You know one of the best ways to trigger a mental health professional is to start talking about TDS, the Trump Derangement Syndrome or it’s related condition the Woke Mind Virus. Because at least as far as the scientific litature and research is concerned, they don’t really exist – they are just considered to be reasonable viewpoints to have based on one’s own values.

In my experience, mental health professionals really recoil when you say a person is mentally ill because of a political belief or ideology. They generally want to see actual demostratable harm to a person’s own life or how they are negatively impacting others. If anything, they will argue if a belief has a beneficial impact on a person’s life or his or her community, it’s adaptive and useful even if it’s bizzare. That said, I’ve always thought the mental health profession is one of most dangerous industries, as labels are powerful tools for justifying bigotry and punishment of the other. Mental health professionals have enormous power granted by the state and others, which since the era of Goldwater-rule prohibiting diagnosing people not under immediate care.

It’s not to say that Trump Derangement System does not exist or is not harmful for those afflicted by it. The paranoid, as Richard Hoffsteader once wrote, as not only afflicted by all problems we all face in world, but also their own delusions. They are, as he writes, a double sufferer. Trump in many ways is a problematic character, but it would be good to be fully grounded on real impact he has on people’s ordinary lives, beyond what the news is reporting. Delusions are problematic but having real concerns about the direction of society is important – as is speaking up for those who can’t – but not to necessarily die for what is right.

I often think of myself as mentally ill, because I’m unwilling to subscribe to Amazon, choose to live in city, take my bike or bus to work, and do not have home internet. And I’m saving towards buying land and building that off-grid cabin. I mean who her right mind does such things these days? Why don’t you want that suburban home, with the weekly garbage pickup? Are you some kind of terribly sick individual hoarding cash? But alas, it’s a matter of choice – I am not a fan of consumer culture, the full dumpsters and money wasted. But a mental health professional would argue that’s my choice – if you don’t want to participate in consumer culture and save and invest your money, then that’s good for you.

Still, I am concerned that mental health can be abused to stimigitize and punish minorities and those without conventional views. Those who take a look at the evidence and come to different conclusions based their values. I often find myself carefully studying articles about depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia with a careful eye to see how such so-called disorders can be used as a tool as social oppression. While I have my ups and downs, I realize I am far from any of those descriptions, which are much more suited for the man who yells at your about CIA monitoring his thoughts, as you do your evening walk in Empire Plaza. Still, I do see the danger of such definations being used casually and without rigger to oppress those who have unconventional views and are agents of change whether in their own life or in society in general.