my mind it was those types of situation where she would lose either way.

what i come to realize with your ask is that i mispoke. what i meant to say is “what is the reason for yall to hate on taylor just because” your opinion is totally understable and REASONABLE like it wasnt “what do you mean you dont despise her?? shes a garbage human being!” i was refeering to the undying and unreasonable -- for me at least jsjs-- HATRED towards taylor, those people that dont miss the beat to talk badly about her.

not loving her? not agreeing with her decisions in the past? not liking her stuff? TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE. for me, those people are still bitter that she has dated “hot guys” -- it boys per say -- and is successful.

[inanawesomewave]

YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN - WHEN SOCIOPATHS DISCARD, AND WHY

My favourite song in the world is probably Surfing on a Rocket by AIR. It’s not my most listened-to song in the world, it’s not one that I make other people listen to when I’m trying to get them onto my wavelength, I don’t even think I have it saved on my phone, but it’s the one that has been, undoubtedly, playing in the background of every single goodbye I have said, and interestingly, every single goodbye I have said, I have been happy to have said. 

 “Time for surfing rockets, for silver jets, for surfing bombs” . I took the plunge recently and googled “sociopathic friend”; “sociopath ex”; “how do you know you’re working with a sociopath”; “sociopath tactics for control”. I hate all of those articles that get written arming the general public away from the cold, dead eyes of the mythical sociopath, how the armchair diagnosis of the callous sociopath has become a panacea for all emotional ailments. In fact, I find it downright dangerous and maladaptive to offhandedly but systemically give a clinical name to bad behaviour and worse, a diagnosis to someone who just didn’t love you. I saw a thing the other day on Facebook (I’m on there, don’t be surprised) and it was this really painstakingly drawn picture of a guy pulling anal beads out of his asshole and within each anal bead was a tiny Pikachu figurine, crying, and the thing the guy was anally pleasuring himself to was the cold light of his mobile phone, and on the screen, a picture of himself. The caption was something like, “The Narcissistic Sociopath”. I look at stuff like that and I think, “Imagine going to all the trouble of drawing this, and still not realising that maybe the problem is you?”.  Don’t get me wrong, friends, I agree we should be able to put a name to the abuses we have suffered, but I just don’t think that yelling SOCIOPATH! NARCISSIST! whenever someone, oh I dunno, cuts in front of you in a queue (they’re in a rush, they’re busy) or cheats on you (maybe they were fucking depressed?) or tells you to go to hell (you were being a dickhead) is getting anyone anywhere. It’s not even the scaremongering I disapprove of because honestly, I was a goth at school so there’s something in that spooky ooOOOoooOOoo CREEEPY sociopath oooOOOoo! aesthetic that I dig, but I worry about what it’s doing to the accusers. I worry it’s self-appointed sainthood, that martyrdom is becoming a worthy cause, that the true narcissism is diagnosing someone with a complicated and pervasive mental illness because they upset you and then setting up a YouTube channel where you talk about the menace of the narcissist or the sociopath. I worry, because lack of insight is the most troubling part of insanity. 
So why did I google this stuff? 
Because I was so, SO curious. I wanted the gossip. How out of line was it? What do they SAY about us? Have we been clever all this time, are we not going undetected? What of our secrets do the general public know? And how do I spot a sociopath? Could I too be spotted? Is it my eyes? Are they empty?  It was exactly what you’d expect, and I didn’t feel too bad reading the myths and folklore surrounding us. For example, did you know that we’re incapable of love? We can’t keep friendships? That mind control comes naturally to us? I didn’t know any of this either, but if these are the lies that keep people entertained, whatever. Because what that means, is real sociopaths are going undetected. We’re being left alone. We’re getting on with our lives with impunity, because nobody suspected us when we married the loves of our lives, doted on our children and moved mountains to help our friends. 
But then I read something that made me feel a little bit… seen:

 “One of the most painful and jarring aspects of a pathological relationship is the cold and calculated discard… they say it’s over but you don’t understand why… they tend to catch you off guard and wholly unprepared for this horrific fate.”
 The writer of this diatribe even went so far as to predict some of the things we might say to you when we’re calculatingly fucking off and leaving you, they include:

 “I don’t want to be in a relationship” 
“We are just not compatible” What the fuck? 
 Okay. So here’s where the thrust of this blog is going to be. 
 Are sociopaths not allowed to need to leave something that is hurting them? 

I’ve ended relationships, I thought fairly, using those two phrases before. You know how hard it is to upkeep the performance of love and commitment with someone who has grown away from you in such a way that you can’t work out why you were ever together? Or what if that relationship has become stultifying, the person in question has neglected themselves and you to such an extent that you’re having to do everything, take on all the roles they need and do all of the things they can’t but it’s okay because they don't have a personality disorder? What's sociopathic about walking away? What’s so inherently evil about saying, “I don't want to do this any more”? Is it a quirk of sociopathy to realise your mistake when you thought you were meant to be near someone and then you realised being near them was painful because they aren't the answer to your problems and you're tired? I wondered, for all the talk we hear about self care and cutting out toxic people, are we not allowed to do that? Does self care not count if your self interest is clinical? 
 But I know what it is, really. I’m being naive. It’s something all sociopaths do that we think is normal so to conceive of anyone being hurt by this is impossible and then that good old lack of empathy and its failure to kick in is what keeps us doing this over and over with — if you’re anything like me — an unwillingness to change that behaviour. 
It’s the fact that we just walk away. It’s the word “discard”. Sociopaths are cold and callous when one day we tell you we love you and we’ll speak to you soon, and the next we’ve deleted you off all social media and out of our lives. Okay, I’ll concede to that. Here’s why, though. 
 “Five, four, three, two, one, zero, no-one can stop me to go”. Losing respect for someone is a big deal, in Sociopath Land, and if you believe that we are all incapable of love and so affection and commitment are illusions then you're wrong. Our love is based on respect, for everyone in my life I have adored, I have respected the bones of and I have been in love with their respect for me, since if I’m offering up a love and a life based around my overwhelming respect for someone, I expect it back, because it's not sociopathic to appreciate that the transaction of respect must be equal at all times. I will fight very hard for my respect for my partners, friends and family, and often, if I feel I'm losing respect for someone (and this never happens at random — I lose respect when I sense respect is being lost for me, because then I think that person is being selfish and lazy and exploitative because hi, yes, that's what it is) I will accept that I'm often paranoid and usually wrong and will fight tooth and nail to hang onto that shred of respect I have for that person. I will fight especially hard if that's a person I’d love to keep in my life, if I’ve analysed that their presence in my life is a good one: we make each-other feel good, I can talk to them, I want to help them when they're struggling. And people won’t like this but fuck it, people don't like us: if I see someone as weak by their own volition, I don't want them near me. 
 So these are the reasons I’ll stay, or leave. But what’s really cold, is it doesn't matter what came before. All that matters is the moment I decide I don't respect you any more. Yes, I will tell you one moment that I love you and can’t wait to see you again, and the next time you try to contact me my number has changed and my online presence has disappeared. All you know, is that something bad has happened, and whilst I didn't think of this, I'm aware that your reaction would at first be to worry that something has happened, something alien beyond both of our controls. You will ask around, if something bad happened to me, did I have to run away somewhere, was I in danger? And then it will dawn on you when you realise that I am what I am: I just don't love you any more, and I don't love you because you became someone I could not respect, or you used too much of my emotional energy up, or you started treating me as an afterthought, or you stopped listening to me and only cared about yourself, or you prioritised your ease over my pain, or I sensed you were discarding me, or you took the piss out of me and reminded me of the emotional neglect I came from, or you started to behave in ways I found deplorable, or you actively hurt me, or you simply just became someone I found myself wanting to laugh at rather than wanting to help, and the reason I want to laugh now is because I can’t find a way to respect you. But I respect you enough to leave. Because if I don’t leave, I’m going to have to stay, and if I stay when I have no respect for you, then I no longer have a filter. I don’t want to spare your feelings any more. You will talk about your life and your dreams and your loves and hates and nothing in me will want to listen or support you or love you or expend the psychic energy required to listen to you drone on and on and on again about your homemade problems, your bad behaviour, your pretend struggles. And I will have no reason to give you my mask — you no longer deserve the “I'm proud of you!” and “you can do it!” and “how can I help?”. And the more and more I sit there and listen to you talk the angrier I become. So in this sense, discarding is a panic move. If I were to play devils advocate, I'd say discarding is safeguarding. It’s better for you that I disappear from your life so hard that you have to wonder if I ever existed, because if I stay, I might have to tell you what I really think of you, and once I do that, I feel a game has begun. And when I discard you, it’s because, as I said above, I’ve started to sense your discard of me, and your discard is long and drawn out and painful — people all the time suddenly stop being there for their friends, become incapable of caring about anyone but themselves, failing to upkeep the relationship, asking for labour but refusing to give it back. At least the sociopath’s discard is quick and painless — I have no interest in sticking around and watching you squirm, I just want to get away from you so that sticking around and watching you squirm doesn’t become a viable option for me, one that I turn to out of sheer frustration and anger and aggressive disrespect made all the more furious with the betrayal that comes when you once respected someone with all your might. No, I’m just going to walk away and close every single door, tape off every single avenue, kill every single possible lead that could lead you back to me. This is done. We never met. You don't know me. Look the other way. 
 
So yes, that's something they’ve got right, but is it really so evil? Is that an example of true malevolence? It may seem fair to me, but what do I know? 
Let me know what you think. 

“You’ll never see me again”.

[whorchataaa]

Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed?

A mentally ill man is standing in your yard yelling at the mailbox. What do you do? You call the police, right? Not so fast, according to today’s guest, mental health advocate Gabriel Nathan. There is a better way to do things. Gabriel believes that rather than training police officers to de-escalate people in mental health crises, the police shouldn’t be called at all in these situations.

Our host Gabe has a different take on things, as he is an advocate for training police officers in crisis intervention practices. Join us for an enlightening and nuanced conversation regarding the role of the police when it comes to mental health crises.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show!

And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!

  Guest Information for ‘Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training’ Podcast Episode

Gabriel Nathan is an author, editor, actor, and a mental health and suicide awareness advocate. He is Editor in Chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication that features stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. Recently, OC87 Recovery Diaries produced a unique film series called “Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health” that features candid and moving recovery stories from firefighters, EMS personnel, law enforcement, dispatchers, and a crisis intervention specialist instructor. These films are being used by first responder agencies across the U. S. and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Independent of his work at OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabe raises mental health awareness, generates conversations around suicide and its prevention, and spreads a message of hope with his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, Herbie the Love Bug replica that bears the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on its rear window. Gabriel lives in a suburb of Philadelphia with his wife, twins, a Basset hound named Tennessee, a long-haired German Shepherd named Sadie, and his Herbie. You can view Gabriel’s TEDx Talk on his approach to suicide awareness here. Gabriel and Herbie teamed up to produce a documentary film about their suicide awareness mission; you can view the entire film and learn more information about Gabriel, Herbie, and suicide awareness here. You can also follow Gabriel and Herbie on IG @lovebugtrumpshate.

  About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, my name is Gabe Howard, I am the host of the Not Crazy podcast and I am here with Lisa Kiner.

Lisa Kiner: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is by John F. Kennedy, The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Gabe Howard: It sort of reminds me of this idea that if it can happen to somebody else, it can happen to you, and if it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody. And I say this in mental health advocacy a lot. I was like, you realize if people with mental health conditions can’t get access to care, that means sick people can’t get access to care. So if you get sick, it is certainly possible that you might not be able to get access to care. But we always kind of dismiss that as it’s going to happen to other people.

Lisa Kiner: I think that’s just human nature. Everybody thinks that only good things are going to be coming to them and any bad things out there are going to be going to other people.

Gabe Howard: Well, and other people who deserve the bad things, right? Like we have this idea that every bad thing that happens to somebody else, it’s because they deserved it. They must they must have been doing something wrong.

Lisa Kiner: But I think that’s also self protective. The idea that the universe is random and bad things could happen to anybody at any time is scary. But if I think to myself, oh, no, that person brought that upon them, they did something that made the bad thing happen, that makes me feel better. I will not do that thing. Therefore, the bad thing will not happen to me. Therefore, me and mine are safe.

Gabe Howard: This, of course, all plays into a larger conversation that America is having with law enforcement and policing. We believe that police are 100% right in any police interaction. Whoever they are interacting with is 100% wrong. And in the mental health circles, this isn’t exactly believed in the same way because, you know, we have CIT, we have Crisis Intervention Training because we understand that when we’re in

crisis, people are going to call the police. If Gabe Howard is in crisis, somebody’s going to pick up the phone and call 911 and say, hey, there’s this giant guy acting erratically and we need help. And then the police are going to come, and we have decided that we’re OK with that. But we want to train police officers. And that’s where crisis intervention training came from. Full disclosure, that I believe in the CIT program so much, I teach it in central Ohio. I am proud of the work that I do. I am very pro, I am very, very, very pro training police officers on how to work with people with mental illness. Recently, I had the very good fortune to be involved in a virtual screening of a series put out by OC87 Recovery Diaries called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. And it was talking about the suicide rates for first responders., talking about all kinds of things that I had never heard before. After it was all over, I was talking to Gabriel Nathan, who is the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, and we were talking specifically about the crisis intervention training, of which I am a huge fan. And Gabriel said to me, well, I’m not a big fan of CIT. I think that CIT should go away. Lisa, you have known me for a long time. You can only imagine the words that were coming out of my mouth.

Lisa Kiner: It seems like a pretty unreal statement.

Gabe Howard: And a conversation ensued, and I have no idea if I agree with Gabriel or not. On one hand, he makes some extraordinarily valid points that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, I remember what life was like in Columbus, Ohio, before the CIT program came along and of course, how much good it did. And I came to you, Lisa, and I said, Lisa, you’re never going to believe what this idiot Gabriel Nathan said to me. And this, of course, started a big debate between us.

Lisa Kiner: Yes, and from your version of what you and Gabriel talked about, I am really interested to hear what he has to say.

Gabe Howard: In addition to being the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabriel Nathan lives with depression. He’s a prominent mental health advocate who understands what it’s like. And on our show, we don’t want people with mental illness just to show up and tell their personal stories. We want to be more than that.

Lisa Kiner: And it’s not that we don’t think that the personal story has value, it absolutely  does, but there’s plenty of sources out there for that. We want to have something different here at Not Crazy. On our show, we want to have people come on to discuss, argue, debate and talk about the world around us from the point of view of someone living with mental illness like us.

Gabe Howard: All right, Lisa, I think we’re ready to bring Gabriel on. Gabriel, welcome to the show.

Gabriel Nathan: Hi, and thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: I love working with you because I think, now I’m not sure, but I think that our hobby is to disagree with each other because we love the debate so much. Is that true today? Like everything that you’re about to say, these are your genuine beliefs. You’re not playing devil’s advocate. We are having a real conversation. We’re not doing this thing where we each pick a side and pretend that we care. We care.

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah, these are my real views, I don’t play devil’s advocate because I really don’t have time to expostulate on some view that isn’t my own just for the sake of of arguing or being a guest on something. I really believe in speaking my own truth passionately. I don’t speak on behalf of any organization. These views are my own and I’m proud to share them with you.

Gabe Howard: Well, thank you again, Gabriel, and we’re super glad to have you. So let’s get right into it. You believe that that CIT, police officers, all of that, should have zero involvement in mental health. And if you were king of the world, you’d kick them out immediately. Can you explain that?

Gabriel Nathan: I think zero involvement is perhaps not quite accurate.

Gabe Howard: Ok.

Gabriel Nathan: So, for example, if someone is suicidal and they have a firearm, that’s a police emergency. Because, as they say, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And we know that there are people who take their own lives via suicide by cop. People who will

point a firearm at a law enforcement officer who will fire, who will perhaps even shoot a police officer to provoke a response from other responding officers to kill them as well. So when firearms are involved, all bets are off. I just want to make that absolutely clear. First of all, before I really get into the weeds of the question, what I have found is whenever you are taking a position that is critical in any way of law enforcement or attempts to raise questions even about the way law enforcement agencies do anything, it is extremely important to establish your own bona fides. Because anybody who steps up to challenge law enforcement is immediately regarded with suspicion, paranoia, is dismissed as a quote, you know, libtard, troll, anti-cop antifa, whatever. I’m none of those things. I am someone who, for the last 20 years, has been an advocate for slain police officers and their families through editorials, commentaries in newspapers. I have attended over 10 police funerals in Philadelphia down to Maryland.

Gabriel Nathan: I have done a lot of advocacy work for law enforcement and also in regard to mental health of first responders. I produced a film series called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health for OC87 Recovery Diaries that features police officers, EMS personnel, dispatchers, fire service individuals talking about trauma and complex PTSD. I’m very well aware of the suicide rate for police officers. I am someone who knows law enforcement culture. I am someone who has a respect for police officers and what they do. However, just like when you criticize America, that doesn’t mean that you should leave it or that you don’t have any right to do that. I think that you need to know what you’re talking about. But I think we have every right to criticize institutions. I think we have every right to criticize this nation. And so I just want people to know that I am doing this from a place of love and concern and from a position of someone who believes ardently that there absolutely needs to be change and radical reimagining of law enforcement, not just related to mental health response but across the board. But, yes, I do believe that law enforcement should have very, very little place in mental health response.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Gabriel, for establishing your bona fides, and I really appreciate that. The example that I always use is just because I think that my wife did something wrong doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. And just because my wife thinks that I can improve doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me. And I think people really understand that in terms of our interpersonal relationships, friends, family, etc. But for some reason, when we extend it into the public space, it’s like, aha! You must be for or against me.

Gabriel Nathan: Yes, right.

Gabe Howard: This show is very much trying to establish more of a middle ground. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But we try to believe that we’re Not Crazy when we do it. The first question is CIT, people fought very, very hard to get CIT established in America. This is something that mental health advocates worked really, really hard for decades to bring CIT. So to listen to a prominent mental health advocate like yourself say, well, yeah, maybe we picked the wrong horse. Maybe we shouldn’t have backed that at all. Maybe we should have backed this instead. It sounds almost like you’re saying, hey, you just wasted 40 years bringing this here. It’s very nuanced, and I want you to tease that out because

Gabriel Nathan: Sure.

Gabe Howard: I suppose the real question, if not CIT, what?

Gabriel Nathan: Right. That’s a perfectly valid statement about what people would say and about what’s next. First of all, CIT, also known as quote, the Memphis model, was established in 1986. OK. There is a whole other model of crisis intervention that was begun more than 10 years before that at the psychiatric facility where I used to work. It’s called Montgomery County Emergency Service. It’s located in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Gabe, you know, while you were on the campus,

Gabe Howard: I do.

Gabriel Nathan: MCES created something called CIS. So it stands for Crisis Intervention Specialist training. And this was created in 1975 – 1976 to teach crisis intervention and deescalation to police officers. The philosophy behind this, as opposed to CIT, is train everybody in the department, train every single police officer in this stuff, in recognizing signs and symptoms of mental illness, in learning about what it feels like to issue commands to someone who may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, learning  

about substance abuse, escalation of force, all that kind of stuff. Right? So this was already in play for ten years prior to the Memphis model. And the Memphis model said, let’s train specific officers in the department to respond to mental health emergencies. Working at MCES, as I did from 2010 to 2015, I was very immersed in the CIS culture and I gravitated much more to that because I think first, a component of CIT that’s inherently flawed is you’re only picking certain officers, right? Now, there are certain officers on duty all the time, but they may be tied up with other things. When a psychiatric emergency is happening, they may not always be available to respond. So you might be bipolar and manic and trying to rip out a traffic sign at 3:00 a.m. in an intersection in your town. Well, gee, the CIT officer, unfortunately, had to go to a domestic. So now you might be getting a sort of not very well trained, not empathic, not understanding officer to your situation. And he may be an action junkie. He may be someone who doesn’t have his emotions in check.

Gabe Howard: Or they may be somebody who is just not trained.

