#Lmk if ive worded anything poorly i’m by no means an authority on this yes..

[gerrymike]

does your mike crew have psychosis? i’m asking because of that one bit in the most recent chapter where gerry says that ophelia gets to go insane and mike immediately shuts that down

ROIGHT the short answer here is thats very likely the Diagnosis. The long answer is wait hold on two seconds while i cite my sources id like to be academic about this. Cut bc itsa long boy. cw refs to paranoia institutional gaslighting Spiral typical content etc

i think preface should be that mike in canon (and by extension satg) is pretty mired in the spiral yeah. twisting deceits want me fish fear me. And i’m very much not the ideal person rn to be fully unpacking themes and implications and whatnot wrt TMA and mental illness but i think it’s safe to say that spiral = pretty direct allegory

and while it draws on real world stigma/perceptions of psychosis i think it’s good to keep the fiction/reality distinction (i.e. fantastical evil entity out to get you and convince you you’re out of your mind VS actual hallucinations). obviously they cannot at all be divorced from each other because of how fiction/reality affect, intertwine, and represent each other, but personally with like what i write id hesitate to directly conflate the two especially in my position

HOWEVER! On the part of YOU the reader. Yes valid interpretation re: Mike. I think definitely with his hot entity commodity status how people around him (parents, other adults, healthcare professionals) perceive his panic regarding the lichtenberg would go that route. Much like other victims of the spiral

For one, awful moment, I found myself frozen in a tug-of-war with whatever was inside that door, clinging desperately to that rope as it stretched away and vanished into blackness. But I was six, and felt myself starting to lose my footing and fall towards it, so I did the only thing I could: I let go, and I watched my most treasured possession disappear forever as the door closed behind it, and I ran back to bed. I told my parents, of course, but they didn’t believe me. They just thought I’d lost it, and was making up wild stories to cover it up. The wall was the wall again, and the picture of the old sailing boat was back where it should have been.

Sims, J. (2019). “MAG146: Threshold”, in The Magnus Archives. https://snarp.github.io/magnus_archives_transcripts/episode/146.html

mike’s parents in satg do try but with the nature of the Spiral down the road mike definitely feels the lasting effects of people not believing him. It’s part of what pushes him to be independent in his hunt for something to escape the lichtenberg (he’s tired of being told he’s mad, he’s tired of being told he’s NOT mad and a liar instead, he’s tired of talking to terrible adults, etc.)

When I was twelve, curled under my bed to escape the pounding of the rain against my window, the roll of thunder that just rattled my skull, I began to travel them once again. My hands ran down and along those jagged, discoloured lines, every branch, every turn, my nostrils full of ozone, my veins full of fear. And they didn’t stop. I knew where my scars ended, but… those I traced in the dark that night, they just went on and on and on, far beyond me and to somewhere that still flashed with that unspeakable white light. That was the night everything changed. Before it I was odd, certainly, probably traumatised, and gripped with a terror of storms, but after that night, things were different. I think, looking back, that was when I called it. That was when it caught my scent.

Sims, J. (2018). “MAG91: The Coming Storm”, in The Magnus Archives. https://snarp.github.io/magnus_archives_transcripts/episode/091.html

and i think in his early teenhood when he’s still new to the evil lightning man thing. hes young and scared enough to go to his parents which leads to going in and out of facilities and talking to people who lets be real dont have his best interests at heart. and psychiatric/therapeutic malpractice leaves a mark on the psyche for sure; messes with one’s self perception and esteem to. A Degree. More on that in further chapters

Oh, other doctors did, did they? Mm. Well, that sounds reasonable, let me just have a look at your case file here, a gander at the old medical history. Medication, diagnosis, medication, oooh, hospitalisation. Hm. Trouble is it’s all lies, isn’t it? Because I’m your doctor now, Doctor David, and I say these people, these ‘professionals’, had no idea what they’re talking about because, well, I understand what they simply didn’t. You made it all up, didn’t you? What was it? A plea for attention, trying so desperately to make the world notice you?

Sims, J. (2020). “MAG177: Wonderland”, in The Magnus Archives. https://snarp.github.io/magnus_archives_transcripts/episode/177.html

so. Combination being gaslit by professionals and constantly hounded by manifestation of madness. understandably one would be touchy about implications re: Ophelia even when theyre not targeted