Finding My Self In Queered Realities

Madness, Psychosis, Insight

When considering my insight into my own cognitive processes, I have often been praised for my understanding of my Self. Psychiatrists seem to consider my awareness that I exist within a queered reality to be a signifier that I am still in touch with normative reality. Insight itself is considered to be an ability to understand how one's neurocognition influences their experiences and behaviour. From a psychiatrists point of view, they are looking for a person to recognise that they are “mentally ill”.

This conceptualisation of insight is far too normative for my taste. I prefer to consider it an ability to leverage my queered reality. If most people exist in a normative reality considered to be objective, then my queered reality is the entirely subjective world I exist within. One wherein I am labelled as paranoid and delusional. To the external watcher, it would seem there is no beneficial way to leverage such a reality, but for me, it provides a way point to follow into the parts of my Self that drive the way I engage with the world. I find that I am able to exist within a queered reality while maintaining the Self-awareness (AKA insight) to recognise the environmental and relational influences on my present state of being.

Much of the time however, I occupy a space of painful self-awareness, and this is where the problem occurs.

Neuroqueering and Madness (2023)