Insanity rules viewed by someone with mental health issues

[Joerg]

In a reply to this EnWorld article a user with a history of mental health issues in the family addressed how making the corruption from exposure to the horrors of the Great Old Ones and their minions is quite different from what the modern view of mental health issues brings, and sort of asks for a better way to phrase the consequences of these experiences. Playing in the 1920ies, the terminology used in the game is time-appropriate, but for a modern game of Cthulhu some different vocabulary might be appreciated:

Quote

I've struggled with this topic recently, as I have a love of aberrations in D&D and the types of stories that one can tell with them (and other Lovecraftian sorts of creatures and concepts), but I'm having trouble squaring that with my experiences as an activist for mental health. See, Lovecraftian corruption is really tied to sanity. Lovecraft's characters were driven insane because what we all fear, universally as human beings, is the unknown, and at that time we didn't really know a whole lot about mental health.

Now we know a great deal more about mental health, and sanity effects have always to me smacked of being somewhat exploitative. AS someone who has struggled with mental illness and has many friends and loved ones as well, I cringe every time I see our symptoms used as short-hand for "scary" and "corrupted." 

I've tried, in adventures I've written, to steer clear of terms like "sanity" or "insanity" or any specific symptoms associated with them in favor of a more generic "corruption", but even that plays on a fear of the unknown tied directly to the fear of insanity, the fear of changing irrevocably who you are into something you no longer recognize. And isn't that just as exploitative as if I were being more direct and just calling it "insanity"? Is it less so? Or is more exploitative, because it's less direct and more insidious?

The thing is, even though I experience it, I fear it also. My other friends and loved ones do as well. I think that sort of all-too-real dread is what tends to draw me to Lovecraft in the first place. But does playing it off as some sort of existential, supernatural dread (or possibly worse, tying that to "corruption", as if the mentally ill are all "corrupted") any worse?

I'm not sure I have any answers to these, but they are things that I've been giving a lot of thought to for a while. Thanks for the article and the topic!

 

[klecser]

My first thought is a "cosmic trauma resistance" score replacing "sanity."  Mechanically works the exact same way.  High numbers means you are more resistant.  As you experience more "cosmically traumatic" events, you lose resistance points.  Someone who went "insane" in prior CoC lexicon has lost their ability to resist to the point where their character couldn't function beyond a point.  This terminology replaces the harsh language without altering the system in any discernable way.

 

Thoughts?

[Mankcam]

I work in community mental health services, and yes there is a big disconnect between the earlier interpretations on 'insanity', and contemporary psychological conditions and psychiatric disorders. I can see value in having Sanity Points re-titled as 'Resilience Points' to better portray modern sensibilities regarding mental health and wellbeing.

When it comes to getting corrupted by mythos exposure, I don't think trying to map actual diagnostic disorders to the earlier concepts is all that helpful.

Perhaps when Resilience Points (SAN Pts) are lost, they are replaced by 'Dread Points. Once Dread Points have replaced all the Resilience Points then the character has 'The Dread' or is 'Lost', 'Forsaken', 'Corrupted', 'Fallen'  etc

Edited March 11, 2018 by Mankcam

[SDLeary]

How about something along the lines of what UA2 did... Stress. Might even go with Traumatic Stress to emphasize events as the cause; as opposed to biological, chemical, or other causes.

In fact, this was proposed in Nick's Uncounted Worlds 2 fanzine.

SDLeary

Edited March 11, 2018 by SDLeary

[klecser]

Mankcam is making another good point.  There has always been the danger that able-bodied people are appropriating diagnostic disorders when they "play" them.  Someone (I'm able so I don't feel like I'm the one) might consider doing what Chris Spivey did with Harlem Unbound but focusing on a friendlier vocabulary rule set?

[g33k]

This is an excellent exemplar of "historically accurate" vs. "doesn't offend the current world, particularly those who've been in the group" quandary.

Do you play a "historically accurate" medieval game... even in a place and time where women were virtual chattel?  Etc...

It's further complicated because mental illness is STILL so widely stigmatized, and poorly-understood.  Many communities who are themselves stigmatized, in turn stigmatize those with mental issues and/or those who seek out (or offer) mental health services.

 

  

[g33k]

Also, I'm just gonna drop this link here...

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117301572585814320386/posts/DTaEThFLZAR

[EricW]

I think HP Lovecraft made his view of Cthulhu insanity clear - insanity in HP Lovecraft's vision takes the form of impaired ability to function in the world, or realignment of motives to an inhuman perspective. Or both. 

Both Lovecraft's parents IMO were barking mad, so Lovecraft had a substantial personal experience of the effects of insanity on people.

From "The Call of Cthulhu"

Quote

Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy. Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come—but I must not and cannot think! Let me pray that, if I do not survive this manuscript, my executors may put caution before audacity and see that it meets no other eye.