Gabriel Nathan: Exactly, exactly. And that may have a bad outcome. OK. Now there might be a bad outcome even with a trained officer. Also, being CIT trained is not a bulletproof vest, and it doesn’t mean that an encounter with a law enforcement officer is going to go hunky dory all the time. That’s important to recognize also. I have had police commanders say to me, to my face when I’ve questioned CIS, they’ve said, well, you know, we like CIT better because, quite frankly, not all of our officers would be good at that kind of thing. And I said, what is that kind of thing? Spending time to talk to someone as opposed to just taking them to the floor? Trying to de-escalate someone as opposed to escalating the situation? And of course, there’s no answer for that. And what I said is, if certain officers that you have, quote, wouldn’t be good at that kind of thing, they shouldn’t be police officers. And I really believe that. So that’s my problem CIT. You’re kind of cherry picking officers who you think would be good at that when really they all should be good at that, and lack of availability. But really, when you widen the scope and really look at the situation of law enforcement officers responding to mental health emergencies, psychiatric emergencies, you use the term de-escalation, right? While we’re teaching these police officers to de-escalate a situation that is potentially volatile. And what do we have? We have someone who’s not doing well. They may be off their medication, they may be psychotic, they may be paranoid. And we have a black and white radio car rolling up.

Gabriel Nathan: The door opens, the big boot steps out, they wear these big boots, you know, and the officer gets out and he’s got his bulletproof vest and he’s all jacked up, puffed up, looking twice as big as he actually is. He’s got the gun. He’s got the taser, he’s got the extra ammunition. He’s got the handcuffs. He’s got the retractable baton. He’s got the sunglasses with the mirrored finish, so you can’t even see his eyes. He’s got the buzz cut. I’m stereotyping. They don’t all look like that, but a lot of them do. That’s who we’re asking to, quote, deescalate a situation. And they’re showing up with the power of arrest to take your freedoms away from you, to lock you up. What is an individual who’s experiencing a psychiatric emergency most afraid of? They’re afraid of being restrained. They’re afraid of being contained. They’re afraid of having their freedoms taken away from them. And that’s who we bring to the scene. And so, I believe that crisis intervention training for law enforcement officers really puts them in an impossible situation where we’re saying you, just by your very presence, you are an escalation of force, but we want you to de-escalate the situation. It just on its face doesn’t make any sense to me.

Lisa Kiner: Interesting, no, I would agree with you on that completely

Gabe Howard: The police force, or society has decided that the police respond to people with mental illness and we’ve got this one little program that people we had to advocate for.

Gabriel Nathan: Right, right.

Gabe Howard: Remember, police have been responding to people in a mental health crisis since before CIT.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: And we had to convince them that it was a good idea to train the responders. I just.

Gabriel Nathan: But that presupposes. That says, well, it’s not good that the police are responding to mental health emergencies, but if they’ve gotta, then at least train them. But they don’t gotta. That’s the flaw in the system,

Gabe Howard: Ok, gotcha, gotcha.

Gabriel Nathan: In my opinion, that’s what mental health advocates got wrong. They kind of just laid down and said, well, this is how it’s going to be. You know, the police are just going to do it, so we might as well train them. And that was the wrong supposition. This is incorrect. You know, if we can agree that people should not be showing up to a psychiatric hospital in the back of a patrol car with their hands cuffed behind their back, if we can all agree on that, and I think we can all agree on that, then we can all agree that the precipitating events that make that end result happen should also not be happening.

Gabe Howard: I just want to point out that I am involved in CIT. I’m a trainer for CIT, as I said at the top of the show. And I want you to know that what I tell people that CIT is not mandatory, they are confused.

Gabriel Nathan: Of course.

Gabe Howard: The belief of the general public is that CIT is mandatory for all officers.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely not. If they receive anything at the police academy level, it is very, very minimal and very, very terse. They don’t really address the trauma that police officers are going to experience. They don’t address the issue of police suicide, and they also don’t really address deescalating situations. It’s all about control. How do you control a suspect? How do you take control of a situation? How do you take command of a scene? The police academy curriculum is very, very full. And as we’ve seen with all of these discussions about reimagining law enforcement, we know in Germany it takes three years to become a police officer. In other places, it takes two years. My police academy curriculum, it was full time and it was nine months. All right. But nowhere in that nine months curriculum was there room for crisis intervention, de-escalation, signs and symptoms of mental illness, all that kind of stuff. That’s all taught later.

Gabe Howard: Right, and it’s voluntary in most places, and I think it’s important to point out that in many municipalities it takes longer to become a hairstylist than it does to become a police officer.

Gabriel Nathan: Correct. Right. Yes.

Lisa Kiner: You talked about the changing nature of police work, what’s up with that? How is police work changing and why?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, in the bad old days, it was like, come in, bust up whatever is going on, throw whoever it is who’s causing the most trouble in the back of the paddy wagon, maybe rap him over the head with the baton a couple of times and that’s it. And there were no cameras, no one saw anything. You know, it was, they call it the bad old days for a reason. Nobody used words like de-escalation and crisis intervention in the 60s, in the 70s. It’s let’s get in, let’s turn this guy up against the wall, and that’s it. Nowadays, we are expecting law enforcement officers to behave in different ways, to respond to very emotionally complex and dynamic situations and to resolve situations without their fists, without their baton, without their gun, without their taser. So expectations have risen and they need to rise to the challenge of that. And I don’t think these are unreasonable expectations, that you should be able to resolve a situation without violence. I think eight or nine times out of ten that is possible to do. Now, sure, you’re going to have bad actors who just want to hurt somebody and they need to be dealt with appropriately. And that’s fine. But I think there are times when there’s a situation occurring and a law enforcement officer is nearing the end of his shift and he just wants to get it over with and all right. That’s it. No, that’s not it.

Gabriel Nathan: You have all the time in the world to take care of this situation. And people have rights and people have a right to not be thrown on the ground face first simply because you have somewhere to be in an hour. Sorry, that’s not good enough. And we need to expect better of our police officers. Police officers are expected to be more social workers. And maybe that’s who we need to be attracting in terms of law enforcement, people who are articulate, people who understand family dynamics, people who take their time, people who don’t want to roll around on the floor with someone if they don’t have to. When I first applied to the psychiatric hospital, I applied to be an EMT to work on their psychiatric ambulance. And when I interviewed for the

position, I said to the ambulance director, I am not an action junkie. I am not a cowboy. I am not interested in busting down doors and rolling around on the floor with somebody. If I have to do it, I will do it. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that I don’t do that. And she said, well, most of the people we get applying for this job are cowboys, and that’s the problem. We need to stop kind of glorifying this profession and saying that this is what it’s all about. It’s all about takedowns and arrests. It ain’t all about that. It shouldn’t be all about that. And we need to be recruiting people who are not all about that.

Lisa Kiner: Well, Gabe had on The Psych Central Podcast a few months ago, a police officer, and the question was, why do the police respond to this at all? Why do we not send social workers? Why do we not send therapists? And his answer was because it is such a volatile and dynamic situation that you don’t know what will be required. His assumption was that violence will be required. And the thing he referenced specifically was, you know, something like half of all Americans own guns. So because this has such a large potential to escalate to a violent situation so quickly and we’re all wandering around with guns, that’s why we need police officers to respond. What would you say to that?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, what I would say to that is I think it’s very interesting that the police officer’s answer was about guns. It wasn’t about, quote, crazy people. We have a major problem in this country with firearms. And I think it’s really interesting, too, because so many police officers are avid gun collectors. They’re all into the NRA. They’re all about the Second Amendment, and yet they’re afraid about responding to houses of people with guns.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t think about that one.

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, so that’s a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion. I am so, so sick of having arguments with people about firearms, particularly with law enforcement officers. So they want to be all Second Amendment and guns, guns, guns. But all of a sudden, well, we need to respond to mental health calls because there are so many guns in this country. Well, yeah, there are, and that’s a huge problem. And yes, half of all suicides occur with a firearm. Two thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. You’re more likely to kill yourself than you are to be killed with a firearm.

Gabriel Nathan: So let’s just put that out there right now. It also presupposes that people with mental illness are dangerous. And we know statistically that that is not true. However, people with serious and persistent mental illness who are off their medication and who may be using street narcotics and who may be increasingly paranoid, yeah, they can be dangerous, that’s for sure. And I have certainly seen that in the hospital. But what I will also tell you is my sister in law is a social worker for the VA. The VA has no compunction about sending my unarmed sister in law who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. Sorry Tova, I just revealed your weight. But unarmed, they give her self-defense training, crisis intervention training and using your your hands to defend yourself. Now, they always go out in teams, of course, they don’t send her alone. But they will send two unarmed females to deal with veterans who have traumatic brain injuries, a lot of whom are using drugs and alcohol, to apartments alone. Oh, but a police officer with a bulletproof vest and a gun and extra ammo and a shotgun in his car and all the rest of it needs to go to a psychiatric emergency call. I’m sorry, I don’t think so.

Gabe Howard: Well, it’s the same thing with children. I have often thought of that as well. If I call Children’s Services right now on my neighbor, they send a social worker.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: Now, I know that different states are different, but in my state, in Ohio, if there is a welfare check for children, they send a single social worker to talk to people about their children.

Gabriel Nathan: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re investigating whether or not these people are child abusers.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And that can be done by somebody with absolutely no protection, no weapon, no anything.

Gabriel Nathan: And there may very well be a gun in that house.

Lisa Kiner: That’s a good point.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And, of course, you’re messing with people’s children.

Lisa Kiner: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Lisa Kiner: And we’re back with Gabriel Nathan talking about police response to people with mental illness.

Gabe Howard: I know we’ve kind of skirted around the issue of how we should get police officers away from responding to us. But I don’t know that you’ve provided an actual answer of if not them, then who? 

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: When Gabe Howard is having a mental health crisis, I need, like, I personally want somebody to save me. We can all agree with that.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: So who’s coming?

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, first of all, not every situation needs a call to anybody. I think we’re also presupposing that police officers dealing with mental health cases are only called when there is, quote, an emergency. A lot of calls to police involving mental health issues are nuisance issues.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t consider that.

Gabriel Nathan: Perfect example. There’s someone who lives in my community who is seriously and persistently mentally ill. He yells and screams a lot. He curses a lot. He knocks on the window at people and gives them the finger. OK, stuff like that. People call the cops on him. That’s not a psychiatric emergency. That is not a case of life or death. That’s someone who doesn’t like their neighbor. And so the police show up and there could be a violent, bad outcome for no reason whatsoever. That person is not endangering themselves. That person is not endangering anybody else. It is not against the law to be mentally ill. However, we’ve created a situation where people just pick up the phone and call the police willy nilly because they’re scared of crazy people. I mean, let’s just put it out there, right. That’s very unfortunate. And so we certainly don’t need the police responding to situations like that. You know, that is a situation that can be just dealt with in the community. There is a lot of different areas to explore between nothing and either inpatient hospitalization or an arrest. That’s what we need to to be aware of I think. Now, when we talk about, quote, defunding the police, that’s different than abolishing the police or disbanding the police. A lot of money that goes into buying weapons and car porn could be used to fund mobile crisis units. Mobile crisis units are comprised of mental health workers who are not armed. They do not respond in emergency looking vehicles. They wear civilian clothes. They are very trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. So, maybe assessing is someone not engaging in proper self care? Are they possibly a danger to themselves or others? Do they need a higher level of care? If you do not have a mobile crisis unit in your county, you better start advocating for one now. And a lot of them work in conjunction with law enforcement. I do  

believe at a potentially dangerous scene, law enforcement could be there to establish scene safety and then back off. Leave entirely. OK, are there guns here? We do a search. Is this person violent? Pat the person down. OK, we’re out of here. And then let the mobile crisis team handle it. So, we don’t have to remove them one hundred percent from the equation, but just decrease our dependance on them. There are also very, very, very, very few psychiatric ambulance squads in the country. And by very few, I mean basically one, which operates out of Montgomery County Emergency Services, the hospital I used to work at.

Gabriel Nathan: These are fully trained and certified emergency medical technicians who run on fully equipped basic life support ambulances. They can respond to all manner of physical emergencies, but they also respond to psychiatric emergencies. They execute psychiatric commitment warrants. They show up in an ambulance. They have polo shirts and khakis. They don’t have the badges and all that stuff. If you need to go to the hospital, you’ll go on a stretcher in an ambulance. Not handcuffed in the back of a police car. That’s how it should be in America. So we’ve got psychiatric ambulance squads, we’ve got mobile crisis. We have social workers embedded in law enforcement. We have the possibility of reimagining the kind of people we’re recruiting to do this job. There are lots of different ideas out there. London, for example, in the Metropolitan Police Department, the average constable that you see on duty does not carry a firearm. Now, in every municipality, there are armed response units that can be in a situation in a matter of minutes if they need to be. But maybe we need unarmed police officers in certain areas. It’s less threatening. And I know people will freak out at me about that, but, golly, it works in other places.

Lisa Kiner: So one of the things you said earlier was that part of the problem is that people are perceiving people with mental illness as scary. And when there’s something scary, you call the police. So do you think that part of this doesn’t actually have anything to do with the police? It’s more about how society views mental illness and the average person’s reaction to the mentally ill?

Gabriel Nathan: One hundred percent. It is the same thing as, unfortunately, a lot of Caucasian people’s gut reaction when they see a six foot two black man in their neighborhood. Oh, black people are scary. Oh, he looked in my window. What is that?

Oh, my God. OK, that’s learned subconscious racism. And we as white people need to recognize that we feel hinky, we feel uncomfortable and scared when we see a black person in our neighborhood. You know, you better do some really serious soul searching and try to figure out why that is. It’s the same thing with someone who has mental illness. You know, they’re in their garden and they’re talking to themselves and they’re yelling at your dog or whatever. Oh, that’s scary. I better pick up the phone and call the police. No. You better give that person some space and give yourself some time to reflect on why is that scary to you? And maybe sit with that feeling of discomfort. Where does that come from? What does that mean? Is that person really a threat to you? Is that person really a threat to your neighborhood and your existence? Someone said to me about that specific person that I mentioned, well, it’s a crime because he’s disturbing the peace and that’s a crime. And I really wanted to say to her, oh, so when you stub your toe in your garage and go, oh, f-word, should I call the police? You just disturbed the peace. When your dog is barking too loud? No, so we don’t do that right. But if someone’s yelling argh, government over me and I have a microchip in my tooth and, we’re calling the police. And we just hide behind that because we’re scared and we want the police to make it all better. And I’m sorry those days are over. Or if they’re not over, they should be over. We need to do better because people with mental illness are not going away. Gone are the days when we’re locking them away in institutions for years at a time. And we need to reckon with the fact that they’re in our community. And we need to do better.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. It’s been an incredible discussion and enlightening discussion, and you mentioned OC87 Recovery Diaries, which I think is incredible. So I’d like you to tell the listeners what that is first and foremost.

Gabriel Nathan: Sure. So I’m the editor in chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries. It’s a nonprofit mental health publication. We tell stories of mental health empowerment and change in two ways. First person mental health recovery essays. We publish a brand new personal essay every single week, and we also produce short subject, professionally made documentary films all about people living with mental health challenges. You can see all of our mental health films and read all of our mental health essays at OC87RecoveryDiaries.org. And if you want to follow me, really the only place to do that is on Instagram. I’m at Lovebug Trumps Hate and I would love to, I’d love to be your friend.

Gabe Howard: Lovebug Trumps Hate is about Gabriel driving around in his Herbie replica, his lovebug replica. The pictures are incredible. The suicide prevention that you do is incredible. But also on the OC87 Recovery Diarieswebsite is where you can find Beneath the Vest. That entire series is on their completely free, correct?

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Please watch it, it’s incredible. And you interviewed first responders. It’s not Gabriel talking. It’s actual first responders.

Gabriel Nathan: No, I’m not in it at all. So, it’s police officers, a dispatcher, firefighters, EMS personnel and my friend Michelle Monzo, who is the crisis intervention specialist trainer at MCES. All of the videos are free to watch.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, OC87 Recovery Diariesis a nonprofit, they survive by donations, please, if you see value in what they do, support them because they are worth it.

Gabriel Nathan: Thank you.

Gabe Howard: Ok. Gabriel, thank you so much for being here. To our listeners, hang on, as soon as we get rid of Gabriel, we’re going to talk behind his back.

Lisa Kiner: Well, again, it’s not behind his back because he can listen to it later.

Gabe Howard: That is very true,

Lisa Kiner: You keep forgetting that part.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. Thank you once again.

Lisa Kiner: Oh, thank you so much.

Gabriel Nathan: It’s a privilege. Thank you for having me on.

Gabe Howard: Lisa, were there any aha moments for you?

Lisa Kiner: Yes, actually. The point that Gabriel raised was that the police do not need to respond to these situations at all, that this is not a police matter. It honestly had not occurred to me that, yes, our default thing to do in America when there’s a problem is to call the police. It’s my default thought. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem that it makes sense to call the police about. It doesn’t have to be a school shooting or a hostage situation. That is just what we all do reflexively. If there’s a problem, we call the police. And it hadn’t occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: The exact example that Gabriel used was somebody being loud while walking down the street, not showing any form of aggression or violence or breaking things, but just making people feel uncomfortable. People are picking up the phone and saying, well, I’m scared because my neighbor is loud in their own yard.

Lisa Kiner: This person is exhibiting clear symptoms of mental illness. And therefore something needs to be done, therefore, we as a society must do something to make that stop. And the thing that we think will make that stop is to call the police. But in reality, no, that’s probably not going to work and could turn out very poorly. Why do we think the police are the people to call to make that stop? And why do we need to make it stop at all? Why can’t we just tolerate this? Why can’t we just allow this to go on?

Gabe Howard: I agree. That was kind of an aha moment for me, too. In teaching CIT, one of the things that police officers say all the time is you have to remember that it’s not illegal to be mentally ill and you call the police when something illegal has happened. Somebody’s being loud in their own yard, even if it is symptomatic, that is not illegal. Calling the police when no crime has been committed, it’s clearly escalating the situation that unfortunately, it often works out poorly for the person who is symptomatic. Not only do they not get help, but now the police are there. And just by showing up, there’s an escalation.

Lisa Kiner: I really hadn’t thought about, why is that the default, reflexive thing that you do? In this situation to call the police? Why is that?

Gabe Howard: I don’t know.

Lisa Kiner: Why do we as Americans do that? And, yeah, I don’t know either.

Gabe Howard: And that’s obviously on the general society, that’s not on police officers at all. This is just another example of where they get thrust in the middle of something that they are unprepared for, untrained for and not the best situation.

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: Lending credence, of course, to Gabriel Nathan’s point that police officers should be out of this entirely.

Lisa Kiner: Well, it’s just very interesting. Why do we decide that police are the ones who need to resolve every situation? That every difficult or uncomfortable situation, we should get the police to fix it? Why are they the designated fixer of such problems? And it had not occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: Agreed. That we’re sending law enforcement for a medical issue. I don’t agree with that at all, but I still think that it’s just very pie in the sky and optimistic and almost sunshine and rainbows to think that police officers will stop responding to mental health crises. It doesn’t sound logical to me.

Lisa Kiner: Well, I think you’re right about that, in part because police officers won’t be able to stop responding because the public will still call the police for these things. I think the argument that Gabriel is making is that it doesn’t have to be that way. The question will be what happens in the meantime while we’re working towards this goal? I don’t think he’s advocating getting rid of CIT.

Gabe Howard: Oh, yeah, I don’t think that either.

Lisa Kiner: He’s not saying that we should not train police officers to de-escalate or that we should not train police officers to handle people with mental illness. He’s saying that

we need to move towards this different vision, this different way of doing things. But obviously this type of training will always be valuable. Part of it is de-escalation. Isn’t that good for every crisis? Isn’t that good for every high energy, intense situation? How could that not be a good thing? Why wouldn’t you want to resolve a situation in a way other than with violence?

Gabe Howard: The use of force is problematic, especially when you consider the use of force on sick people. I’m obviously seeing the world very much through the eyes of somebody living with bipolar disorder. I was in crisis. I think about how close I came to having the police called on me. And I’m so very lucky that the people who were surrounding me were able to deescalate, control and, of course, didn’t feel threatened. You and I have talked about this before, Lisa. I don’t know why you didn’t call the police on me when I thought there were demons under my bed, I.

Lisa Kiner: Because I didn’t feel threatened.

Gabe Howard: I don’t understand why you didn’t feel threatened, but let’s put that on the back burner for a moment. You, of course, had a history with me.

Lisa Kiner: Yeah, you were not a stranger.

Gabe Howard: Imagine if I had thought the demons were under the cash register at Wal-Mart?

