Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill

[no_hypocrisy]

14. It truly depends on the teachers and parents.

My father was exceedingly authoritarian especially when I wasn't going to mindlessly obey him. At times he really had bad ideas that weren't thought out or thought at all. I found out that I couldn't trust his judgment at age 3 and now he's 89, it's much worse. I caught heat from my siblings as my "defiance" was interpreted "You've made Dad mad again," and he'd take it out on all of us. I once was bold enough to call him a tsar to his face when I was 18. And he thought I need "extensive psychotherapy" to "cure" me of my anti-authoritarian tendencies. I had therapy but it only reinforced he had the problem, not me. That's why this article leaped up at me.

My kindergarten teacher was a first year hire right out of college. She called my mother in for conferences on a regular basis because of "red flags" she noticed in me: I was/am ambidextrous. I couldn't skip. I couldn't use scissors. And she wanted to hold me back a year for those reasons alone. I was frequently sent up to the principal who was much more kindly to me. I remember asking him at age 5 whether my teacher knew what she was doing. (BTW, a compromise was made on my situation. My parents took me to a premiere psychiatrist in NYC, I was given an IQ test. I was found to be highly intelligent and that was that.)

I've always questioned unreliable and unstable authority because I am not a lemming who will run off a cliff and I'll call them on it.