Or this from "The Horror at Red Hook"

Quote

Not many weeks ago, on a street corner in the village of Pascoag, Rhode Island, a tall, heavily built, and wholesome-looking pedestrian furnished much speculation by a singular lapse of behaviour. He had, it appears, been descending the hill by the road from Chepachet; and encountering the compact section, had turned to his left into the main thoroughfare where several modest business blocks convey a touch of the urban. At this point, without visible provocation, he committed his astonishing lapse; staring queerly for a second at the tallest of the buildings before him, and then, with a series of terrified, hysterical shrieks, breaking into a frantic run which ended in a stumble and fall at the next crossing. Picked up and dusted off by ready hands, he was found to be conscious, organically unhurt, and evidently cured of his sudden nervous attack. He muttered some shamefaced explanations involving a strain he had undergone, and with downcast glance turned back up the Chepachet road, trudging out of sight without once looking behind him. It was a strange incident to befall so large, robust, normal-featured, and capable-looking a man, and the strangeness was not lessened by the remarks of a bystander who had recognised him as the boarder of a well-known dairyman on the outskirts of Chepachet.

Or this from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"

Quote

It was then that I began to study the mirror with mounting alarm. The slow ravages of disease are not pleasant to watch, but in my case there was something subtler and more puzzling in the background. My father seemed to notice it, too, for he began looking at me curiously and almost affrightedly. What was taking place in me? Could it be that I was coming to resemble my grandmother and uncle Douglas?
One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders—destined for him as well—he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too—I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth.
I met also that which had been her grandmother. For eighty thousand years Pth’thya-l’yi had lived in Y’ha-nthlei, and thither she had gone back after Obed Marsh was dead. Y’ha-nthlei was not destroyed when the upper-earth men shot death into the sea. It was hurt, but not destroyed. The Deep Ones could never be destroyed, even though the palaeogean magic of the forgotten Old Ones might sometimes check them. For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time. They had planned to spread, and had brought up that which would help them, but now they must wait once more. For bringing the upper-earth men’s death I must do a penance, but that would not be heavy. This was the dream in which I saw a shoggoth for the first time, and the sight set me awake in a frenzy of screaming. That morning the mirror definitely told me I had acquired the Innsmouth look.
So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendours await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä! No, I shall not shoot myself—I cannot be made to shoot myself!
I shall plan my cousin’s escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

 

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, EricW said:

I think HP Lovecraft made his view of Cthulhu insanity clear - insanity in HP Lovecraft's vision takes the form of impaired ability to function in the world, or realignment of motives to an inhuman perspective. Or both. 

Both Lovecraft's parents IMO were barking mad, so Lovecraft had a substantial personal experience of the effects of insanity on people.

From "The Call of Cthulhu"

Or this from "The Horror at Red Hook"

Or this from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"

 

All of these (and basically most of the SAN loss in the games I have played) might as well come from PTSD, which wasn't exactly a diagnosis back in the 1920ies although well known from the trench warfare of WW1.

In my Cthulhu games (as a player) I had only one character ever completely losing it upon direct confrontation with a Great Old One, and it was fun to keep playing him as an agent of Nyarlathotep without the rest of the party aware of that changeover.

[EricW]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

All of these (and basically most of the SAN loss in the games I have played) might as well come from PTSD, which wasn't exactly a diagnosis back in the 1920ies although well known from the trench warfare of WW1.

In my Cthulhu games (as a player) I had only one character ever completely losing it upon direct confrontation with a Great Old One, and it was fun to keep playing him as an agent of Nyarlathotep without the rest of the party aware of that changeover.

Hilarious :-). What gave it away?

One thing which distinguishes Lovecraft is his insane people are often victims, even when they are perpetrators, when they gain some kind of horrible benefit - the price of losing your humanity is always too high.

From "The Picture in The House"

Quote

 

“What d’ye think o’ this—ain’t never see the like hereabouts, eh? When I see this I telled Eb Holt, ‘That’s suthin’ ta stir ye up an’ make yer blood tickle!’ When I read in Scripter about slayin’—like them Midianites was slew—I kinder think things, but I ain’t got no picter of it. Here a body kin see all they is to it—I s’pose ’tis sinful, but ain’t we all born an’ livin’ in sin?—Thet feller bein’ chopped up gives me a tickle every time I look at ’im—I hev ta keep lookin’ at ’im—see whar the butcher cut off his feet? Thar’s his head on thet bench, with one arm side of it, an’ t’other arm’s on the graound side o’ the meat block.”

As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy the expression on his hairy, spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather than mounted. My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the terror I had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly, and I knew that I loathed the ancient and abhorrent creature so near me with an infinite intensity. His madness, or at least his partial perversion, seemed beyond dispute. He was almost whispering now, with a huskiness more terrible than a scream, and I trembled as I listened.