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: You know, I’m a large guy, I’m six foot three, 250 pounds, broad shouldered, and I’m screaming that there are demons in the cash register to a 19 year old who’s working the evening shift at the local supermarket. That would seem very threatening. And I’m sure that the police would be called. And I just don’t like the idea that the first thing that they would do upon seeing this loud, screaming, mentally ill man is tase me or tackle me or worse. I don’t know that the person picking up the phone and calling would say, hello, 911 operator, I believe that we have a mentally ill man here. I think that they would say that we have a violent asshole threatening a teenage girl. And how would they know to send the mental health team?

Lisa Kiner: Well, that’s why we’re hoping that all police officers would have this training, and it’s kind of like a triage type thing, right? You don’t have a surgeon standing at the gate of the emergency room. You have a trained person, usually a nurse, who can assess whether or not to immediately send you to the surgeon or tell you to go wait for your turn. The idea being that all police officers would have this ability to kind of triage the situation to say to themselves, huh, that’s mental illness, and then call the appropriate response. That once they figure out what’s going on, they can turn this over to someone else, someone with either more or different qualifications.

Gabe Howard: I like that, I like that a lot. I do feel the need to be extraordinarily thankful to all of the police officers who have gone through CIT since in many municipalities, it is not mandatory.

Lisa Kiner: Including here in Columbus.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, including here in my state. Which means the police officers who have done it have volunteered. They have decided that there is value in learning how to help people with mental health issues in a way other than what they’ve already learned. I sincerely am so grateful for police officers who have taken that extra step because they don’t have to.

Lisa Kiner: But it’s not entirely altruistic. They also see the utility in it. It’s not just about people wanting to be nice to people with mental illness. It’s also about wanting to be safe themselves, not wanting these situations to get out of control, about not wanting bad things to happen. This isn’t just a benefit to people living with mental illness. This is a benefit to everyone, including police officers.

Gabe Howard: I have mad respect for the police officers who realize that. Who realize that they can learn more and help their community in a better way. Somebody with mental illness who is in a mental health crisis is most likely going to be seen by a police officer before anybody else. That training is not required, even though it is understood that people with a mental health crisis will be seen by a police officer before anybody

else. That’s really the only take away that you need to understand. Right?

Lisa Kiner: There’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in society that makes no sense.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, yeah, if Gabe gets sick, they’re sending the police. Are they going to train the police? Nope.

Lisa Kiner: Well, maybe.

Gabe Howard: If the police officer sees the utility in it and has the introspection, the understanding and the time to sign up for CIT training all by themselves, the bottom line is I hope that any law enforcement, first responder or politician listening to this will understand that mental health training is vital, period. We learned so much from Gabriel Nathan that we decided to do another show with him over on The Psych Central Podcast. And you can find that show on your favorite podcast player, just search for The Psych Central Podcast. Or you can go to PsychCentral.com/Show, and it will be there on Thursday. And Gabriel talks about the suicide rate among law enforcement. Forget about protecting people like me with mental health issues and bipolar disorder. Forget about all of that. The suicide rate among first responders.

Lisa Kiner: It’s quite shocking that more police officers will die by suicide this year than will be killed in the line of duty. A lot more

Gabe Howard: Yeah, by a lot,

Lisa Kiner: Almost three times.

Gabe Howard: It made us do an entire another episode on an entire other podcast hosted by me, so please go to PsychCentral.com/Show or look for The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player. And listen to more from Gabriel Nathan, the executive director of OC87 and one of the people behind Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. Lisa, are you ready to get out of here?

Lisa Kiner: I think we’re good to go. Thanks again to Gabriel Nathan for being here with  

us.

Gabe Howard: All right, everybody, here’s what we need you to do. Please subscribe to Not Crazy on your favorite podcast player. Rank us, review us, use your words and type in why you like the show. This really helps us a lot. Share us on social media and also tell people why to listen. We love doing this show for you and you can help us out greatly just by doing those simple things.

Lisa Kiner: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy Fans! We are so cool our outtakes have sponsors! We want to give a shout out to Southern Cross University. Learn about mental health risk factors in older people at https://online.scu.edu.au/blog/risk-factors-mental-illness-older-people/. Check them both out and tell them Not Crazy sent you!

 The post Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed? first appeared on World of Psychology.

from https://ift.tt/2D1AUhU Check out https://peterlegyel.wordpress.com/

[ashley-unicorn]

Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed?

A mentally ill man is standing in your yard yelling at the mailbox. What do you do? You call the police, right? Not so fast, according to today’s guest, mental health advocate Gabriel Nathan. There is a better way to do things. Gabriel believes that rather than training police officers to de-escalate people in mental health crises, the police shouldn’t be called at all in these situations.

Our host Gabe has a different take on things, as he is an advocate for training police officers in crisis intervention practices. Join us for an enlightening and nuanced conversation regarding the role of the police when it comes to mental health crises.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show!

And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!

  Guest Information for ‘Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training’ Podcast Episode

Gabriel Nathan is an author, editor, actor, and a mental health and suicide awareness advocate. He is Editor in Chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication that features stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. Recently, OC87 Recovery Diaries produced a unique film series called “Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health” that features candid and moving recovery stories from firefighters, EMS personnel, law enforcement, dispatchers, and a crisis intervention specialist instructor. These films are being used by first responder agencies across the U. S. and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Independent of his work at OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabe raises mental health awareness, generates conversations around suicide and its prevention, and spreads a message of hope with his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, Herbie the Love Bug replica that bears the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on its rear window. Gabriel lives in a suburb of Philadelphia with his wife, twins, a Basset hound named Tennessee, a long-haired German Shepherd named Sadie, and his Herbie. You can view Gabriel’s TEDx Talk on his approach to suicide awareness here. Gabriel and Herbie teamed up to produce a documentary film about their suicide awareness mission; you can view the entire film and learn more information about Gabriel, Herbie, and suicide awareness here. You can also follow Gabriel and Herbie on IG @lovebugtrumpshate.

  About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, my name is Gabe Howard, I am the host of the Not Crazy podcast and I am here with Lisa Kiner.

Lisa Kiner: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is by John F. Kennedy, The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Gabe Howard: It sort of reminds me of this idea that if it can happen to somebody else, it can happen to you, and if it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody. And I say this in mental health advocacy a lot. I was like, you realize if people with mental health conditions can’t get access to care, that means sick people can’t get access to care. So if you get sick, it is certainly possible that you might not be able to get access to care. But we always kind of dismiss that as it’s going to happen to other people.

Lisa Kiner: I think that’s just human nature. Everybody thinks that only good things are going to be coming to them and any bad things out there are going to be going to other people.

Gabe Howard: Well, and other people who deserve the bad things, right? Like we have this idea that every bad thing that happens to somebody else, it’s because they deserved it. They must they must have been doing something wrong.

Lisa Kiner: But I think that’s also self protective. The idea that the universe is random and bad things could happen to anybody at any time is scary. But if I think to myself, oh, no, that person brought that upon them, they did something that made the bad thing happen, that makes me feel better. I will not do that thing. Therefore, the bad thing will not happen to me. Therefore, me and mine are safe.

Gabe Howard: This, of course, all plays into a larger conversation that America is having with law enforcement and policing. We believe that police are 100% right in any police interaction. Whoever they are interacting with is 100% wrong. And in the mental health circles, this isn’t exactly believed in the same way because, you know, we have CIT, we have Crisis Intervention Training because we understand that when we’re in

crisis, people are going to call the police. If Gabe Howard is in crisis, somebody’s going to pick up the phone and call 911 and say, hey, there’s this giant guy acting erratically and we need help. And then the police are going to come, and we have decided that we’re OK with that. But we want to train police officers. And that’s where crisis intervention training came from. Full disclosure, that I believe in the CIT program so much, I teach it in central Ohio. I am proud of the work that I do. I am very pro, I am very, very, very pro training police officers on how to work with people with mental illness. Recently, I had the very good fortune to be involved in a virtual screening of a series put out by OC87 Recovery Diaries called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. And it was talking about the suicide rates for first responders., talking about all kinds of things that I had never heard before. After it was all over, I was talking to Gabriel Nathan, who is the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, and we were talking specifically about the crisis intervention training, of which I am a huge fan. And Gabriel said to me, well, I’m not a big fan of CIT. I think that CIT should go away. Lisa, you have known me for a long time. You can only imagine the words that were coming out of my mouth.

Lisa Kiner: It seems like a pretty unreal statement.

Gabe Howard: And a conversation ensued, and I have no idea if I agree with Gabriel or not. On one hand, he makes some extraordinarily valid points that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, I remember what life was like in Columbus, Ohio, before the CIT program came along and of course, how much good it did. And I came to you, Lisa, and I said, Lisa, you’re never going to believe what this idiot Gabriel Nathan said to me. And this, of course, started a big debate between us.

Lisa Kiner: Yes, and from your version of what you and Gabriel talked about, I am really interested to hear what he has to say.

Gabe Howard: In addition to being the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabriel Nathan lives with depression. He’s a prominent mental health advocate who understands what it’s like. And on our show, we don’t want people with mental illness just to show up and tell their personal stories. We want to be more than that.

Lisa Kiner: And it’s not that we don’t think that the personal story has value, it absolutely  does, but there’s plenty of sources out there for that. We want to have something different here at Not Crazy. On our show, we want to have people come on to discuss, argue, debate and talk about the world around us from the point of view of someone living with mental illness like us.

Gabe Howard: All right, Lisa, I think we’re ready to bring Gabriel on. Gabriel, welcome to the show.

Gabriel Nathan: Hi, and thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: I love working with you because I think, now I’m not sure, but I think that our hobby is to disagree with each other because we love the debate so much. Is that true today? Like everything that you’re about to say, these are your genuine beliefs. You’re not playing devil’s advocate. We are having a real conversation. We’re not doing this thing where we each pick a side and pretend that we care. We care.

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah, these are my real views, I don’t play devil’s advocate because I really don’t have time to expostulate on some view that isn’t my own just for the sake of of arguing or being a guest on something. I really believe in speaking my own truth passionately. I don’t speak on behalf of any organization. These views are my own and I’m proud to share them with you.

Gabe Howard: Well, thank you again, Gabriel, and we’re super glad to have you. So let’s get right into it. You believe that that CIT, police officers, all of that, should have zero involvement in mental health. And if you were king of the world, you’d kick them out immediately. Can you explain that?

Gabriel Nathan: I think zero involvement is perhaps not quite accurate.

Gabe Howard: Ok.

Gabriel Nathan: So, for example, if someone is suicidal and they have a firearm, that’s a police emergency. Because, as they say, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And we know that there are people who take their own lives via suicide by cop. People who will

point a firearm at a law enforcement officer who will fire, who will perhaps even shoot a police officer to provoke a response from other responding officers to kill them as well. So when firearms are involved, all bets are off. I just want to make that absolutely clear. First of all, before I really get into the weeds of the question, what I have found is whenever you are taking a position that is critical in any way of law enforcement or attempts to raise questions even about the way law enforcement agencies do anything, it is extremely important to establish your own bona fides. Because anybody who steps up to challenge law enforcement is immediately regarded with suspicion, paranoia, is dismissed as a quote, you know, libtard, troll, anti-cop antifa, whatever. I’m none of those things. I am someone who, for the last 20 years, has been an advocate for slain police officers and their families through editorials, commentaries in newspapers. I have attended over 10 police funerals in Philadelphia down to Maryland.

Gabriel Nathan: I have done a lot of advocacy work for law enforcement and also in regard to mental health of first responders. I produced a film series called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health for OC87 Recovery Diaries that features police officers, EMS personnel, dispatchers, fire service individuals talking about trauma and complex PTSD. I’m very well aware of the suicide rate for police officers. I am someone who knows law enforcement culture. I am someone who has a respect for police officers and what they do. However, just like when you criticize America, that doesn’t mean that you should leave it or that you don’t have any right to do that. I think that you need to know what you’re talking about. But I think we have every right to criticize institutions. I think we have every right to criticize this nation. And so I just want people to know that I am doing this from a place of love and concern and from a position of someone who believes ardently that there absolutely needs to be change and radical reimagining of law enforcement, not just related to mental health response but across the board. But, yes, I do believe that law enforcement should have very, very little place in mental health response.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Gabriel, for establishing your bona fides, and I really appreciate that. The example that I always use is just because I think that my wife did something wrong doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. And just because my wife thinks that I can improve doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me. And I think people really understand that in terms of our interpersonal relationships, friends, family, etc. But for some reason, when we extend it into the public space, it’s like, aha! You must be for or against me.

Gabriel Nathan: Yes, right.

Gabe Howard: This show is very much trying to establish more of a middle ground. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But we try to believe that we’re Not Crazy when we do it. The first question is CIT, people fought very, very hard to get CIT established in America. This is something that mental health advocates worked really, really hard for decades to bring CIT. So to listen to a prominent mental health advocate like yourself say, well, yeah, maybe we picked the wrong horse. Maybe we shouldn’t have backed that at all. Maybe we should have backed this instead. It sounds almost like you’re saying, hey, you just wasted 40 years bringing this here. It’s very nuanced, and I want you to tease that out because

Gabriel Nathan: Sure.

Gabe Howard: I suppose the real question, if not CIT, what?

Gabriel Nathan: Right. That’s a perfectly valid statement about what people would say and about what’s next. First of all, CIT, also known as quote, the Memphis model, was established in 1986. OK. There is a whole other model of crisis intervention that was begun more than 10 years before that at the psychiatric facility where I used to work. It’s called Montgomery County Emergency Service. It’s located in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Gabe, you know, while you were on the campus,

Gabe Howard: I do.

Gabriel Nathan: MCES created something called CIS. So it stands for Crisis Intervention Specialist training. And this was created in 1975 – 1976 to teach crisis intervention and deescalation to police officers. The philosophy behind this, as opposed to CIT, is train everybody in the department, train every single police officer in this stuff, in recognizing signs and symptoms of mental illness, in learning about what it feels like to issue commands to someone who may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, learning  

about substance abuse, escalation of force, all that kind of stuff. Right? So this was already in play for ten years prior to the Memphis model. And the Memphis model said, let’s train specific officers in the department to respond to mental health emergencies. Working at MCES, as I did from 2010 to 2015, I was very immersed in the CIS culture and I gravitated much more to that because I think first, a component of CIT that’s inherently flawed is you’re only picking certain officers, right? Now, there are certain officers on duty all the time, but they may be tied up with other things. When a psychiatric emergency is happening, they may not always be available to respond. So you might be bipolar and manic and trying to rip out a traffic sign at 3:00 a.m. in an intersection in your town. Well, gee, the CIT officer, unfortunately, had to go to a domestic. So now you might be getting a sort of not very well trained, not empathic, not understanding officer to your situation. And he may be an action junkie. He may be someone who doesn’t have his emotions in check.

Gabe Howard: Or they may be somebody who is just not trained.

Gabriel Nathan: Exactly, exactly. And that may have a bad outcome. OK. Now there might be a bad outcome even with a trained officer. Also, being CIT trained is not a bulletproof vest, and it doesn’t mean that an encounter with a law enforcement officer is going to go hunky dory all the time. That’s important to recognize also. I have had police commanders say to me, to my face when I’ve questioned CIS, they’ve said, well, you know, we like CIT better because, quite frankly, not all of our officers would be good at that kind of thing. And I said, what is that kind of thing? Spending time to talk to someone as opposed to just taking them to the floor? Trying to de-escalate someone as opposed to escalating the situation? And of course, there’s no answer for that. And what I said is, if certain officers that you have, quote, wouldn’t be good at that kind of thing, they shouldn’t be police officers. And I really believe that. So that’s my problem CIT. You’re kind of cherry picking officers who you think would be good at that when really they all should be good at that, and lack of availability. But really, when you widen the scope and really look at the situation of law enforcement officers responding to mental health emergencies, psychiatric emergencies, you use the term de-escalation, right? While we’re teaching these police officers to de-escalate a situation that is potentially volatile. And what do we have? We have someone who’s not doing well. They may be off their medication, they may be psychotic, they may be paranoid. And we have a black and white radio car rolling up.

Gabriel Nathan: The door opens, the big boot steps out, they wear these big boots, you know, and the officer gets out and he’s got his bulletproof vest and he’s all jacked up, puffed up, looking twice as big as he actually is. He’s got the gun. He’s got the taser, he’s got the extra ammunition. He’s got the handcuffs. He’s got the retractable baton. He’s got the sunglasses with the mirrored finish, so you can’t even see his eyes. He’s got the buzz cut. I’m stereotyping. They don’t all look like that, but a lot of them do. That’s who we’re asking to, quote, deescalate a situation. And they’re showing up with the power of arrest to take your freedoms away from you, to lock you up. What is an individual who’s experiencing a psychiatric emergency most afraid of? They’re afraid of being restrained. They’re afraid of being contained. They’re afraid of having their freedoms taken away from them. And that’s who we bring to the scene. And so, I believe that crisis intervention training for law enforcement officers really puts them in an impossible situation where we’re saying you, just by your very presence, you are an escalation of force, but we want you to de-escalate the situation. It just on its face doesn’t make any sense to me.

Lisa Kiner: Interesting, no, I would agree with you on that completely

Gabe Howard: The police force, or society has decided that the police respond to people with mental illness and we’ve got this one little program that people we had to advocate for.

Gabriel Nathan: Right, right.

Gabe Howard: Remember, police have been responding to people in a mental health crisis since before CIT.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: And we had to convince them that it was a good idea to train the responders. I just.

Gabriel Nathan: But that presupposes. That says, well, it’s not good that the police are responding to mental health emergencies, but if they’ve gotta, then at least train them. But they don’t gotta. That’s the flaw in the system,

Gabe Howard: Ok, gotcha, gotcha.

Gabriel Nathan: In my opinion, that’s what mental health advocates got wrong. They kind of just laid down and said, well, this is how it’s going to be. You know, the police are just going to do it, so we might as well train them. And that was the wrong supposition. This is incorrect. You know, if we can agree that people should not be showing up to a psychiatric hospital in the back of a patrol car with their hands cuffed behind their back, if we can all agree on that, and I think we can all agree on that, then we can all agree that the precipitating events that make that end result happen should also not be happening.

Gabe Howard: I just want to point out that I am involved in CIT. I’m a trainer for CIT, as I said at the top of the show. And I want you to know that what I tell people that CIT is not mandatory, they are confused.

Gabriel Nathan: Of course.

Gabe Howard: The belief of the general public is that CIT is mandatory for all officers.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely not. If they receive anything at the police academy level, it is very, very minimal and very, very terse. They don’t really address the trauma that police officers are going to experience. They don’t address the issue of police suicide, and they also don’t really address deescalating situations. It’s all about control. How do you control a suspect? How do you take control of a situation? How do you take command of a scene? The police academy curriculum is very, very full. And as we’ve seen with all of these discussions about reimagining law enforcement, we know in Germany it takes three years to become a police officer. In other places, it takes two years. My police academy curriculum, it was full time and it was nine months. All right. But nowhere in that nine months curriculum was there room for crisis intervention, de-escalation, signs and symptoms of mental illness, all that kind of stuff. That’s all taught later.

Gabe Howard: Right, and it’s voluntary in most places, and I think it’s important to point out that in many municipalities it takes longer to become a hairstylist than it does to become a police officer.

Gabriel Nathan: Correct. Right. Yes.

Lisa Kiner: You talked about the changing nature of police work, what’s up with that? How is police work changing and why?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, in the bad old days, it was like, come in, bust up whatever is going on, throw whoever it is who’s causing the most trouble in the back of the paddy wagon, maybe rap him over the head with the baton a couple of times and that’s it. And there were no cameras, no one saw anything. You know, it was, they call it the bad old days for a reason. Nobody used words like de-escalation and crisis intervention in the 60s, in the 70s. It’s let’s get in, let’s turn this guy up against the wall, and that’s it. Nowadays, we are expecting law enforcement officers to behave in different ways, to respond to very emotionally complex and dynamic situations and to resolve situations without their fists, without their baton, without their gun, without their taser. So expectations have risen and they need to rise to the challenge of that. And I don’t think these are unreasonable expectations, that you should be able to resolve a situation without violence. I think eight or nine times out of ten that is possible to do. Now, sure, you’re going to have bad actors who just want to hurt somebody and they need to be dealt with appropriately. And that’s fine. But I think there are times when there’s a situation occurring and a law enforcement officer is nearing the end of his shift and he just wants to get it over with and all right. That’s it. No, that’s not it.

