Anna

People are different and what you can get out of each relationship also differs. I'd say, try to enjoy whatever you find pleasurable or valuable with current friends. If you want to specifically hang out with people interested in philosophy, there exist philosophical cafes and such. If you want ancaps in your life you'll probably have to meet them online, or sometimes at libertarian of ancap meetups. For freedomainers you most likely need to stay online, unless there's someone in your area. Will they be friend material though? This is one thing I've discovered in the last few years. Even if you agree with someone politically or philosophically, there's no guarantee you'll bond as friends. Or even if you do somewhat bond, they may as well turn their back on you for ideological disagreements. A solid friend, someone who has your back and won't leave you in times of trouble or for differences of ideological opinion is a rare thing. So it makes sense to turn to people with the same world view so that you can talk and vent about the same issues. But for enduring friendship I'd suggest not putting your hopes on a ideologically based relationship. Just my thoughts and experience.About freedomainers and ancaps. I have the impression a lot of people here are lonely. Theoretically they could all help each other out a lot, even if it's just online communication.

Yes, agreed. Mental disorders certainly aren't the same thing as purely biological diseases, such as a cancer tumor in the brain, Alzheimer's etc. The analogy to injury by being attacked or neglected, or because of a different traumatic experience (car accidents, death of loved ones etc) is much closer. The brain adapts and reacts to mental injuries in complex ways. Such a reaction may be extreme and get a life of its own, showing up as strong brain abnormalities in for example schizophrenia. Different environmental and perhaps genetic factors can influence outcome, for example stress hormones or toxins in prenatal environment, genetic predisposition to psychosis or depression etc. I'm interested in understanding these processes and what non-drug ways there are to treat mental disorders/injuries.

Man, so sorry to hear that. On the one hand that you were brought up by a violent religious fanatic, but also that she's been so sedated by drugs. Which surely wouldn't help if you ever wanted to talk things over with her. Apart from if your mother was correctly labeled schizophrenic, I want to direct you to my thread discussing physical properties of mental illness: Biology and mental disorders? It seems there are behavioral and physical symptoms that co-occur in schizophrenia and which are not solely the effect of drugs. Even though drugs are able to dampen delusional thought and hallucinations, they are not at all a cure. They actually do hasten the decline in brain matter that was already present. What's far more promising is saving the schizophrenic's mental functions by targeted mental and social exercise ('use it or lose it'). Talk therapy might be helpful in disentangling childhood trauma that led to the disorder and managing the psychotic symptoms. I highly encourage everyone to actually look up above sources, look at further evidence of either side and make up your own mind. Psychiatry does a lot of harm to people, but that doesn't imply that mental disorders and their characteristics aren't real.

Thanks for sharing your story here. I'm really sorry to hear you were kidnapped and drugged. I felt angry reading that the psychiatrists and therapists were claiming it was a permanent condition. It's very brave of you to have taken matters in to your own hands, kudo's for that. Something like a psychotic break sounds very terryfying, I hope you'll never experience that again.