“As I says, ’tis queer haow picters sets ye thinkin’. D’ye know, young Sir, I’m right sot on this un here. Arter I got the book off Eb I uster look at it a lot, especial when I’d heerd Passon Clark rant o’ Sundays in his big wig. Onct I tried suthin’ funny—here, young Sir, don’t git skeert—all I done was ter look at the picter afore I kilt the sheep for market—killin’ sheep was kinder more fun arter lookin’ at it—” The tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint that his words were hardly audible. I listened to the rain, and to the rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and marked a rumbling of approaching thunder quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific flash and peal shook the frail house to its foundations, but the whisperer seemed not to notice it.

“Killin’ sheep was kinder more fun—but d’ye know, ’twan’t quite satisfyin’. Queer haow a cravin’gits a holt on ye— As ye love the Almighty, young man, don’t tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun ta make me hungry fer victuals I couldn’t raise nor buy—here, set still, what’s ailin’ ye?—I didn’t do nothin’, only I wondered haow ’twud be ef I did— They say meat makes blood an’ flesh, an’ gives ye new life, so I wondered ef ’twudn’t make a man live longer an’ longer ef ’twas more the same—” But the whisperer never continued. The interruption was not produced by my fright, nor by the rapidly increasing storm amidst whose fury I was presently to open my eyes on a smoky solitude of blackened ruins. It was produced by a very simple though somewhat unusual happening.

 

The evil madman in "The Picture" gained unnatural longevity and good health - but he led a nasty, lonely life where maintaining that longevity became the sole focus of his existence.

[Vorax Transtellaris]

I dunno, I always treat "insanity" through Mythos Exposure as a fictional condition that has nothing to do with actual mental illness. Its symptoms being as described in Lovecraft's stories. I skip the actual diagnostic labels suggested in the rulebook. I personally don't feel the need to make it more "realistic" even in modern settings.

I am no stranger to mental issues myself, but I don't feel offended or alienated by Call of Cthulhu's in-game use of insanity in the slightest.

[EricW]

On 18/03/2018 at 12:18 PM, Vorax Transtellaris said:

I dunno, I always treat "insanity" through Mythos Exposure as a fictional condition that has nothing to do with actual mental illness. Its symptoms being as described in Lovecraft's stories. I skip the actual diagnostic labels suggested in the rulebook. I personally don't feel the need to make it more "realistic" even in modern settings.

I am no stranger to mental issues myself, but I don't feel offended or alienated by Call of Cthulhu's in-game use of insanity in the slightest.

Very good point, in Lovecraft's universe Cthulhu helped make us what we are, Cthulhu and his fellow monsters helped shape our very earliest steps as a species. It makes sense that a being who created a slave race would add a few useful kinks in their psyche which the slaves themselves might not be aware of until they were triggered. Maybe we all have a little Deep One in us...
 

From "The Call of Cthulhu"

Quote

 

These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape—for did not this star-fashioned image prove it?—but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, but Their mode of speech was transmitted thought. Even now They talked in Their tombs. When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshly minds of mammals.

Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around small idols which the Great Ones shewed them; idols brought in dim aeras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.

 

 

[klecser]

I can't help but think this thread started as "how can we pave a pathway for different language" to EricW explaining to people with mental health issues why they shouldn't need to request that.  And that it should be seen as an advantage. "a few useful kinks in their psyche"  Are you kidding? Are you or do you know people who are aneurotypical?  Because I guarantee you that  none of them view their symptoms as "useful kinks."  And the defense of that perspective is with fiction written by a dead guy who can't comment on modern perspectives.  Right now I'm struggling to see how that helps answer the OP's original question, other than to simply defend Lovecraft's archaic views.

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by klecser

[g33k]

3 hours ago, klecser said:

...  And that it should be seen as an advantage. "a few useful kinks in their psyche"  Are you kidding? 

As I understood what EricW wrote, he meant that the Great Old Ones (who had a hand in shaping Humanity) may have embedded "a few useful kinks in the psyche" as useful-to-the-GOO's, not useful to people who are victims of such manipulation (which, in that POV, is all of Humanity to greater or lesser degree... ) .

 

[g33k]

On 3/17/2018 at 7:18 PM, Vorax Transtellaris said:

I dunno, I always treat "insanity" through Mythos Exposure as a fictional condition that has nothing to do with actual mental illness. Its symptoms being as described in Lovecraft's stories. I skip the actual diagnostic labels suggested in the rulebook. I personally don't feel the need to make it more "realistic" even in modern settings.

I am no stranger to mental issues myself, but I don't feel offended or alienated by Call of Cthulhu's in-game use of insanity in the slightest.

This is an interesting perspective... that there are ordinary "DSM-type" forms of insanity; and something entirely-different, something that can only be caused by Mythos-exposure and results in something NOT within the scope of the DSM (though sometimes having a superficial resemblance; or even a Mythos-insanity being the cause of a DSM-insanity).

Hmmm. 

[g33k]

12 hours ago, EricW said:

... Maybe we all have a little Deep One in us...

No, no... that's a different mythos than "the Mythos" (Lovecraft's).

And that only happens if the queen-Alien jabs you with her ovipositor.