Gabriel Nathan: You have all the time in the world to take care of this situation. And people have rights and people have a right to not be thrown on the ground face first simply because you have somewhere to be in an hour. Sorry, that’s not good enough. And we need to expect better of our police officers. Police officers are expected to be more social workers. And maybe that’s who we need to be attracting in terms of law enforcement, people who are articulate, people who understand family dynamics, people who take their time, people who don’t want to roll around on the floor with someone if they don’t have to. When I first applied to the psychiatric hospital, I applied to be an EMT to work on their psychiatric ambulance. And when I interviewed for the

position, I said to the ambulance director, I am not an action junkie. I am not a cowboy. I am not interested in busting down doors and rolling around on the floor with somebody. If I have to do it, I will do it. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that I don’t do that. And she said, well, most of the people we get applying for this job are cowboys, and that’s the problem. We need to stop kind of glorifying this profession and saying that this is what it’s all about. It’s all about takedowns and arrests. It ain’t all about that. It shouldn’t be all about that. And we need to be recruiting people who are not all about that.

Lisa Kiner: Well, Gabe had on The Psych Central Podcast a few months ago, a police officer, and the question was, why do the police respond to this at all? Why do we not send social workers? Why do we not send therapists? And his answer was because it is such a volatile and dynamic situation that you don’t know what will be required. His assumption was that violence will be required. And the thing he referenced specifically was, you know, something like half of all Americans own guns. So because this has such a large potential to escalate to a violent situation so quickly and we’re all wandering around with guns, that’s why we need police officers to respond. What would you say to that?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, what I would say to that is I think it’s very interesting that the police officer’s answer was about guns. It wasn’t about, quote, crazy people. We have a major problem in this country with firearms. And I think it’s really interesting, too, because so many police officers are avid gun collectors. They’re all into the NRA. They’re all about the Second Amendment, and yet they’re afraid about responding to houses of people with guns.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t think about that one.

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, so that’s a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion. I am so, so sick of having arguments with people about firearms, particularly with law enforcement officers. So they want to be all Second Amendment and guns, guns, guns. But all of a sudden, well, we need to respond to mental health calls because there are so many guns in this country. Well, yeah, there are, and that’s a huge problem. And yes, half of all suicides occur with a firearm. Two thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. You’re more likely to kill yourself than you are to be killed with a firearm.

Gabriel Nathan: So let’s just put that out there right now. It also presupposes that people with mental illness are dangerous. And we know statistically that that is not true. However, people with serious and persistent mental illness who are off their medication and who may be using street narcotics and who may be increasingly paranoid, yeah, they can be dangerous, that’s for sure. And I have certainly seen that in the hospital. But what I will also tell you is my sister in law is a social worker for the VA. The VA has no compunction about sending my unarmed sister in law who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. Sorry Tova, I just revealed your weight. But unarmed, they give her self-defense training, crisis intervention training and using your your hands to defend yourself. Now, they always go out in teams, of course, they don’t send her alone. But they will send two unarmed females to deal with veterans who have traumatic brain injuries, a lot of whom are using drugs and alcohol, to apartments alone. Oh, but a police officer with a bulletproof vest and a gun and extra ammo and a shotgun in his car and all the rest of it needs to go to a psychiatric emergency call. I’m sorry, I don’t think so.

Gabe Howard: Well, it’s the same thing with children. I have often thought of that as well. If I call Children’s Services right now on my neighbor, they send a social worker.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: Now, I know that different states are different, but in my state, in Ohio, if there is a welfare check for children, they send a single social worker to talk to people about their children.

Gabriel Nathan: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re investigating whether or not these people are child abusers.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And that can be done by somebody with absolutely no protection, no weapon, no anything.

Gabriel Nathan: And there may very well be a gun in that house.

Lisa Kiner: That’s a good point.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And, of course, you’re messing with people’s children.

Lisa Kiner: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Lisa Kiner: And we’re back with Gabriel Nathan talking about police response to people with mental illness.

Gabe Howard: I know we’ve kind of skirted around the issue of how we should get police officers away from responding to us. But I don’t know that you’ve provided an actual answer of if not them, then who? 

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: When Gabe Howard is having a mental health crisis, I need, like, I personally want somebody to save me. We can all agree with that.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: So who’s coming?

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, first of all, not every situation needs a call to anybody. I think we’re also presupposing that police officers dealing with mental health cases are only called when there is, quote, an emergency. A lot of calls to police involving mental health issues are nuisance issues.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t consider that.

Gabriel Nathan: Perfect example. There’s someone who lives in my community who is seriously and persistently mentally ill. He yells and screams a lot. He curses a lot. He knocks on the window at people and gives them the finger. OK, stuff like that. People call the cops on him. That’s not a psychiatric emergency. That is not a case of life or death. That’s someone who doesn’t like their neighbor. And so the police show up and there could be a violent, bad outcome for no reason whatsoever. That person is not endangering themselves. That person is not endangering anybody else. It is not against the law to be mentally ill. However, we’ve created a situation where people just pick up the phone and call the police willy nilly because they’re scared of crazy people. I mean, let’s just put it out there, right. That’s very unfortunate. And so we certainly don’t need the police responding to situations like that. You know, that is a situation that can be just dealt with in the community. There is a lot of different areas to explore between nothing and either inpatient hospitalization or an arrest. That’s what we need to to be aware of I think. Now, when we talk about, quote, defunding the police, that’s different than abolishing the police or disbanding the police. A lot of money that goes into buying weapons and car porn could be used to fund mobile crisis units. Mobile crisis units are comprised of mental health workers who are not armed. They do not respond in emergency looking vehicles. They wear civilian clothes. They are very trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. So, maybe assessing is someone not engaging in proper self care? Are they possibly a danger to themselves or others? Do they need a higher level of care? If you do not have a mobile crisis unit in your county, you better start advocating for one now. And a lot of them work in conjunction with law enforcement. I do  

believe at a potentially dangerous scene, law enforcement could be there to establish scene safety and then back off. Leave entirely. OK, are there guns here? We do a search. Is this person violent? Pat the person down. OK, we’re out of here. And then let the mobile crisis team handle it. So, we don’t have to remove them one hundred percent from the equation, but just decrease our dependance on them. There are also very, very, very, very few psychiatric ambulance squads in the country. And by very few, I mean basically one, which operates out of Montgomery County Emergency Services, the hospital I used to work at.

Gabriel Nathan: These are fully trained and certified emergency medical technicians who run on fully equipped basic life support ambulances. They can respond to all manner of physical emergencies, but they also respond to psychiatric emergencies. They execute psychiatric commitment warrants. They show up in an ambulance. They have polo shirts and khakis. They don’t have the badges and all that stuff. If you need to go to the hospital, you’ll go on a stretcher in an ambulance. Not handcuffed in the back of a police car. That’s how it should be in America. So we’ve got psychiatric ambulance squads, we’ve got mobile crisis. We have social workers embedded in law enforcement. We have the possibility of reimagining the kind of people we’re recruiting to do this job. There are lots of different ideas out there. London, for example, in the Metropolitan Police Department, the average constable that you see on duty does not carry a firearm. Now, in every municipality, there are armed response units that can be in a situation in a matter of minutes if they need to be. But maybe we need unarmed police officers in certain areas. It’s less threatening. And I know people will freak out at me about that, but, golly, it works in other places.

Lisa Kiner: So one of the things you said earlier was that part of the problem is that people are perceiving people with mental illness as scary. And when there’s something scary, you call the police. So do you think that part of this doesn’t actually have anything to do with the police? It’s more about how society views mental illness and the average person’s reaction to the mentally ill?

Gabriel Nathan: One hundred percent. It is the same thing as, unfortunately, a lot of Caucasian people’s gut reaction when they see a six foot two black man in their neighborhood. Oh, black people are scary. Oh, he looked in my window. What is that?

Oh, my God. OK, that’s learned subconscious racism. And we as white people need to recognize that we feel hinky, we feel uncomfortable and scared when we see a black person in our neighborhood. You know, you better do some really serious soul searching and try to figure out why that is. It’s the same thing with someone who has mental illness. You know, they’re in their garden and they’re talking to themselves and they’re yelling at your dog or whatever. Oh, that’s scary. I better pick up the phone and call the police. No. You better give that person some space and give yourself some time to reflect on why is that scary to you? And maybe sit with that feeling of discomfort. Where does that come from? What does that mean? Is that person really a threat to you? Is that person really a threat to your neighborhood and your existence? Someone said to me about that specific person that I mentioned, well, it’s a crime because he’s disturbing the peace and that’s a crime. And I really wanted to say to her, oh, so when you stub your toe in your garage and go, oh, f-word, should I call the police? You just disturbed the peace. When your dog is barking too loud? No, so we don’t do that right. But if someone’s yelling argh, government over me and I have a microchip in my tooth and, we’re calling the police. And we just hide behind that because we’re scared and we want the police to make it all better. And I’m sorry those days are over. Or if they’re not over, they should be over. We need to do better because people with mental illness are not going away. Gone are the days when we’re locking them away in institutions for years at a time. And we need to reckon with the fact that they’re in our community. And we need to do better.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. It’s been an incredible discussion and enlightening discussion, and you mentioned OC87 Recovery Diaries, which I think is incredible. So I’d like you to tell the listeners what that is first and foremost.

Gabriel Nathan: Sure. So I’m the editor in chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries. It’s a nonprofit mental health publication. We tell stories of mental health empowerment and change in two ways. First person mental health recovery essays. We publish a brand new personal essay every single week, and we also produce short subject, professionally made documentary films all about people living with mental health challenges. You can see all of our mental health films and read all of our mental health essays at OC87RecoveryDiaries.org. And if you want to follow me, really the only place to do that is on Instagram. I’m at Lovebug Trumps Hate and I would love to, I’d love to be your friend.

Gabe Howard: Lovebug Trumps Hate is about Gabriel driving around in his Herbie replica, his lovebug replica. The pictures are incredible. The suicide prevention that you do is incredible. But also on the OC87 Recovery Diarieswebsite is where you can find Beneath the Vest. That entire series is on their completely free, correct?

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Please watch it, it’s incredible. And you interviewed first responders. It’s not Gabriel talking. It’s actual first responders.

Gabriel Nathan: No, I’m not in it at all. So, it’s police officers, a dispatcher, firefighters, EMS personnel and my friend Michelle Monzo, who is the crisis intervention specialist trainer at MCES. All of the videos are free to watch.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, OC87 Recovery Diariesis a nonprofit, they survive by donations, please, if you see value in what they do, support them because they are worth it.

Gabriel Nathan: Thank you.

Gabe Howard: Ok. Gabriel, thank you so much for being here. To our listeners, hang on, as soon as we get rid of Gabriel, we’re going to talk behind his back.

Lisa Kiner: Well, again, it’s not behind his back because he can listen to it later.

Gabe Howard: That is very true,

Lisa Kiner: You keep forgetting that part.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. Thank you once again.

Lisa Kiner: Oh, thank you so much.

Gabriel Nathan: It’s a privilege. Thank you for having me on.

Gabe Howard: Lisa, were there any aha moments for you?

Lisa Kiner: Yes, actually. The point that Gabriel raised was that the police do not need to respond to these situations at all, that this is not a police matter. It honestly had not occurred to me that, yes, our default thing to do in America when there’s a problem is to call the police. It’s my default thought. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem that it makes sense to call the police about. It doesn’t have to be a school shooting or a hostage situation. That is just what we all do reflexively. If there’s a problem, we call the police. And it hadn’t occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: The exact example that Gabriel used was somebody being loud while walking down the street, not showing any form of aggression or violence or breaking things, but just making people feel uncomfortable. People are picking up the phone and saying, well, I’m scared because my neighbor is loud in their own yard.

Lisa Kiner: This person is exhibiting clear symptoms of mental illness. And therefore something needs to be done, therefore, we as a society must do something to make that stop. And the thing that we think will make that stop is to call the police. But in reality, no, that’s probably not going to work and could turn out very poorly. Why do we think the police are the people to call to make that stop? And why do we need to make it stop at all? Why can’t we just tolerate this? Why can’t we just allow this to go on?

Gabe Howard: I agree. That was kind of an aha moment for me, too. In teaching CIT, one of the things that police officers say all the time is you have to remember that it’s not illegal to be mentally ill and you call the police when something illegal has happened. Somebody’s being loud in their own yard, even if it is symptomatic, that is not illegal. Calling the police when no crime has been committed, it’s clearly escalating the situation that unfortunately, it often works out poorly for the person who is symptomatic. Not only do they not get help, but now the police are there. And just by showing up, there’s an escalation.

Lisa Kiner: I really hadn’t thought about, why is that the default, reflexive thing that you do? In this situation to call the police? Why is that?

Gabe Howard: I don’t know.

Lisa Kiner: Why do we as Americans do that? And, yeah, I don’t know either.

Gabe Howard: And that’s obviously on the general society, that’s not on police officers at all. This is just another example of where they get thrust in the middle of something that they are unprepared for, untrained for and not the best situation.

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: Lending credence, of course, to Gabriel Nathan’s point that police officers should be out of this entirely.

Lisa Kiner: Well, it’s just very interesting. Why do we decide that police are the ones who need to resolve every situation? That every difficult or uncomfortable situation, we should get the police to fix it? Why are they the designated fixer of such problems? And it had not occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: Agreed. That we’re sending law enforcement for a medical issue. I don’t agree with that at all, but I still think that it’s just very pie in the sky and optimistic and almost sunshine and rainbows to think that police officers will stop responding to mental health crises. It doesn’t sound logical to me.

Lisa Kiner: Well, I think you’re right about that, in part because police officers won’t be able to stop responding because the public will still call the police for these things. I think the argument that Gabriel is making is that it doesn’t have to be that way. The question will be what happens in the meantime while we’re working towards this goal? I don’t think he’s advocating getting rid of CIT.

Gabe Howard: Oh, yeah, I don’t think that either.

Lisa Kiner: He’s not saying that we should not train police officers to de-escalate or that we should not train police officers to handle people with mental illness. He’s saying that

we need to move towards this different vision, this different way of doing things. But obviously this type of training will always be valuable. Part of it is de-escalation. Isn’t that good for every crisis? Isn’t that good for every high energy, intense situation? How could that not be a good thing? Why wouldn’t you want to resolve a situation in a way other than with violence?

Gabe Howard: The use of force is problematic, especially when you consider the use of force on sick people. I’m obviously seeing the world very much through the eyes of somebody living with bipolar disorder. I was in crisis. I think about how close I came to having the police called on me. And I’m so very lucky that the people who were surrounding me were able to deescalate, control and, of course, didn’t feel threatened. You and I have talked about this before, Lisa. I don’t know why you didn’t call the police on me when I thought there were demons under my bed, I.

Lisa Kiner: Because I didn’t feel threatened.

Gabe Howard: I don’t understand why you didn’t feel threatened, but let’s put that on the back burner for a moment. You, of course, had a history with me.

Lisa Kiner: Yeah, you were not a stranger.

Gabe Howard: Imagine if I had thought the demons were under the cash register at Wal-Mart?

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: You know, I’m a large guy, I’m six foot three, 250 pounds, broad shouldered, and I’m screaming that there are demons in the cash register to a 19 year old who’s working the evening shift at the local supermarket. That would seem very threatening. And I’m sure that the police would be called. And I just don’t like the idea that the first thing that they would do upon seeing this loud, screaming, mentally ill man is tase me or tackle me or worse. I don’t know that the person picking up the phone and calling would say, hello, 911 operator, I believe that we have a mentally ill man here. I think that they would say that we have a violent asshole threatening a teenage girl. And how would they know to send the mental health team?

Lisa Kiner: Well, that’s why we’re hoping that all police officers would have this training, and it’s kind of like a triage type thing, right? You don’t have a surgeon standing at the gate of the emergency room. You have a trained person, usually a nurse, who can assess whether or not to immediately send you to the surgeon or tell you to go wait for your turn. The idea being that all police officers would have this ability to kind of triage the situation to say to themselves, huh, that’s mental illness, and then call the appropriate response. That once they figure out what’s going on, they can turn this over to someone else, someone with either more or different qualifications.

Gabe Howard: I like that, I like that a lot. I do feel the need to be extraordinarily thankful to all of the police officers who have gone through CIT since in many municipalities, it is not mandatory.

Lisa Kiner: Including here in Columbus.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, including here in my state. Which means the police officers who have done it have volunteered. They have decided that there is value in learning how to help people with mental health issues in a way other than what they’ve already learned. I sincerely am so grateful for police officers who have taken that extra step because they don’t have to.

Lisa Kiner: But it’s not entirely altruistic. They also see the utility in it. It’s not just about people wanting to be nice to people with mental illness. It’s also about wanting to be safe themselves, not wanting these situations to get out of control, about not wanting bad things to happen. This isn’t just a benefit to people living with mental illness. This is a benefit to everyone, including police officers.

Gabe Howard: I have mad respect for the police officers who realize that. Who realize that they can learn more and help their community in a better way. Somebody with mental illness who is in a mental health crisis is most likely going to be seen by a police officer before anybody else. That training is not required, even though it is understood that people with a mental health crisis will be seen by a police officer before anybody

else. That’s really the only take away that you need to understand. Right?

Lisa Kiner: There’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in society that makes no sense.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, yeah, if Gabe gets sick, they’re sending the police. Are they going to train the police? Nope.

Lisa Kiner: Well, maybe.

Gabe Howard: If the police officer sees the utility in it and has the introspection, the understanding and the time to sign up for CIT training all by themselves, the bottom line is I hope that any law enforcement, first responder or politician listening to this will understand that mental health training is vital, period. We learned so much from Gabriel Nathan that we decided to do another show with him over on The Psych Central Podcast. And you can find that show on your favorite podcast player, just search for The Psych Central Podcast. Or you can go to PsychCentral.com/Show, and it will be there on Thursday. And Gabriel talks about the suicide rate among law enforcement. Forget about protecting people like me with mental health issues and bipolar disorder. Forget about all of that. The suicide rate among first responders.

Lisa Kiner: It’s quite shocking that more police officers will die by suicide this year than will be killed in the line of duty. A lot more

Gabe Howard: Yeah, by a lot,

Lisa Kiner: Almost three times.

Gabe Howard: It made us do an entire another episode on an entire other podcast hosted by me, so please go to PsychCentral.com/Show or look for The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player. And listen to more from Gabriel Nathan, the executive director of OC87 and one of the people behind Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. Lisa, are you ready to get out of here?

Lisa Kiner: I think we’re good to go. Thanks again to Gabriel Nathan for being here with  

us.

Gabe Howard: All right, everybody, here’s what we need you to do. Please subscribe to Not Crazy on your favorite podcast player. Rank us, review us, use your words and type in why you like the show. This really helps us a lot. Share us on social media and also tell people why to listen. We love doing this show for you and you can help us out greatly just by doing those simple things.

Lisa Kiner: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy Fans! We are so cool our outtakes have sponsors! We want to give a shout out to Southern Cross University. Learn about mental health risk factors in older people at https://online.scu.edu.au/blog/risk-factors-mental-illness-older-people/. Check them both out and tell them Not Crazy sent you!

 The post Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed? first appeared on World of Psychology.

from https://ift.tt/2D1AUhU Check out https://daniejadkins.wordpress.com/

[brentrogers]

Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed?

A mentally ill man is standing in your yard yelling at the mailbox. What do you do? You call the police, right? Not so fast, according to today’s guest, mental health advocate Gabriel Nathan. There is a better way to do things. Gabriel believes that rather than training police officers to de-escalate people in mental health crises, the police shouldn’t be called at all in these situations.

Our host Gabe has a different take on things, as he is an advocate for training police officers in crisis intervention practices. Join us for an enlightening and nuanced conversation regarding the role of the police when it comes to mental health crises.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show!

And Please Remember to Rate & Review Us!

  Guest Information for ‘Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training’ Podcast Episode

Gabriel Nathan is an author, editor, actor, and a mental health and suicide awareness advocate. He is Editor in Chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries, an online publication that features stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. Recently, OC87 Recovery Diaries produced a unique film series called “Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health” that features candid and moving recovery stories from firefighters, EMS personnel, law enforcement, dispatchers, and a crisis intervention specialist instructor. These films are being used by first responder agencies across the U. S. and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Independent of his work at OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabe raises mental health awareness, generates conversations around suicide and its prevention, and spreads a message of hope with his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, Herbie the Love Bug replica that bears the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on its rear window. Gabriel lives in a suburb of Philadelphia with his wife, twins, a Basset hound named Tennessee, a long-haired German Shepherd named Sadie, and his Herbie. You can view Gabriel’s TEDx Talk on his approach to suicide awareness here. Gabriel and Herbie teamed up to produce a documentary film about their suicide awareness mission; you can view the entire film and learn more information about Gabriel, Herbie, and suicide awareness here. You can also follow Gabriel and Herbie on IG @lovebugtrumpshate.

  About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

    Computer Generated Transcript for “Gabriel Nathan- CIT Training” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe Howard: Hey, everyone, my name is Gabe Howard, I am the host of the Not Crazy podcast and I am here with Lisa Kiner.

Lisa Kiner: Hey, everyone, and today’s quote is by John F. Kennedy, The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Gabe Howard: It sort of reminds me of this idea that if it can happen to somebody else, it can happen to you, and if it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody. And I say this in mental health advocacy a lot. I was like, you realize if people with mental health conditions can’t get access to care, that means sick people can’t get access to care. So if you get sick, it is certainly possible that you might not be able to get access to care. But we always kind of dismiss that as it’s going to happen to other people.

Lisa Kiner: I think that’s just human nature. Everybody thinks that only good things are going to be coming to them and any bad things out there are going to be going to other people.

Gabe Howard: Well, and other people who deserve the bad things, right? Like we have this idea that every bad thing that happens to somebody else, it’s because they deserved it. They must they must have been doing something wrong.

Lisa Kiner: But I think that’s also self protective. The idea that the universe is random and bad things could happen to anybody at any time is scary. But if I think to myself, oh, no, that person brought that upon them, they did something that made the bad thing happen, that makes me feel better. I will not do that thing. Therefore, the bad thing will not happen to me. Therefore, me and mine are safe.

Gabe Howard: This, of course, all plays into a larger conversation that America is having with law enforcement and policing. We believe that police are 100% right in any police interaction. Whoever they are interacting with is 100% wrong. And in the mental health circles, this isn’t exactly believed in the same way because, you know, we have CIT, we have Crisis Intervention Training because we understand that when we’re in

crisis, people are going to call the police. If Gabe Howard is in crisis, somebody’s going to pick up the phone and call 911 and say, hey, there’s this giant guy acting erratically and we need help. And then the police are going to come, and we have decided that we’re OK with that. But we want to train police officers. And that’s where crisis intervention training came from. Full disclosure, that I believe in the CIT program so much, I teach it in central Ohio. I am proud of the work that I do. I am very pro, I am very, very, very pro training police officers on how to work with people with mental illness. Recently, I had the very good fortune to be involved in a virtual screening of a series put out by OC87 Recovery Diaries called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. And it was talking about the suicide rates for first responders., talking about all kinds of things that I had never heard before. After it was all over, I was talking to Gabriel Nathan, who is the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, and we were talking specifically about the crisis intervention training, of which I am a huge fan. And Gabriel said to me, well, I’m not a big fan of CIT. I think that CIT should go away. Lisa, you have known me for a long time. You can only imagine the words that were coming out of my mouth.

Lisa Kiner: It seems like a pretty unreal statement.

Gabe Howard: And a conversation ensued, and I have no idea if I agree with Gabriel or not. On one hand, he makes some extraordinarily valid points that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, I remember what life was like in Columbus, Ohio, before the CIT program came along and of course, how much good it did. And I came to you, Lisa, and I said, Lisa, you’re never going to believe what this idiot Gabriel Nathan said to me. And this, of course, started a big debate between us.

Lisa Kiner: Yes, and from your version of what you and Gabriel talked about, I am really interested to hear what he has to say.

Gabe Howard: In addition to being the executive director of OC87 Recovery Diaries, Gabriel Nathan lives with depression. He’s a prominent mental health advocate who understands what it’s like. And on our show, we don’t want people with mental illness just to show up and tell their personal stories. We want to be more than that.

Lisa Kiner: And it’s not that we don’t think that the personal story has value, it absolutely  does, but there’s plenty of sources out there for that. We want to have something different here at Not Crazy. On our show, we want to have people come on to discuss, argue, debate and talk about the world around us from the point of view of someone living with mental illness like us.

Gabe Howard: All right, Lisa, I think we’re ready to bring Gabriel on. Gabriel, welcome to the show.

Gabriel Nathan: Hi, and thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Gabe Howard: I love working with you because I think, now I’m not sure, but I think that our hobby is to disagree with each other because we love the debate so much. Is that true today? Like everything that you’re about to say, these are your genuine beliefs. You’re not playing devil’s advocate. We are having a real conversation. We’re not doing this thing where we each pick a side and pretend that we care. We care.

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah, these are my real views, I don’t play devil’s advocate because I really don’t have time to expostulate on some view that isn’t my own just for the sake of of arguing or being a guest on something. I really believe in speaking my own truth passionately. I don’t speak on behalf of any organization. These views are my own and I’m proud to share them with you.

Gabe Howard: Well, thank you again, Gabriel, and we’re super glad to have you. So let’s get right into it. You believe that that CIT, police officers, all of that, should have zero involvement in mental health. And if you were king of the world, you’d kick them out immediately. Can you explain that?

Gabriel Nathan: I think zero involvement is perhaps not quite accurate.

Gabe Howard: Ok.

Gabriel Nathan: So, for example, if someone is suicidal and they have a firearm, that’s a police emergency. Because, as they say, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. And we know that there are people who take their own lives via suicide by cop. People who will

point a firearm at a law enforcement officer who will fire, who will perhaps even shoot a police officer to provoke a response from other responding officers to kill them as well. So when firearms are involved, all bets are off. I just want to make that absolutely clear. First of all, before I really get into the weeds of the question, what I have found is whenever you are taking a position that is critical in any way of law enforcement or attempts to raise questions even about the way law enforcement agencies do anything, it is extremely important to establish your own bona fides. Because anybody who steps up to challenge law enforcement is immediately regarded with suspicion, paranoia, is dismissed as a quote, you know, libtard, troll, anti-cop antifa, whatever. I’m none of those things. I am someone who, for the last 20 years, has been an advocate for slain police officers and their families through editorials, commentaries in newspapers. I have attended over 10 police funerals in Philadelphia down to Maryland.

Gabriel Nathan: I have done a lot of advocacy work for law enforcement and also in regard to mental health of first responders. I produced a film series called Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health for OC87 Recovery Diaries that features police officers, EMS personnel, dispatchers, fire service individuals talking about trauma and complex PTSD. I’m very well aware of the suicide rate for police officers. I am someone who knows law enforcement culture. I am someone who has a respect for police officers and what they do. However, just like when you criticize America, that doesn’t mean that you should leave it or that you don’t have any right to do that. I think that you need to know what you’re talking about. But I think we have every right to criticize institutions. I think we have every right to criticize this nation. And so I just want people to know that I am doing this from a place of love and concern and from a position of someone who believes ardently that there absolutely needs to be change and radical reimagining of law enforcement, not just related to mental health response but across the board. But, yes, I do believe that law enforcement should have very, very little place in mental health response.

Gabe Howard: Thank you, Gabriel, for establishing your bona fides, and I really appreciate that. The example that I always use is just because I think that my wife did something wrong doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. And just because my wife thinks that I can improve doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love me. And I think people really understand that in terms of our interpersonal relationships, friends, family, etc. But for some reason, when we extend it into the public space, it’s like, aha! You must be for or against me.

Gabriel Nathan: Yes, right.

Gabe Howard: This show is very much trying to establish more of a middle ground. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But we try to believe that we’re Not Crazy when we do it. The first question is CIT, people fought very, very hard to get CIT established in America. This is something that mental health advocates worked really, really hard for decades to bring CIT. So to listen to a prominent mental health advocate like yourself say, well, yeah, maybe we picked the wrong horse. Maybe we shouldn’t have backed that at all. Maybe we should have backed this instead. It sounds almost like you’re saying, hey, you just wasted 40 years bringing this here. It’s very nuanced, and I want you to tease that out because

Gabriel Nathan: Sure.

Gabe Howard: I suppose the real question, if not CIT, what?

Gabriel Nathan: Right. That’s a perfectly valid statement about what people would say and about what’s next. First of all, CIT, also known as quote, the Memphis model, was established in 1986. OK. There is a whole other model of crisis intervention that was begun more than 10 years before that at the psychiatric facility where I used to work. It’s called Montgomery County Emergency Service. It’s located in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Gabe, you know, while you were on the campus,

Gabe Howard: I do.

Gabriel Nathan: MCES created something called CIS. So it stands for Crisis Intervention Specialist training. And this was created in 1975 – 1976 to teach crisis intervention and deescalation to police officers. The philosophy behind this, as opposed to CIT, is train everybody in the department, train every single police officer in this stuff, in recognizing signs and symptoms of mental illness, in learning about what it feels like to issue commands to someone who may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, learning  

about substance abuse, escalation of force, all that kind of stuff. Right? So this was already in play for ten years prior to the Memphis model. And the Memphis model said, let’s train specific officers in the department to respond to mental health emergencies. Working at MCES, as I did from 2010 to 2015, I was very immersed in the CIS culture and I gravitated much more to that because I think first, a component of CIT that’s inherently flawed is you’re only picking certain officers, right? Now, there are certain officers on duty all the time, but they may be tied up with other things. When a psychiatric emergency is happening, they may not always be available to respond. So you might be bipolar and manic and trying to rip out a traffic sign at 3:00 a.m. in an intersection in your town. Well, gee, the CIT officer, unfortunately, had to go to a domestic. So now you might be getting a sort of not very well trained, not empathic, not understanding officer to your situation. And he may be an action junkie. He may be someone who doesn’t have his emotions in check.

Gabe Howard: Or they may be somebody who is just not trained.

Gabriel Nathan: Exactly, exactly. And that may have a bad outcome. OK. Now there might be a bad outcome even with a trained officer. Also, being CIT trained is not a bulletproof vest, and it doesn’t mean that an encounter with a law enforcement officer is going to go hunky dory all the time. That’s important to recognize also. I have had police commanders say to me, to my face when I’ve questioned CIS, they’ve said, well, you know, we like CIT better because, quite frankly, not all of our officers would be good at that kind of thing. And I said, what is that kind of thing? Spending time to talk to someone as opposed to just taking them to the floor? Trying to de-escalate someone as opposed to escalating the situation? And of course, there’s no answer for that. And what I said is, if certain officers that you have, quote, wouldn’t be good at that kind of thing, they shouldn’t be police officers. And I really believe that. So that’s my problem CIT. You’re kind of cherry picking officers who you think would be good at that when really they all should be good at that, and lack of availability. But really, when you widen the scope and really look at the situation of law enforcement officers responding to mental health emergencies, psychiatric emergencies, you use the term de-escalation, right? While we’re teaching these police officers to de-escalate a situation that is potentially volatile. And what do we have? We have someone who’s not doing well. They may be off their medication, they may be psychotic, they may be paranoid. And we have a black and white radio car rolling up.

Gabriel Nathan: The door opens, the big boot steps out, they wear these big boots, you know, and the officer gets out and he’s got his bulletproof vest and he’s all jacked up, puffed up, looking twice as big as he actually is. He’s got the gun. He’s got the taser, he’s got the extra ammunition. He’s got the handcuffs. He’s got the retractable baton. He’s got the sunglasses with the mirrored finish, so you can’t even see his eyes. He’s got the buzz cut. I’m stereotyping. They don’t all look like that, but a lot of them do. That’s who we’re asking to, quote, deescalate a situation. And they’re showing up with the power of arrest to take your freedoms away from you, to lock you up. What is an individual who’s experiencing a psychiatric emergency most afraid of? They’re afraid of being restrained. They’re afraid of being contained. They’re afraid of having their freedoms taken away from them. And that’s who we bring to the scene. And so, I believe that crisis intervention training for law enforcement officers really puts them in an impossible situation where we’re saying you, just by your very presence, you are an escalation of force, but we want you to de-escalate the situation. It just on its face doesn’t make any sense to me.

Lisa Kiner: Interesting, no, I would agree with you on that completely

Gabe Howard: The police force, or society has decided that the police respond to people with mental illness and we’ve got this one little program that people we had to advocate for.

Gabriel Nathan: Right, right.

Gabe Howard: Remember, police have been responding to people in a mental health crisis since before CIT.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: And we had to convince them that it was a good idea to train the responders. I just.

Gabriel Nathan: But that presupposes. That says, well, it’s not good that the police are responding to mental health emergencies, but if they’ve gotta, then at least train them. But they don’t gotta. That’s the flaw in the system,

Gabe Howard: Ok, gotcha, gotcha.

Gabriel Nathan: In my opinion, that’s what mental health advocates got wrong. They kind of just laid down and said, well, this is how it’s going to be. You know, the police are just going to do it, so we might as well train them. And that was the wrong supposition. This is incorrect. You know, if we can agree that people should not be showing up to a psychiatric hospital in the back of a patrol car with their hands cuffed behind their back, if we can all agree on that, and I think we can all agree on that, then we can all agree that the precipitating events that make that end result happen should also not be happening.

Gabe Howard: I just want to point out that I am involved in CIT. I’m a trainer for CIT, as I said at the top of the show. And I want you to know that what I tell people that CIT is not mandatory, they are confused.

Gabriel Nathan: Of course.

Gabe Howard: The belief of the general public is that CIT is mandatory for all officers.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely not. If they receive anything at the police academy level, it is very, very minimal and very, very terse. They don’t really address the trauma that police officers are going to experience. They don’t address the issue of police suicide, and they also don’t really address deescalating situations. It’s all about control. How do you control a suspect? How do you take control of a situation? How do you take command of a scene? The police academy curriculum is very, very full. And as we’ve seen with all of these discussions about reimagining law enforcement, we know in Germany it takes three years to become a police officer. In other places, it takes two years. My police academy curriculum, it was full time and it was nine months. All right. But nowhere in that nine months curriculum was there room for crisis intervention, de-escalation, signs and symptoms of mental illness, all that kind of stuff. That’s all taught later.

Gabe Howard: Right, and it’s voluntary in most places, and I think it’s important to point out that in many municipalities it takes longer to become a hairstylist than it does to become a police officer.

Gabriel Nathan: Correct. Right. Yes.

Lisa Kiner: You talked about the changing nature of police work, what’s up with that? How is police work changing and why?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, in the bad old days, it was like, come in, bust up whatever is going on, throw whoever it is who’s causing the most trouble in the back of the paddy wagon, maybe rap him over the head with the baton a couple of times and that’s it. And there were no cameras, no one saw anything. You know, it was, they call it the bad old days for a reason. Nobody used words like de-escalation and crisis intervention in the 60s, in the 70s. It’s let’s get in, let’s turn this guy up against the wall, and that’s it. Nowadays, we are expecting law enforcement officers to behave in different ways, to respond to very emotionally complex and dynamic situations and to resolve situations without their fists, without their baton, without their gun, without their taser. So expectations have risen and they need to rise to the challenge of that. And I don’t think these are unreasonable expectations, that you should be able to resolve a situation without violence. I think eight or nine times out of ten that is possible to do. Now, sure, you’re going to have bad actors who just want to hurt somebody and they need to be dealt with appropriately. And that’s fine. But I think there are times when there’s a situation occurring and a law enforcement officer is nearing the end of his shift and he just wants to get it over with and all right. That’s it. No, that’s not it.

Gabriel Nathan: You have all the time in the world to take care of this situation. And people have rights and people have a right to not be thrown on the ground face first simply because you have somewhere to be in an hour. Sorry, that’s not good enough. And we need to expect better of our police officers. Police officers are expected to be more social workers. And maybe that’s who we need to be attracting in terms of law enforcement, people who are articulate, people who understand family dynamics, people who take their time, people who don’t want to roll around on the floor with someone if they don’t have to. When I first applied to the psychiatric hospital, I applied to be an EMT to work on their psychiatric ambulance. And when I interviewed for the

position, I said to the ambulance director, I am not an action junkie. I am not a cowboy. I am not interested in busting down doors and rolling around on the floor with somebody. If I have to do it, I will do it. But I will do everything in my power to make sure that I don’t do that. And she said, well, most of the people we get applying for this job are cowboys, and that’s the problem. We need to stop kind of glorifying this profession and saying that this is what it’s all about. It’s all about takedowns and arrests. It ain’t all about that. It shouldn’t be all about that. And we need to be recruiting people who are not all about that.

Lisa Kiner: Well, Gabe had on The Psych Central Podcast a few months ago, a police officer, and the question was, why do the police respond to this at all? Why do we not send social workers? Why do we not send therapists? And his answer was because it is such a volatile and dynamic situation that you don’t know what will be required. His assumption was that violence will be required. And the thing he referenced specifically was, you know, something like half of all Americans own guns. So because this has such a large potential to escalate to a violent situation so quickly and we’re all wandering around with guns, that’s why we need police officers to respond. What would you say to that?

Gabriel Nathan: Well, what I would say to that is I think it’s very interesting that the police officer’s answer was about guns. It wasn’t about, quote, crazy people. We have a major problem in this country with firearms. And I think it’s really interesting, too, because so many police officers are avid gun collectors. They’re all into the NRA. They’re all about the Second Amendment, and yet they’re afraid about responding to houses of people with guns.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t think about that one.

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, so that’s a bunch of bullshit, in my opinion. I am so, so sick of having arguments with people about firearms, particularly with law enforcement officers. So they want to be all Second Amendment and guns, guns, guns. But all of a sudden, well, we need to respond to mental health calls because there are so many guns in this country. Well, yeah, there are, and that’s a huge problem. And yes, half of all suicides occur with a firearm. Two thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. You’re more likely to kill yourself than you are to be killed with a firearm.

Gabriel Nathan: So let’s just put that out there right now. It also presupposes that people with mental illness are dangerous. And we know statistically that that is not true. However, people with serious and persistent mental illness who are off their medication and who may be using street narcotics and who may be increasingly paranoid, yeah, they can be dangerous, that’s for sure. And I have certainly seen that in the hospital. But what I will also tell you is my sister in law is a social worker for the VA. The VA has no compunction about sending my unarmed sister in law who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. Sorry Tova, I just revealed your weight. But unarmed, they give her self-defense training, crisis intervention training and using your your hands to defend yourself. Now, they always go out in teams, of course, they don’t send her alone. But they will send two unarmed females to deal with veterans who have traumatic brain injuries, a lot of whom are using drugs and alcohol, to apartments alone. Oh, but a police officer with a bulletproof vest and a gun and extra ammo and a shotgun in his car and all the rest of it needs to go to a psychiatric emergency call. I’m sorry, I don’t think so.

Gabe Howard: Well, it’s the same thing with children. I have often thought of that as well. If I call Children’s Services right now on my neighbor, they send a social worker.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: Now, I know that different states are different, but in my state, in Ohio, if there is a welfare check for children, they send a single social worker to talk to people about their children.

Gabriel Nathan: Mm-hmm.

Gabe Howard: They’re investigating whether or not these people are child abusers.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And that can be done by somebody with absolutely no protection, no weapon, no anything.

Gabriel Nathan: And there may very well be a gun in that house.

Lisa Kiner: That’s a good point.

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: And, of course, you’re messing with people’s children.

Lisa Kiner: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Lisa Kiner: And we’re back with Gabriel Nathan talking about police response to people with mental illness.

Gabe Howard: I know we’ve kind of skirted around the issue of how we should get police officers away from responding to us. But I don’t know that you’ve provided an actual answer of if not them, then who? 

Gabriel Nathan: Right.

Gabe Howard: When Gabe Howard is having a mental health crisis, I need, like, I personally want somebody to save me. We can all agree with that.

Gabriel Nathan: Absolutely.

Gabe Howard: So who’s coming?

Gabriel Nathan: Ok, first of all, not every situation needs a call to anybody. I think we’re also presupposing that police officers dealing with mental health cases are only called when there is, quote, an emergency. A lot of calls to police involving mental health issues are nuisance issues.

Lisa Kiner: I didn’t consider that.

Gabriel Nathan: Perfect example. There’s someone who lives in my community who is seriously and persistently mentally ill. He yells and screams a lot. He curses a lot. He knocks on the window at people and gives them the finger. OK, stuff like that. People call the cops on him. That’s not a psychiatric emergency. That is not a case of life or death. That’s someone who doesn’t like their neighbor. And so the police show up and there could be a violent, bad outcome for no reason whatsoever. That person is not endangering themselves. That person is not endangering anybody else. It is not against the law to be mentally ill. However, we’ve created a situation where people just pick up the phone and call the police willy nilly because they’re scared of crazy people. I mean, let’s just put it out there, right. That’s very unfortunate. And so we certainly don’t need the police responding to situations like that. You know, that is a situation that can be just dealt with in the community. There is a lot of different areas to explore between nothing and either inpatient hospitalization or an arrest. That’s what we need to to be aware of I think. Now, when we talk about, quote, defunding the police, that’s different than abolishing the police or disbanding the police. A lot of money that goes into buying weapons and car porn could be used to fund mobile crisis units. Mobile crisis units are comprised of mental health workers who are not armed. They do not respond in emergency looking vehicles. They wear civilian clothes. They are very trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation. So, maybe assessing is someone not engaging in proper self care? Are they possibly a danger to themselves or others? Do they need a higher level of care? If you do not have a mobile crisis unit in your county, you better start advocating for one now. And a lot of them work in conjunction with law enforcement. I do  

believe at a potentially dangerous scene, law enforcement could be there to establish scene safety and then back off. Leave entirely. OK, are there guns here? We do a search. Is this person violent? Pat the person down. OK, we’re out of here. And then let the mobile crisis team handle it. So, we don’t have to remove them one hundred percent from the equation, but just decrease our dependance on them. There are also very, very, very, very few psychiatric ambulance squads in the country. And by very few, I mean basically one, which operates out of Montgomery County Emergency Services, the hospital I used to work at.

Gabriel Nathan: These are fully trained and certified emergency medical technicians who run on fully equipped basic life support ambulances. They can respond to all manner of physical emergencies, but they also respond to psychiatric emergencies. They execute psychiatric commitment warrants. They show up in an ambulance. They have polo shirts and khakis. They don’t have the badges and all that stuff. If you need to go to the hospital, you’ll go on a stretcher in an ambulance. Not handcuffed in the back of a police car. That’s how it should be in America. So we’ve got psychiatric ambulance squads, we’ve got mobile crisis. We have social workers embedded in law enforcement. We have the possibility of reimagining the kind of people we’re recruiting to do this job. There are lots of different ideas out there. London, for example, in the Metropolitan Police Department, the average constable that you see on duty does not carry a firearm. Now, in every municipality, there are armed response units that can be in a situation in a matter of minutes if they need to be. But maybe we need unarmed police officers in certain areas. It’s less threatening. And I know people will freak out at me about that, but, golly, it works in other places.

Lisa Kiner: So one of the things you said earlier was that part of the problem is that people are perceiving people with mental illness as scary. And when there’s something scary, you call the police. So do you think that part of this doesn’t actually have anything to do with the police? It’s more about how society views mental illness and the average person’s reaction to the mentally ill?

Gabriel Nathan: One hundred percent. It is the same thing as, unfortunately, a lot of Caucasian people’s gut reaction when they see a six foot two black man in their neighborhood. Oh, black people are scary. Oh, he looked in my window. What is that?

Oh, my God. OK, that’s learned subconscious racism. And we as white people need to recognize that we feel hinky, we feel uncomfortable and scared when we see a black person in our neighborhood. You know, you better do some really serious soul searching and try to figure out why that is. It’s the same thing with someone who has mental illness. You know, they’re in their garden and they’re talking to themselves and they’re yelling at your dog or whatever. Oh, that’s scary. I better pick up the phone and call the police. No. You better give that person some space and give yourself some time to reflect on why is that scary to you? And maybe sit with that feeling of discomfort. Where does that come from? What does that mean? Is that person really a threat to you? Is that person really a threat to your neighborhood and your existence? Someone said to me about that specific person that I mentioned, well, it’s a crime because he’s disturbing the peace and that’s a crime. And I really wanted to say to her, oh, so when you stub your toe in your garage and go, oh, f-word, should I call the police? You just disturbed the peace. When your dog is barking too loud? No, so we don’t do that right. But if someone’s yelling argh, government over me and I have a microchip in my tooth and, we’re calling the police. And we just hide behind that because we’re scared and we want the police to make it all better. And I’m sorry those days are over. Or if they’re not over, they should be over. We need to do better because people with mental illness are not going away. Gone are the days when we’re locking them away in institutions for years at a time. And we need to reckon with the fact that they’re in our community. And we need to do better.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. It’s been an incredible discussion and enlightening discussion, and you mentioned OC87 Recovery Diaries, which I think is incredible. So I’d like you to tell the listeners what that is first and foremost.

Gabriel Nathan: Sure. So I’m the editor in chief of OC87 Recovery Diaries. It’s a nonprofit mental health publication. We tell stories of mental health empowerment and change in two ways. First person mental health recovery essays. We publish a brand new personal essay every single week, and we also produce short subject, professionally made documentary films all about people living with mental health challenges. You can see all of our mental health films and read all of our mental health essays at OC87RecoveryDiaries.org. And if you want to follow me, really the only place to do that is on Instagram. I’m at Lovebug Trumps Hate and I would love to, I’d love to be your friend.

Gabe Howard: Lovebug Trumps Hate is about Gabriel driving around in his Herbie replica, his lovebug replica. The pictures are incredible. The suicide prevention that you do is incredible. But also on the OC87 Recovery Diarieswebsite is where you can find Beneath the Vest. That entire series is on their completely free, correct?

Gabriel Nathan: Yeah.

Gabe Howard: Please watch it, it’s incredible. And you interviewed first responders. It’s not Gabriel talking. It’s actual first responders.

Gabriel Nathan: No, I’m not in it at all. So, it’s police officers, a dispatcher, firefighters, EMS personnel and my friend Michelle Monzo, who is the crisis intervention specialist trainer at MCES. All of the videos are free to watch.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, OC87 Recovery Diariesis a nonprofit, they survive by donations, please, if you see value in what they do, support them because they are worth it.

Gabriel Nathan: Thank you.

Gabe Howard: Ok. Gabriel, thank you so much for being here. To our listeners, hang on, as soon as we get rid of Gabriel, we’re going to talk behind his back.

Lisa Kiner: Well, again, it’s not behind his back because he can listen to it later.

Gabe Howard: That is very true,

Lisa Kiner: You keep forgetting that part.

Gabe Howard: Gabriel, thank you. Thank you once again.

Lisa Kiner: Oh, thank you so much.

Gabriel Nathan: It’s a privilege. Thank you for having me on.

Gabe Howard: Lisa, were there any aha moments for you?

Lisa Kiner: Yes, actually. The point that Gabriel raised was that the police do not need to respond to these situations at all, that this is not a police matter. It honestly had not occurred to me that, yes, our default thing to do in America when there’s a problem is to call the police. It’s my default thought. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem that it makes sense to call the police about. It doesn’t have to be a school shooting or a hostage situation. That is just what we all do reflexively. If there’s a problem, we call the police. And it hadn’t occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: The exact example that Gabriel used was somebody being loud while walking down the street, not showing any form of aggression or violence or breaking things, but just making people feel uncomfortable. People are picking up the phone and saying, well, I’m scared because my neighbor is loud in their own yard.

Lisa Kiner: This person is exhibiting clear symptoms of mental illness. And therefore something needs to be done, therefore, we as a society must do something to make that stop. And the thing that we think will make that stop is to call the police. But in reality, no, that’s probably not going to work and could turn out very poorly. Why do we think the police are the people to call to make that stop? And why do we need to make it stop at all? Why can’t we just tolerate this? Why can’t we just allow this to go on?

Gabe Howard: I agree. That was kind of an aha moment for me, too. In teaching CIT, one of the things that police officers say all the time is you have to remember that it’s not illegal to be mentally ill and you call the police when something illegal has happened. Somebody’s being loud in their own yard, even if it is symptomatic, that is not illegal. Calling the police when no crime has been committed, it’s clearly escalating the situation that unfortunately, it often works out poorly for the person who is symptomatic. Not only do they not get help, but now the police are there. And just by showing up, there’s an escalation.

Lisa Kiner: I really hadn’t thought about, why is that the default, reflexive thing that you do? In this situation to call the police? Why is that?

Gabe Howard: I don’t know.

Lisa Kiner: Why do we as Americans do that? And, yeah, I don’t know either.

Gabe Howard: And that’s obviously on the general society, that’s not on police officers at all. This is just another example of where they get thrust in the middle of something that they are unprepared for, untrained for and not the best situation.

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: Lending credence, of course, to Gabriel Nathan’s point that police officers should be out of this entirely.

Lisa Kiner: Well, it’s just very interesting. Why do we decide that police are the ones who need to resolve every situation? That every difficult or uncomfortable situation, we should get the police to fix it? Why are they the designated fixer of such problems? And it had not occurred to me that there are other options.

Gabe Howard: Agreed. That we’re sending law enforcement for a medical issue. I don’t agree with that at all, but I still think that it’s just very pie in the sky and optimistic and almost sunshine and rainbows to think that police officers will stop responding to mental health crises. It doesn’t sound logical to me.

Lisa Kiner: Well, I think you’re right about that, in part because police officers won’t be able to stop responding because the public will still call the police for these things. I think the argument that Gabriel is making is that it doesn’t have to be that way. The question will be what happens in the meantime while we’re working towards this goal? I don’t think he’s advocating getting rid of CIT.

Gabe Howard: Oh, yeah, I don’t think that either.

Lisa Kiner: He’s not saying that we should not train police officers to de-escalate or that we should not train police officers to handle people with mental illness. He’s saying that

we need to move towards this different vision, this different way of doing things. But obviously this type of training will always be valuable. Part of it is de-escalation. Isn’t that good for every crisis? Isn’t that good for every high energy, intense situation? How could that not be a good thing? Why wouldn’t you want to resolve a situation in a way other than with violence?

Gabe Howard: The use of force is problematic, especially when you consider the use of force on sick people. I’m obviously seeing the world very much through the eyes of somebody living with bipolar disorder. I was in crisis. I think about how close I came to having the police called on me. And I’m so very lucky that the people who were surrounding me were able to deescalate, control and, of course, didn’t feel threatened. You and I have talked about this before, Lisa. I don’t know why you didn’t call the police on me when I thought there were demons under my bed, I.

Lisa Kiner: Because I didn’t feel threatened.

Gabe Howard: I don’t understand why you didn’t feel threatened, but let’s put that on the back burner for a moment. You, of course, had a history with me.

Lisa Kiner: Yeah, you were not a stranger.

Gabe Howard: Imagine if I had thought the demons were under the cash register at Wal-Mart?

Lisa Kiner: Right.

Gabe Howard: You know, I’m a large guy, I’m six foot three, 250 pounds, broad shouldered, and I’m screaming that there are demons in the cash register to a 19 year old who’s working the evening shift at the local supermarket. That would seem very threatening. And I’m sure that the police would be called. And I just don’t like the idea that the first thing that they would do upon seeing this loud, screaming, mentally ill man is tase me or tackle me or worse. I don’t know that the person picking up the phone and calling would say, hello, 911 operator, I believe that we have a mentally ill man here. I think that they would say that we have a violent asshole threatening a teenage girl. And how would they know to send the mental health team?

Lisa Kiner: Well, that’s why we’re hoping that all police officers would have this training, and it’s kind of like a triage type thing, right? You don’t have a surgeon standing at the gate of the emergency room. You have a trained person, usually a nurse, who can assess whether or not to immediately send you to the surgeon or tell you to go wait for your turn. The idea being that all police officers would have this ability to kind of triage the situation to say to themselves, huh, that’s mental illness, and then call the appropriate response. That once they figure out what’s going on, they can turn this over to someone else, someone with either more or different qualifications.

Gabe Howard: I like that, I like that a lot. I do feel the need to be extraordinarily thankful to all of the police officers who have gone through CIT since in many municipalities, it is not mandatory.

Lisa Kiner: Including here in Columbus.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, including here in my state. Which means the police officers who have done it have volunteered. They have decided that there is value in learning how to help people with mental health issues in a way other than what they’ve already learned. I sincerely am so grateful for police officers who have taken that extra step because they don’t have to.

Lisa Kiner: But it’s not entirely altruistic. They also see the utility in it. It’s not just about people wanting to be nice to people with mental illness. It’s also about wanting to be safe themselves, not wanting these situations to get out of control, about not wanting bad things to happen. This isn’t just a benefit to people living with mental illness. This is a benefit to everyone, including police officers.

Gabe Howard: I have mad respect for the police officers who realize that. Who realize that they can learn more and help their community in a better way. Somebody with mental illness who is in a mental health crisis is most likely going to be seen by a police officer before anybody else. That training is not required, even though it is understood that people with a mental health crisis will be seen by a police officer before anybody

else. That’s really the only take away that you need to understand. Right?

Lisa Kiner: There’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in society that makes no sense.

Gabe Howard: Yeah, yeah, if Gabe gets sick, they’re sending the police. Are they going to train the police? Nope.

Lisa Kiner: Well, maybe.

Gabe Howard: If the police officer sees the utility in it and has the introspection, the understanding and the time to sign up for CIT training all by themselves, the bottom line is I hope that any law enforcement, first responder or politician listening to this will understand that mental health training is vital, period. We learned so much from Gabriel Nathan that we decided to do another show with him over on The Psych Central Podcast. And you can find that show on your favorite podcast player, just search for The Psych Central Podcast. Or you can go to PsychCentral.com/Show, and it will be there on Thursday. And Gabriel talks about the suicide rate among law enforcement. Forget about protecting people like me with mental health issues and bipolar disorder. Forget about all of that. The suicide rate among first responders.

Lisa Kiner: It’s quite shocking that more police officers will die by suicide this year than will be killed in the line of duty. A lot more

Gabe Howard: Yeah, by a lot,

Lisa Kiner: Almost three times.

Gabe Howard: It made us do an entire another episode on an entire other podcast hosted by me, so please go to PsychCentral.com/Show or look for The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player. And listen to more from Gabriel Nathan, the executive director of OC87 and one of the people behind Beneath the Vest: First Responder Mental Health. Lisa, are you ready to get out of here?

Lisa Kiner: I think we’re good to go. Thanks again to Gabriel Nathan for being here with  

us.

Gabe Howard: All right, everybody, here’s what we need you to do. Please subscribe to Not Crazy on your favorite podcast player. Rank us, review us, use your words and type in why you like the show. This really helps us a lot. Share us on social media and also tell people why to listen. We love doing this show for you and you can help us out greatly just by doing those simple things.

Lisa Kiner: And we’ll see you next Tuesday.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person?  Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details.

Gabe: Hey Not Crazy Fans! We are so cool our outtakes have sponsors! We want to give a shout out to Southern Cross University. Learn about mental health risk factors in older people at https://online.scu.edu.au/blog/risk-factors-mental-illness-older-people/. Check them both out and tell them Not Crazy sent you!

  The post Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed? first appeared on World of Psychology.

Podcast: Is Police (CIT) Crises Training Needed? syndicated from

[nameless-articles]

Nioh: The Right Game for the Wrong Time; but really a discussion on how we should talk about games and what to keep in mind when engaging with video game criticism.

I played Nioh (2017) recently, which you can see on my YouTube/Twitch (shameless plug), and I had some mixed feelings along the way. I enjoyed my time with the game, even if it was a bit frustrating at times. However, any time I wanted to criticize or point out something I didn’t enjoy, it was often accompanied with a comparison to a lesser known series by a small developer named FromSoftware. While I’m sure my viewers got annoyed by this, in the moment of playing it was the easiest way to acknowledge my gripes with the game with another game, but I wonder if that is the best approach to critiquing a game. This piece is about my feelings towards Nioh, but I also want it to be a critique on how we, as game critics and players, tend to criticize games. And let’s just pretend that my last article wasn’t over a year ago, k thanks.

Nioh is a good game, but maybe I should say a little more than that while I have you here. I have never played any Koei Tecmo games, so keep that in mind as I talk to you about Nioh. While streaming, someone pointed out how it reminded them of Ninja Gaiden and how they were interested in this game based on that alone. I only mention that little anecdote to comment on how easy it is for people to think about other games when we are looking at or playing another one, and how simple it is to give the reader some background context.

Of course, people don’t just do this for games. Just about everything in our life is in a constant state of relation, positive or negative, with some other aspect of our lives. It is not enough for a game to be good, it must be good in comparison to other games that we’ve played. Likewise, this piece of chicken I’m pretending to eat must not only be good, it has to be better than the piece of undercooked Church’s fried chicken I ate in a trailer in fourth grade, and so on and so forth.

I’m not here to say that comparisons are bad to make, in fact I started this piece by acknowledging how frequently I compared Nioh to FromSoftware games. Comparisons are an easy way of conveying our pleasure/displeasure with a certain process, however the ease with which we can produce comparisons is not to be mistaken with calling it the ideal basis of criticism.

“[Asking developers] to change such fundamental elements of the mechanics is not examining the game for what it is, choosing to examine it for what it isn’t or based on an experience the game does not seem designed to give.” - Me in my Sekiro article (found here).

While I’m not the best at following my own advice, I still agree with my assertion that assessing experiences for what they aren’t can be a recipe for disaster, or at the very least dissatisfaction. When I compare Nioh to something like Dark Souls, I am drawing from a pool of knowledge that may or may not be the same as another player. For someone playing Nioh without any previous Souls experience, such comparisons are almost pointless in describing the experience of playing the game, and I envy that reality because it is not easy to divorce yourself from previous experiences when assessing a new one. It may be impossible to do so and may actually prove to be a disadvantage of one’s criticism. Let me elaborate by going on a tangent for a second.

The Tangent

I hate tutorials. After fifteen years of playing games each with their own spin on how to teach players how to play, I am over them. Especially when now more than ever games all control about the same, and the ones that don’t control like the rest are unfairly maligned for doing so. So when a game feels the need to tell me how to play, I can’t help but roll my eyes knowing I’m about to go through a process that takes minutes from my life I’ll never get back, only to figure out how this flavor of third-person right-analog-controlled-camera left-analog-controlled-movement feels in comparison to the countless other games that feel just about the same. Nioh is kind enough to grace you with not one, not two, but essentially three different versions of a tutorial in a game that took me about thirty hours to beat. You have the opening section in England, the always accessible Dojo in the mission select screen, and the very first mission all treating you like it is the first time you’ve ever played the game. Of course, none of these teach you about the more intricate mechanics and passive abilities you can get throughout the game that, in my experience, cost me more time understanding their stat bonuses than they actually ended up being useful in gameplay (a bit more on this later). 

Tutorials are difficult to manage because on one hand you want to give the player just enough to get started, but at the same time you don’t want to risk under informing your player such that the tutorial gives them what they could’ve already assumed from an ad. This is only the case for someone who plays enough games to feel they can make an assumption, and oftentimes it's important to keep in mind that every game is potentially someone’s first game. What may come across as a hindrance for someone who regularly plays games is almost necessary for someone picking up a controller for the first time. The question(s) then becomes, from which point of view should your criticism come from, how much of that criticism should be contextualized for the reader, and what is a reader to do with that information? I’ll use Nioh as an example because these questions can lead to other interesting points of discussion that extend outside the game itself.

Which point of view should your criticism come from?

When criticizing a game either in writing or in a conversation, there’s hardly a reason to play devil’s advocate (please take this advice outside of games as well). While yes, it can be interesting, maybe even fun, to tease out other points of your argument by engaging with a point of contention different than your own, to play devil’s advocate is to engage with those views as if they are your own, when that is never necessary. It is enough to acknowledge that such a point of view reasonably exists (that is, it is a view held by a large enough group of people to warrant using your precious brain power on) and then engage with the idea from there. However, anyone’s best argument is going to come from the one they truly believe, justifying it as such and engaging with dissenters keeping in mind how they perceive the situation. In short, if you have experience playing games, then it makes little sense to pretend that you don’t. And if a game conjures up a similar experience to another game, and you can point to mechanical similarities to prove why you feel this is the case, then it makes sense to do so. That said, the process of comparison shouldn’t be used to undervalue how a game is different from another. For example, it is not enough to only say that Nioh has much more number of mechanics, consumables, weapons, and armor (as far as getting an endless amount of stat variation is concerned), and as a result it is better/worse than other games like it. One could look at all the additions as a positive, proclaiming it gives the player much more freedom in tackling the enemies, while someone else could see it as a negative, proclaiming that all the excess of mechanics leads to a bunch of unnecessary thought a player has to give to mechanics that only affect how quickly an enemy’s health bar depletes. Both are valid interpretations of the game’s mechanics.

From my point of view, the immense control players have over their movement, far more than anything possible in any of FromSoftware’s offerings, means you never really have to engage with most of the mechanics except for levelling up and swapping out gear for something of higher defensive and offense stats. While it’s also true in Souls that you can stick to a boss’ right side and avoid most damage, the ease of doing so in Nioh renders most of any boss’s challenge mute. Not helped by bosses only having four to six different moves means it’s reasonable for a player in the “right” mindset to learn a boss’s entire moveset. In the end, the myriad mechanical options add extraneous complexity to a combat system that is fundamentally conquerable by doing what you would do in other similar games. 

That said, not all of the changes to conventional souls-like design goes unappreciated. The ki-pulse system makes stamina management a far more interesting affair than anything I’ve ever played. It allows an attentive player to remain aggressive for longer and makes Yokai combat encounters different from others in the game, which helps somewhat in making the combat less repetitive (though a notable lack in differing enemies/enemy reskins can wear down even the most enthusiastic players). Notice, I started this comparison by referring to this game as a souls-like, but none of what I actually said about the stamina system relies on playing other games to understand. No matter the comparison being made, the game discussion needs to center on what is being offered in the game itself, with little to no attention given to the qualities of the other game(s) being compared. A lack of enemy variety is subjective, because underneath that assertion is an understanding that I have played other games with more enemy variety, such that an indirect comparison is being made at any qualitative analysis. On what basis am I saying there aren’t enough enemy types? Surely I am making that statement based off other games that have had more enemy variety under similar constraints (game time, play space). 

A player with a different background may have no reason to consider a game in that terms at all. If the only other game I played was flower, where there is maybe only one enemy in the form of environmental hazard, something like Nioh would have way more enemies than I could ever imagine. With that kind of background, I may even praise Nioh for the amount of enemy variety and not think much of enemy reskins or reusing bosses. For the record, I don’t mind Nioh’s reusing of bosses for side missions and as a way to cap off the experience at the end. Nonetheless, the end game side missions that just put two bosses together in a pre-existing boss arena are not a high point of the game.

Neither of these perspectives are inherently better than the other. At best, we can say one point of view comes from playing similar games while another comes from a set of eyes completely new to the formula. Neither give an assessment more “true” to the nature of the game, because, if I haven’t already made it clear, a game has no nature or critical existence outside of the discussion borne from it. Neither is more accurate, because both describe someone’s experience. The next question is about how relevant that is to the reader.

How much context does valid criticism necessitate?

In short, context could mean everything or nothing, depending on who you ask. Context, in the context of this specific piece of video game analysis, does not so much refer to the context of a game’s release as it does to the gaming backgrounds of individuals reviewing or critiquing said video game. What does the reader need to know about the author to find their criticism valid?

The list of individual traits is endless and, with regards to playing video games, fundamentally useless. For an absurd example, you would not care if the critic ate rice and fish (or if they preferred saying fish and rice) a week before playing the critiqued game, because that should have little ground on their criticism. It is easy to understand the pointlessness of such points of definition, but there are others that warrant a discussion despite them being fundamentally unanswerable questions. For example, must someone play the other games in the series to reasonably critique the third entry of a franchise? Must someone beat the game in its entirety (does entirety mean getting to the end credits or something absurd like viewing every texture and audio file individually after obtaining all the trophies and secret items at max level)? Does someone need to play the game at all? Would any of the criticism I put forth about Nioh be any less true than if I had watched a YouTube video and come to the same conclusion? Should someone that agreed with me on all those points rescind their agreement until they find someone else who had actually played the game? These questions refer to vague lines in nonexistent sand, with infinitely definable answers.

So then is context meaningless? Possibly. For some it may not matter at all whether the critic has played many games, where they’ve demonstrated a cogent understanding of the medium and seek to express that ideology in their criticism. Realistically, most of us don’t think about the context to such a degree. Yet there are articles and discussions about game journalists having trouble with Cuphead’s tutorial and others needing to use cheats to beat Sekiro, and members of the community typing in rage about how this marks the uselessness of such critics. So it’s clear that it matters, at least to some individuals.

I do not use those outraged and inflammatory instances to poison the well of the “context matters” crowd. Because some of the most popular game critics are those who have a history of their likes and dislikes. If I were to give you a review of a game I did not play, most people would tune out immediately, believing that anything I might have to say would be completely nonsense because we don't deem that kind of “uninformed” criticism appropriate. Would watching hundreds of hours of Nioh make me more qualified to criticize than someone who dropped it after the first hour, despite having never played it? For some this is an easy question, but I am not here to pose easy answers. In truth, any number of arguments could be made as to why one of those two would give more informed criticism, and those arguments would be just as subjective and context-ridden as the original question.

Let’s go back to the context of Nioh, and this refers both to the context of Nioh, the game, and of my own experience with it. When I started streaming the game, someone in chat hyperbolically wrote that I would get an achievement for being the first souls player to beat the first boss. The insinuation, which they further clarified, was that souls player often complain that Nioh is too difficult, and they weren’t ready for a game that was offering them a real challenge (not like the fake challenges I had been exposed to up until then). I have countless hours in the Souls series, have played all the games from Demon's Souls to Sekiro, and I did not have much challenge with the game. Other than an optional boss (which is actually two bosses), I never died more than six times to a boss, which is not something I could say about other games in the subgenre. I was always waiting for the game to get as hard as everyone told me it was going to be, and as a result I always prepared myself and nothing ever proved to be as challenging as what I had already experienced in other games. 

Nioh came out in 2017, and that legitimately surprised me. This game came out after Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. Had this game come out before both of those, and had I played it before playing those and Sekiro, I think I would’ve had a much different perspective on the game. I imagine I would’ve looked at Sekiro a lot less favorably knowing about Nioh, and it would’ve felt less like a unique take on the Souls formula in a Japanese setting and more of a game that was actually taking from Nioh in the way that Nioh takes from its predecessors. Nioh, for the most part, feels like an amalgamation of the souls genre, along with a few gimmicks of its own (which still harkens back to Demon’s Souls). At the same time, the focus on mechanics and Japanese setting does make it better than some of the more middling offerings within FromSoftwares offerings. I would say Nioh is a better package than Dark Souls 2 and 3, which means I am more likely to go back to it more than those two games.

I can’t help but try to imagine a world where Nioh came out before Bloodborne. It would’ve been more groundbreaking and would’ve had less to compare to, though this isn’t always to a game’s favor. As it stands, the game feels like a mechanically refined Souls game with a far more linear level and story progression. For someone that played Dark Souls for the gameplay, Nioh probably stands out as superior to those, but for someone who enjoyed the more exploratory adventure aspects will find this game lacking, as you are far more likely to encounter doors that can only open on one side, and usually never the side you’re on the first time around. 

Of course, this is just one person’s experience with the game and is by no means absolutely indicative of the experience someone else will have. Some readers will be more aligned with the context of one reviewer/critic over another, and the next question seeks to assess how all readers, regardless of experience, might incorporate this piece into their own understanding of games.

What is a reader to do with context? 

When playing a game for the first time, the experience can benefit from initially knowing as little as possible, so the player must slowly construct a frame of reference through which they’ll go on to view the rest of the experience. However, if everyone played things with little knowledge going into it, readers would be left with a wide array of reviews all amounting to the same level of first impressions, especially when people rush to be the first to say something new or interesting about a certain game. The longer a game is out, the more coverage it receives, the more difficult it gets to contribute a new mode of analysis. Thus, a well-informed reader is someone who engages with critics who have similar and different tastes than themself.

Many readers are quick to ignore thoughtful opinions based solely on its central claim. “[Insert reviewer] said this game is misogynistic, and I refuse to engage further with the matter.” Maybe I don’t need to tell you why such a point of view is detrimental to video game discourse, but in case I do: dismissing an opinion without offering your own thoughtful critique doesn’t propagate discourse; instead of ignoring legitimate criticism of a video game you enjoyed, maybe you should complicate the criticism by offering counter claims and examples. I’m not saying everyone needs to have an opinion on everything, because we all know enough people have enough opinions to keep readers engaged for centuries to come. One does not need to argue with a piece of criticism to engage with it. Reading and understanding the criticism in good faith is quality engagement on its own.

Most readers are content with critics telling them what they already believe to be true. I agree, it is very comforting to listen to the words of a journalist, someone with a small semblance of authority in your hobbies, affirming what you already know. But it is important in these moments to also cast a critical eye on those that agree with you, because sometimes it can take another person saying the same sentiments to find points of contention.

Context is important because it informs how the critic is interrogating any piece of art, and a reader mindful of that context is going to help them determine whether they’re coming from the same place. For example, if I know a critic enjoys a certain genre or has exposure to certain games, I can leverage that with my own personal experiences with that genre or those games, meaning I can keep that information in mind as I’m engaging with the criticism. In the context of Nioh, does the reader have experience with the Souls-like genre, does that experience differ from the critics (if so, in which ways does the difference in previous experience account for why a critic might like or dislike certain elements of Nioh like difficulty or other mechanics)? Keeping the differences in mind will help a reader understand why they might disagree with a critic, likewise the similarities will help a reader understand why they might agree. It is also not uncommon for differences to lead to agreement (I like this game because it was easy, I like this game because it was difficult. Both of these statements can simultaneously be true to two different players, and it doesn’t diminish either of their enjoyment or appreciation).

Keeping such context in mind as you engage with criticism and give critique will make you more aware of the intersubjectivity of play at play. This awareness helps you better understand your own biases as well as others, which benefits the overall discourse. I’m not saying you need to engage in a respectful manner, but that you must actively engage with the opinions being expressed.

Conclusion, and the Context of this piece

Most of this essay was sprung from an internal conflict over how I wanted to talk about Nioh. I mentioned that I frequently drew comparisons during my playthrough, and I do not know why. It had to do with the familiarity with going through a level, fighting a boss, rinsing and repeating. It does not take very many games to realize how derivative the entire medium is, though framing it that way suggests that other artistic mediums are immune to formulas and derivation. They are not, but it does not change the fact that having so many games play and feel so similar to each other is a perfect storm for player fatigue and burnout. From platformers, to first person shooters, to third person cover based shooters, to open world sandboxes, to battle royal games, how many of the same kind of game can people handle before they yearn for something wholly different?

Then I thought to myself, every game within a genre is someone’s first game within that genre,  just like every game is someone’s first game. Derivativeness is good because experimentation becomes codified and refined, and we get games within genres that stand out within a genre, making entire new subgenres of their own, as was the case with Demon’s Souls. Different experiences are exciting, but they tend to be unpolished, janky, and often never reach the heights their potential suggests. Which I believe sums up how I feel about Nioh without needing to say how much I enjoyed it.

Nioh would not be what it is without Souls game, any argument to the contrary has an insurmountable amount of evidence to contradict, but that does not mean you must view Nioh under these constraints to understand why it is a great game worthy of your time. Whether you’re a fan of the genre or not, you owe it to yourself to try one that could be the one to change your mind entirely, so long as you don’t expect the game to change your life, as I always seem to hope for.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: ‘I have tried trade, but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil.’1 Noam Chomsky once emailed us: Am really impressed with what you are doing, though it’s like trying to move a ten-ton truck with a toothpick. They’re not going to allow themselves to be exposed.2 These were kind words from Chomsky. But, in fact, ‘they’ – corporate journalists – often do an excellent job of exposing themselves. Consider that, last week, one of us happened to notice this on Twitter: Under 27? Want to spend a year writing about politics for The Observer, @NewStatesman and @thetimes? Anthony Howard Award 2018 is now open: http://anthonyhowardaward.org.uk . It gave @LOS_Fisher @ashcowburn @patrickkmaguire @Dulcie_Lee and me our starts in Westminster. Apply! We responded: Forget it. Don’t write for the “mainstream”. Don’t write for money. Don’t write for prestige. Just “follow your bliss” by writing what you absolutely love to write to inspire and enlighten other people. Write what seems interesting, important and true, and give it away for free. The tweet quickly picked up 15 retweets and 40 likes. At first, nobody expressed strong feelings about it. But then, a clutch of corporate journalists and writers decided to scandalise what we had sent, generating a kind of ‘mainstream’ feeding frenzy. Emma Kennedy, actress, author of ten books, tweeted graciously: This is total bollocks. If you want to be a writer know this: you have a value and you ALWAYS deserve to be paid. Go fuck yourself Media Lens. Stephen Buranyi, who writes longreads for the Guardian, mimed: **does the jackoff motion so hard I glide across the floor like an unbalanced washing machine** Patrick Sawer, senior reporter at The Telegraph: Tell that to anyone trying to stage a play, paint a canvas, put together a film, get a book published. What arrant nonsense to pretend, for the sake of “purity” that the market economy doesn’t exist. Kate Hind, Mail on Sunday Showbiz Editor, chipped in: I think this lot are in on the wind up Pressgirl wrote: I’ve worked as a journo for more than 30 years and only those with wealthy partners can afford to potter about doing what they fancy. Most have to do the grunt work of covering courts, sports, disasters and getting their hands dirty. Everyone seemed to find their own meaning, and outrage, in the tweet. Editor Wendy Rosenfield: This is literally the worst advice for writers. Write for yourself, on your own blog, or to promote your own work for free. Charge everyone else. It’s work. It has value and deserves compensation. Ian Craig, a politics reporter: Abhorrent. I hope you apologise for this. Helen Black, a novelist, foresaw dark consequences: Have you got any idea how unattainable a career in the media/arts feels to millions of working class people? A tweet like this only serves to feed class division. Before long, the outrage went global. From New York: This is awful advice. Truly, truly awful. From Spain: Snobismo moralista de pacotilla… We got the gist from the first two words. Even Owen Jones of the Guardian, normally a stickler for ignoring us, replied: The corporate media needs to be relentlessly critiqued. And that includes its dependence on unpaid/underpaid labour which is a) exploitative and b) turns journalism into a closed shop for the privileged. Which you helped justify. He added: And yes, sure, there’ll be those using your stupid statement opportunistically because you more generally critique corporate media practices. That doesn’t mean you’re vindicated in giving pseudo radical cover to unpaid media labour. We replied: It’s not possible for us to have “helped justify” corporate media exploitation and privilege when the first line of our tweet read: “Forget it. Don’t write for the “mainstream”. Jones has previously revealed that he is ‘barred‘ from criticising his colleagues. With this in mind, we added: There’s also a problem with corporate media requiring that young journalists refrain from criticising their colleagues, their company, their advertisers, their owners, “the industry”. But that’s not something you’re willing or able to talk about, is it? Jones resumed his policy of ignoring us. The New Statesman published an entire article on our tweet, titled: Telling journalists to “follow your bliss” by writing for free is as anti-socialist as you can get Abuse poured in liberally: You sound like a privileged twat here. Just saying. Fucking new age wanky twaddle. Fuck off’ Go stuff your bliss up your arse Fuck you. Pay people. You sound retarded. And so on, with the above representing only a small sample… ‘The Call to Adventure’ By any standards, this was a fascinating response to a single tweet of just 279 characters. In his excellent response to the furore, former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook wrote that ‘the outpouring of indignation from these journalists at a little bit of advice from Media Lens must be unprecedented’. So what did Joseph Campbell, a comparative mythologist, actually mean when he talked of ‘following your bliss’? In a series of discussions on The Power of Myth with journalist Bill Moyers, Campbell explained: The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy – not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call “following your bliss”.3 Having found out what really inspires us, the key is to not be distracted or tempted by lesser motivations – ‘lesser’, not because they are ‘bad’ or ‘evil’, but because they are not, in fact, despite what many people think, sources of real satisfaction: You may have a success in life, but then just think of it – what kind of life was it? What good was it – you’ve never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don’t let anyone throw you off. (p.118) Campbell was not dispensing self-help twaddle here. His comments were rooted in more than half a century spent studying myths, legends and folk tales from every corner of the globe. He was particularly interested in a remarkable, recurring ‘monomyth’ featuring a ‘hero’ – not a tedious, Marvel-style superhero, but simply someone sensitive to his or her extreme frustration with egotistical pursuits based around money, respect and fame. This stubborn, otherwise very ordinary, soul responds to a ‘call to adventure’, stepping beyond the boundaries of everyday life to search for some deeper, more satisfying answer to life. In doing so, the hero inevitably takes a challenging journey away from the familiar and secure along a ‘road of trials’, which eventually delivers him or her to a ‘wasteland’. This is an abysmal moment of crisis that, if faced and endured, results in a tremendous ‘boon’; an experience that leaves the hero utterly transformed. Campbell’s specific advice to writers answering this ‘call to adventure’ was to read everything by the authors they love. And to then read everything loved by this first set of authors, and so on. He suggested we keep journeying, investigating ever more deeply into whatever it is we find most enthralling and enlivening. Simultaneously, we should write whatever it is we find most interesting – just write and write, practice, experiment and enjoy. In this way, he claimed, we can develop a depth of enthusiasm, knowledge and skill that may very well result in our work being noticed, appreciated and supported. But this positive reception should not be the motivation, not even a concern. Does it need saying that the hero of the ‘monomyth’ – Christ, Buddha, Bodhidharma, Saraha, Kabir, Lao-Tse – is not seeking fame and financial gain? Campbell warned that a writer might need to follow this path for ten years before receiving any acknowledgement at all, much less payment. But this was not a problem because the delight of the adventure more than compensates for any financial loss. Campbell’s key point: And if you stay in the centre and don’t get any money, you still have your bliss. But, of course, questions remain; urgent issues that explain the bile expressed at our tweet: 1: How on earth are we to live? Guardian columnist Dawn Foster garnered 524 ‘likes’ on Twitter with this comment: Emailing my landlord, bank, and utilities company to explain I’m “following my bliss”. Someone else wrote: How the fuck are we going to afford rent and bills and food by writing for bliss. 2: Why on earth would a young writer give his or her work away for free? Why would payment not be an aspiration? Writer Emma Kennedy again: It is utterly disgusting that you are advocating for writers not to be paid. Go tell that to a plumber. You’re a disgrace. A freelance photographer agreed: Dear “Work For Free” cheerleader: Just Fuck Off, there’s a poppet. To reiterate, Campbell argued that a creative writer must first build a foundation of enthusiasm, knowledge and skill. This can take years, and means following our interest wherever it leads. What matters in these early years is that we love what we’re doing and keep doing it. What does not matter is whether we are achieving some external reward: getting attention, getting paid. These are completely secondary. In fact, they are not even secondary; they are a trap. Schopenhauer wrote: Only he who writes entirely for the sake of what he has to say writes anything worth writing. It is as if there were a curse on money: every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain.4 The 11th century Buddhist master, Ksemendra, made a similar point: The thoughts of wealth and glory that arise first are like poison ivy: they harm merely by a touch, enchanting and paralysing the mind.5 But how can a concern for payment be actually poisonous? As young writers very consciously following our bliss in the 1990s, we also felt the temptation to stop reading and writing the material we found most interesting; to start thinking ‘maturely’ and ‘responsibly’ about ‘market demands’. As knowledge and ability increase with practice, the possibility and temptation arise to turn to issues, perhaps related, that pay. Taking this turn, we can quickly come to feel exactly as we do when stuck in standard corporate office work – we are now writing from the head rather than the heart, which is clearly felt as a dull, joyless, mechanical task. But what is really alarming about straying from the ‘call to adventure’ in this way, is that we can end up spending a huge amount of time and energy on this paid work. Writing consumes a lot of mental energy – anyone who writes for three or four hours a day will not have much energy left for real writing. It is far better for young writers to avoid paid writing of this kind and support themselves through paid, non-writing work – part-time teaching, for example. Rather than worrying about toxic money issues, young writers can write what they believe in and send it, completely free, completely uncompromised, to people they admire, friends, small magazines, and so on. In our case, we sent our work to people like Harold Pinter, John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Howard Zinn and Edward Goldsmith; to magazines like Resurgence, The Ecologist, New Internationalist, Red Pepper and Z Magazine. Because they valued our work, they began helping us – in Pilger’s case, to a degree that was beyond anything we could have imagined and that continues to this day. This is why our tweet suggested young writers should write and ‘give it away for free’. Doing so allows them to stay true to what they believe, and may well result in support that, crucially, is not conditional on corporate conformity and compromise. Incidentally, Campbell followed his own path by disappearing into the hills to read for ten years at the height of the Great Depression. As he said: I came back from Europe as a student in 1929, just three weeks before the Wall Street crash, so I didn’t have a job for five years. There just wasn’t a job. That was a great time for me. I didn’t feel poor, I just felt that I didn’t have any money. Bridges Burning Brightly – Media Lens Consider the creation of Media Lens in July 2001. We both loathed trying to jump through tiny corporate media hoops to publish small articles and book reviews, and never considered charging for our media alerts and cogitations. The goal was to enjoy ourselves, writing whatever we felt was important, interesting and true about corporate media without giving a hoot about upsetting newspaper editors, commissioning editors and the like – the people young writers are normally terrified of alienating. We felt it was vital to not give a hoot. It never occurred to us that we might be able to make any money out of what we were doing. After all, which of the many corporations, great and small, that dominate the mass media would dream of publishing material undermining their credibility? We also didn’t imagine that readers would send donations to a tiny website run by two virtually unknown writers. Nevertheless, we set about burning our few, rickety media bridges. Just eighteen months later, with donations flowing, Edwards was able to abandon his ten-year, Tefl teaching career to work full-time on Media Lens. Cromwell, who has a family and who was then working as a scientist, was eventually able to resign and work full-time from 2010. The public response has always been astonishing. Last year, in lieu of the usual coffee-makers and cutlery, a couple wrote to their entire list of wedding guests asking them to send donations to Media Lens. As a birthday present for her husband, the wife of an avid reader in Switzerland sent us €1,000, asking only that we send him an email on the day. Ignoring our protests, another reader set up a standing order donating £2 a month, despite sometimes not having enough money to put food on the table. Another supporter paid for 100 copies of our book Newspeak to be sent to senior journalists, editors and managers at the BBC (we only ever received two replies). We have many humbling stories of this kind that we can hardly believe ourselves. The public has immense power to support honest writing, which is why we have imagined a collective of principled writers and journalists detaching themselves completely from corporate media, and placing themselves entirely at the mercy of the public. Of course, we have also made a small amount of money from our two Pluto Press books; from a tiny, short-lived monthly ‘box’ column in the New Statesman (2003-2005), and from a bi-monthly column in Gulf Today recycling media alerts (2004-2009). We are not at all against being paid; the point is that it has never been our motivation and does not determine what we write. And yes, we accept that this is not in any way a secure career path. In fact, donations have been falling for a while and we may have to return to part-time work in the next couple of years. We are keenly aware that the reflexive response from our many critics, wobbling like washing machines across the floor, will be: Well, you say you follow your bliss, but your writing is tedious, turgid, ineffectual crap. So why don’t you…? Which is why we responded to many tweeters with a comment that appeared on the front of our second Media Lens book, Newspeak (Pluto Press, 2009), taken from the foreword by John Pilger: Not since Orwell and Chomsky has perceived reality been so skillfully revealed in the cause of truth. The quality and impact of any writing is always a matter of personal opinion, of course. But we think responses of this kind from the people we respect most indicate that Media Lens has been a tremendous success, considering that we really are just two writers who really have given our media alerts and cogitations away for free, exactly as proposed in our tweet. The Bigger Reality But there is another crucial issue mentioned in the tweet, ‘Don’t write for the corporate media’, that was completely unaddressed by our Twitter critics. This concerns the utterly disastrous impact of young writers meekly conforming to the demands of the corporate system. For these media truly are an integral part of a ‘mainstream’ monster that is devastating the planet. As Jonathan Cook wrote: It’s almost as if these critics are desperately trying to deflect their thoughts from the consequences of this bigger reality. Media Lens and I have committed a crime of honesty: about what kind of world we not only need to live in but must live in right now if we and our children are to survive impending climate breakdown and economic collapse. The “realists”, it seems, would prefer that Media Lens and I tell young journalists that they should forget all that, keep their heads down and carry on like their predecessors in the media, who smoothed the path to the environmental and economic crises we now face. It is impossible to write in a genuinely unconstrained way about the crucial issues of our time from within corporate media. This becomes immediately clear when we glance at just a few of the major topics that ‘mainstream’ writers cannot discuss: They cannot criticise their newspapers, magazines or other media companies: their media owners, parent companies, editors, colleagues, products and advertisers. They cannot discuss the toxic nature of the corporate media system as a whole. For example, they cannot point even to the absurdity of profit-seeking, billionaire-owned, advert-dependent, corporate journalism reporting ‘impartially’ on a world dominated by profit-seeking mega-corporations. They cannot discuss the very reasonable claim advanced by the Canadian lawyer, Joel Bakan, that the corporate system – the most powerful economic and political force on the planet – is, in essence, a giant psychopath subordinating human and animal life to short-term profit. This cannot be debated even in the context of irrefutable evidence that vast corporate interests are, still now, fighting tooth and nail to obstruct action on climate change that is threatening global catastrophe. Because the government is a major supplier of high-level sources and other subsidised news (from central government and various departments, like defence), writers cannot discuss the fact that party politics is essentially owned by corporate power. They cannot expose the role of the US as a de facto global Godfather deploying high-tech violence and terror to ensure Third World countries serve US corporate interests, with obstructive independent nationalists attacked and overthrown in the name of ‘human rights’ and ‘self-defence’. Because the corporate press is about selling products and services to billions of consumers, it is loath to discuss the claim that an authentic, incomparable bliss is located within the human heart, and can be experienced by directing some attention away from external sources of ‘happiness’ to internal feelings in meditation. And yet this has been the assertion of every great spiritual master for thousands of years. Kabir, for example, said: Don’t go outside your house to see flowers, my friend, don’t bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has a thousand petals. These ‘flowers’ are waiting for us when we follow our bliss. The flower with ‘a thousand petals’ found by ‘the hero with a thousand faces’ is Enlightenment, deemed a quaint, poetic notion by head-trapped journalism. It is a truth so completely at odds with the whole purpose of corporate power that, beyond a trivial, lifestyle concern with de-stressing ‘mindfulness’, it cannot be considered. A spider’s web of ‘red lines’ awaits anyone who tries to write openly and honestly inside this system. Finally, why did so many corporate journalists feel so compelled to vent their spleen at this one tiny tweet among thousands? A tweet from a website that has no conceivable ability to influence or harm their financial prospects in any way. Why did they bother? The answer can only be that corporate journalists felt drawn to Campbell’s advice. He wrote of such people: Walled in boredom, hard work, or “culture”, the subject loses the power of affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless – even though, like King Minos, he may through titanic effort succeed in building an empire of renown.6 What journalist stuck in the confines of profit-maximisation and ‘market demands’ could fail to feel the attraction of ‘writing what you absolutely love to write to inspire and enlighten other people. Write what seems interesting, important and true’? But what journalist lumbered with a mortgage, prestige, kids’ university debts – after decades spent clambering up a career ladder – can dare to think in terms of following their bliss? The idea seems hateful because it triggers a conflict that is immediate and obvious, and full of pain. How, then, to safely dismiss the whole issue? By raging at the final advice: ‘give it away for free’. Impossible! Absurd! It sows class division! Thus can they reject all such ‘nonsense’ and trudge back to conformity. The tell, the clue, lies in the very passion of the rejection – in the hundreds of angry tweets. After all, mere nonsense is ignored, or coolly dismissed. But when something stirs an inner conflict, the energy must out: ‘The lady doth protest too much.’ The gentleman, also. To all our corporate critics languishing in the fetid bowels of the corporate media Moloch, we say: Don’t go to your corporate offices to see flowers, my friend, don’t bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has a thousand petals. * Thoreau, Walden * Chomsky, email to Media Lens, September 14, 2005. * Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, Doubleday, 1988, p.155. * Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms, Penguin Books, 1981, p.199. * Ksemendra, Leaves of the Heaven Tree, Dharma Publishing, 1997, p.421. * Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Fontana Press, 1949, p.59. http://clubof.info/

[wrjamison]

Coffee, Truth Bombs, Racism, and Tough Pills to Swallow

It’s been a long time since I’ve logged back in, for which there are many reasons, but the main reason I think, other than general slothfulness, is that much of my general goings-on currently lack some of the depth and inner purpose which was unavoidable in South Africa. We can come back to that later, but I had an experience a couple weekends ago, which was unexpected, and the effect was profound. In fact, I have been able to think of little else since. 

I am hoping to trampoline that feeling of conviction toward resurgent blog use - to continue the journey started in South Africa, and to re-purpose it with fresh eyes on a second act in Baltimore. I recognize that in South Africa, I was inundated with experiences steeped in truth and authenticity. Experiences that rang true. Through this blog, and continuing self-reflection, I hope to manifest space for the pursuit of authenticity and truth. That reembarked journey, as it must, starts with a conversation.

The experience has weighed on me heavily. Through writing, hopefully I can clarify for myself some of the meaning. Ultimately though, as always, the goal is to learn, to progress, to continue the conversation, to grow.

Before diving in, I simply want to say that in writing this entry, the goal is not to win an argument, to prove I am right. As I said, it is to grow, to progress (which, if you ask me is the meaning of this tiny life we live) and to continue a conversation, to ask questions – and hopefully to create space in which to answer them. Or at least a space in which to continue digging. And to do so together.

And lastly to say ‘thank you’ to the bold, assured person who came over to me and two people I was having a discussion with, and dropping a serious knowledge bomb on our conversation. The conversation turned racially charged. Put me, at least, on the edge of conversational and emotional comfort. In a good way, perhaps. In the same way exercise seeks a physical limit, this conversation pushed me to an introspective, racially conscientious boundary. Further to the metaphor of exercise, the point is to push a muscle to the point of hypertrophy, to its edge, the point where it rips. When it grows back, it’s stronger, more capable, more powerful. I’m hoping that my societal conceptions will do the same here. 

The knowledge bomb was dropped as such: I was at a table at a coffee shop in Baltimore. I was drinking coffee as it should be drank: black. A conversation was ongoing at the table next to me, which I admit, I had been conspicuously dropping eaves on from time to time. At some point, their conversation osmosed into my consciousness, and I joined in – I believe with them asking innocently “Oh what’s the name of that restaurant on….?”, Me: “Oh that one, well I actually prefer the restaurant across the street.” (Yea, one-upsmanship right off the bat, with a splash of ‘I’m local.’) I can’t remember how exactly it came up, but the gentleman with whom I was now conversing mentioned that he lived across the street, and I asked if the neighborhood had changed over his time there. He said it had. He mentioned that he has seen an article which had ranked “up and coming” neighborhoods in Baltimore and that the neighborhood in which we currently sat, Reservoir Hill, didn’t make the list. We discussed further for a minute or so. Restaurants. Gentrification. Then after a minute or two, a young lady came over and said that she had heard some of our conversation, and that she was writing a blog about gentrification (see below for link). She stated that she loved the community there. She was cordial but somewhat disappointed and abrasive. The man asked her if he had something to offend. The community is beautiful the way it is, she said. She wouldn’t change anything about it. That white people should come, visit, lend resources, but they shouldn’t move in. And finally that the notion of “up and coming” neighborhoods is racist.

Boom.

Indian food to racism. Real quick.

My initial reaction, because that’s who I am - an advocate frequently in employ of the devil - is to disagree. More thought though, and putting some words on e-paper, has chiseled away at the foundation of my disagreement. Exposed its porousness. To residents of those communities which have existed in those ‘up and coming neighborhoods’, how should they feel when they hear that now, all of a sudden, their neighborhood is up and coming? And what do we mean by up and coming? More places to get gluten free muffins and farm to table yoga? Regardless of what was meant, the reality of that up-and-comingness is this: there are more white people there than before, and this is somehow inherently ‘better’. Furthermore, it’s likely that only once a majority of those people from that original community have been removed will the neighborhood ever graduate from ‘up and coming’ to ‘here’.

All that in three words..

What I realized was that by way of calling the point of view which we casually conversed ‘racist’, she was really calling me racist. And that’s a tough pill to swallow.

A tougher pill to swallow is that she might be right.

Lets rotate the mirror, and let the devil turn its gaze on my own perceptions. It’s uncomfortable, but growth, mental progress occur at the brink of those discomfiting conversations, and are empowered through reflection.

She wasn’t calling me a Nazi. She wasn’t saying that I hate black people. That actually might have been easier, more easily dismissed as outlandish. She was saying that the privileged, white lens through which I see things contains micro-racisms, micro-aggressions which are founded in the imperialist, racist conceptualizations which continue perpetuate mechanisms which debase people of color.

I don’t feel the need to have a discussion about whether or not I am racist, but are some of the mental frameworks I utilize, is part of the lens through which I see society, are those built on and do they reinforce the fabric of oppression? I really want to be able to say ‘no’, emphatically no. I traveled to South Africa to volunteer for an organization of which, 100% of the participants are black. I’m Quaker, dammit, we don’t do racism. But the more I think about it, the more I see her point of view – that racism comes in as many varieties as people, and every little action plays its part in maintaining a world which continues to unfairly reward some people for their lack of color, and undercut other people because of their skin. Myself included.

That notion isn't’ easy to grip. It’s not easy to write. It won’t be easy to publish (if I decide to publish). I feel though that the only route to societal change is through tweaks to people’s perspectives, which will come through conversation. Conversation that teeters on the edge. Thus, I consider it a duty to continue this conversation.

Now, because again, I do occasionally find allegiances with the devil, I have a few questions.

And I guess I have to admit, I’m white. (That was for me, not you).

Because of my skin, can I not participate in a neighborhood that has as many boarded up houses as not? Is the notion that I can’t or shouldn’t racist? Does it matter if it is? (‘White male has feelings hurt’ doesn’t really stop the presses). One main point of the conversation was that she wouldn’t change the community, that it’s beautiful as is, and that white people should not bring their gentrifying ways into the community. As I haven’t lived there, I can’t pretend to know the community, and I understand that there are communities within it that depend on the boarded up houses, but can’t we all agree that it would be better if they didn’t have to?

Second, what responsibility do you take for changing the neighborhood? After all, you sell Kombucha and banana bread - and I’m pretty sure those two actually ferment white people.

Lastly, why is this neighborhood more yours than mine? Is it just skin? My thought is that it is about identity. I grew up five miles from here. Can I not identify? Is there really no way that I could work here, participate, and be a piece of the puzzle that manifests a more equitable neighborhood? I really do believe I could be a force for equality and advancement of community. Or is that not possible? I’m willing to listen, but if the answer is yes, that’s going to be another tough pill.

But what’s one more pill added to the cocktail of crow I’ve eaten in this article.

------

Here is the article that our coffee shop assailant wrote at BrioxyLife: https://medium.com/@brioxylife/just-stop-already-white-people-920a21c9443b

Please, please read it. It’s discomforting, disappointed and bold, and the work they are doing at Brioxy is awesome.

If you have questions/thoughts/suggestions/disagreements, post them or email them to me.

[soovaryit]

http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/not-all-men-just-enough-of-them/

(Excellent meme is a repost from @highandfemme on insta) Today is about them ones where you find out the guy you’re seeing is a secret misogynist, and also those upsetting daily discussions with un-woke (asleep? idk?) generally heterosexual men about feminism. The worst is when they think they are an ally but don’t want to listen to anything you, as a woman, have to say about inequality (because they know it all, they’ve read ‘We can all be feminists’ so god can you get off their back and remember that they only like feminism when they’re mansplaining it you). This post is about the fact that the majority of men don’t want to get to grips with even the basics of feminism, especially when they’re called out on it and especially in the presence of other men. This is not exclusive to dating at all but also includes friendships, employers, even strangers who cat call or make sexist comments. The following are some examples of this happening in my own life and in general and how I try to discuss issues with people who either don’t care or get defensive. Example 1: The rhetoric that insecurity is sexier than confidence. Let’s talk about fragile masculinity and empowered women, I’m going to use the example of One Direction. Their song ‘You don’t know you’re beautiful’ PERFECTLY sums up the attitude of many males and how they ideally want women to think about themselves. For those who’ve never heard it (you obviously move in cooler circles than me), the lyrics in the chorus are ‘You don’t know you’re beautiful/that’s what makes you beautiful’. Oooh yeah those cis het white boys love a girl who’s insecure (this is also true of like, all 1D songs that I obviously only listen to in the name of feminist research and not because I secretly enjoy them). But who can blame them?! We all know a woman being confident in themselves is a threat to them and that’s so unfair. Insecurity is SO endearing, didn’t you know?!? Remember to always reject compliments and pretend you hate yourself in order to get a boyfriend. It’s so cute. (I rly hope you sense the sarcasm here). These lyrics represent a wider culture of women being made to feel subordinate and afraid to be confident and powerful in comparison to their (male) partner. And it’s one that we need to address.  I want to be clear that if you’re a woman who is empowered by modesty that is obviously completely valid. Don’t interpret this as me asking you to change yourself in the name of feminism – absolutely not. You do you, in the way that you want to. Although I would consider myself confident, I have many insecurities. Some days I look in the mirror and I’m like GET IT GURL you look so good. And sometimes I wonder why I have the body and sexual magnetism of a potato. Insecurities are unavoidable. We are literally brainwashed to feel insecure and it is the way that corporations and society in general keeps us consuming and living in a culture of fear (goin off on a tangent here wooops). Sharing insecurities, especially with a partner, can be empowering and liberating and useful. But don’t let men (or anyone for that matter) fetishize yours to validate their masculinity. I see this happening A LOT. It’s boring, it reinforces outdated notions of gender (the damsel in distress, the female saved by the man) and it sucks. Example 2: A man on my facebook shared a meme a while ago of a girl in a short skirt that said ‘Those who show a lot have little to offer’. To him I say: Trust me mate I can get my tits out and still be an intelligent, kind AND fierce woman because my qualities are limitless and will not be defined by your archaic standards of femininity. I can be opinionated, express my sexuality, be nice, empathetic and whatever else I choose all at once. And I am not sorry if you’re threatened by my confidence because that is your issue to work on. What is this this whole thing on female sexuality equating to lack of worth? It is horrendous. It is why there is so much victim blaming, gaslighting and why everyday men walk free from horrific sexual assaults. It is disgusting. I urge you not to share content like that without thinking about the toxic culture it is part of. Or just don’t share shit like that at all cos it’s fucking stupid and everyone hates it. Example 3: I had a conversation about the body positivity movement on Instagram a while back, which is not exclusively a female thing but it was in the context of women of all sizes posting photographs of their bodies with a hashtag about loving their bodies as they are. In this conversation a man said he thought it was great BUT sometimes it’s just attention seeking. Sometimes we don’t want to see your body. So, everyone, body positivity is great but only when it’s policed by a man. Remember that. Also it’s fine if the photo is taken of you, or by a man or for a man, because that is not a statement about loving yourself. Nudity is fine as long as you’re not owning it, as long as you don’t use your body as a declaration of your comfort in your own sexuality and in feeling powerful and beautiful. I classically can never think of the right thing to say at the right time, and I wish I had asked him this - what is so wrong with wanting attention? Is it not something that is human to crave to a greater or lesser extent? Don’t we all want recognition and validation of our beliefs and our messages and to share our happiness and successes? If you think there is something inherently wrong with someone standing up for what they believe in with confidence (unless it is clearly harmful or offensive to others) then I would say that that is a view that you should take a long, hard look at. Also if you’re reading this and feeling attacked: it is probably because you hold these beliefs somewhere inside. You might even like to think you don’t but if you find yourself feeling defensive I can almost guarantee it’s because you do or have done these things at some point. So rather than sit about feeling annoyed, listen to people around you who have things to say on situations you will never go through, rather than make your own (ill informed) judgements. Apologize when you offend whether you were meaning to or not. It’s so simple. All it takes is respect and the ability to look outside your own privilege. Every time I point out these things I can practically hear the man hater alarms going off and the cries of ‘not all men!!!1!!’ and if that’s you then do yourself a favour and read this: http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/10/yes-actually-it-is-all-men/ and this http://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/not-all-men-just-enough-of-them/.  There’s a constant circular narrative that plays in my head when I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the stress of pointing out that what someone has just said is offensive and whether they will take the time to listen or I’m wasting my breath. I’m sure many, many people feel the same about many issues and this is in no way exclusive to feminism. You desperately want to be heard but is it worth the emotional labour if it goes nowhere? I developed a go-to strategy for this and it is: always call them out. State what is wrong with what they’ve said or the ways they could improve their understanding on an issue that they don’t fully understand or doesn’t affect them. Be as assertive or as calm as you like, it’s your choice and no one can police the way you feel about the issue. Once you’ve made it known, the ball is in their court. You have attempted to spread that knowledge, asked them to think about it and that’s all you can do. It is a judge of their character what they then choose to do (i.e. ignore you, argue with you, or the worst, agree with you but ‘play devil’s advocate’). If they apologise, thank you or acknowledge what you’ve said then cool. I can only speak for myself and my experiences but I generally accept that. The one thing I won’t do is go in circles with people who claim ignorance again and again when they offend. We were all ignorant once and the choice to educate yourself is yours.