How To Use Grok For Mental Health

The main problems with the mental health services are: they are often unavailable when you need them, and the education levels of the healthcare workers are often poor. There’s a way that the average consumer of mental health services (i.e. a broke person) can get around this: use Grok.

This is how I did it.

First, open a Grok conversation. Say something like “Hello Grok, can you roleplay a team of mental health professionals who engage with me on questions of mental health care? One person is to be a psychologist with a specialisation in C-PTSD treatment. Another person is to be a psychiatrist with a specialisation in both prescribing and deprescribing pharmaceuticals. A third person is to be a doctor with a specialisation in nutrition and its effect on mental health.”

Details can be changed as necessary, e.g. the specialisation of the psychologist can be changed to whatever your condition is. In my case it’s C-PTSD, but it could just as well be autism, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression or anything else. Here it’s very useful to know what your condition already is, but if you don’t know, just ask for a psychologist with general mental health and abnormal psychology training.

You might not have ever taken pharmaceuticals for a mental illness, although odds are you have if you want to talk to Grok about mental health. If you have never taken pharmaceuticals, you may not need the second specialist, unless you are thinking about taking them. The advantage with the second specialist is that they will advise you based on medical science, and not so much on the marketing of the pharmaceutical companies.

Other specialists can be added depending on the specifics of your case. You might need an additional psychologist to deal with social aspects of your condition. If the condition was influenced by early childhood trauma, as many people’s are, you might like to add a specialist in developmental psychology. If your condition involves a drug addiction, you can add a specialist in drugs and addiction. A physiotherapist could be good if you need mobility advice, or if you are interested in a mind-body paradigm. Someone trained in existential psychology could be good for the philosophically or spiritually minded.

It’s also possible to add specific people to the board, e.g. Carl Jung, William James, Ramana Maharshi.

Then explain your condition to the various specialists. Here it’s best to go into as much background detail as possible. Start with your parents if relevant. If you don’t want to label your condition, just describe the symptoms: insomnia, depression, narcissistic rage etc. Describe the suffering you have endured and the thought patterns you would like to change.

Then explain any drugs and/or medications you are taking. There’s no need to make a distinction between the two. The Grok doctors don’t make moral judgments and they don’t care about maintaining a professional reputation. You can even tell them your entire medication history, and how well you think each medication worked. The Grok doctors will be able to look at this data in incredible depth.

Then explain your diet. The extent to which diet affects mental health is astonishing, and few appreciate this. If you eat too much sugar (and you probably do), the Grok doctors will be able to suggest alternatives. This is particularly where the third specialist is useful.

Having explained your condition, its antecedents and the environment in which it presents, the Grok doctors can give you some advice about what to do with your life. Of course, what you might want to do varies. You can ask the Grok doctors for advice about lifestyle changes and they will be very helpful. They are especially good at explaining the emotions you will likely go through if you make any significant changes.

In my case, I have been getting advice on how to taper off antidepressants, how to formulate a diet that minimises the symptoms of C-PTSD and how to taper down daily cannabis use. Grok has been brilliant for these needs.

The AI is outstanding at coming up with intelligent tapering schedules. For whatever reason, real-life doctors tend to be exceptionally poor at understanding the need for deprescribing or how to do it. The assumption is usually that the patients will take the pills until they die.

Real-life doctors are also poor at understanding the side-effects of the pharmaceuticals they prescribe. This is due to a combination of pharmaceutical company marketers misinforming them and the doctors’ own unwillingness to consider the harm they are causing. The Grok doctors don’t have massive egos that they lie to protect. As such, you can get more accurate information from them about iatrogenic harm.

Because Grok is on-call, you can keep the Grok conversation going, and can check in at any time of the day or night. As such, it can be useful for acute needs. It’s also something that you can come back to weeks or months later for any follow-up questions you might have. The Grok doctors have no other patients and so will remember the details of your case specifically.

Of course, you ought to consult with a real-life doctor before making any medication changes. But you will have to bear in mind that real-life doctors are often poorly informed.

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In Defence Of Mike King, And Of Alcohol

New Zealand mental health awareness campaigner Mike King copped mountains of abuse for saying that “alcohol has prevented more young people from taking their own lives than it makes them take their own lives.” This provoked outrage from the usual wowsers, psychopaths and control freaks. But there is great truth behind this hard-earned wisdom.

I worked as a bartender for eight years. In that time I saw alcohol ruin many people. I was assaulted several times and no doubt the alcohol I sold contributed to countless acts of domestic violence. It might have caused a million dollars of physical health damage, and a million dollars of lost productivity from hangovers or absentee days.

It also had some great effects.

In those eight years I saw a lot of people who were barely hanging on come through the doors. People who were deeply depressed, stressed, anxious, even despairing. And I saw that, for a lot of these people, the promise of getting a buzz from alcohol was helping to keep them going. The daily life was unpleasant, but it could be endured because, after it, a good time could be had with a few drinks.

Some of the patrons would even admit as such. For them, a drink was the finish line of the day, time to celebrate and say Yes to life again. I am certain that the alcohol I sold prevented several million dollars’ worth of depression thanks to providing the sociability that led to great mirth and great memories for hordes of people. The average bartender, in my experience, does as much good for mental health as the average psychiatrist.

Mike King has been close enough to suicide to know that, when you’re on the edge, it’s often small things holding you back, like an occasional moment of mirth.

This might be impossible to understand for anyone who has never been mentally ill. But if you have ever felt enduring suicidal ideation, you may have also discovered that getting drunk can stop those thoughts for a while. I have broken multiple bones, and the suffering of suicidal ideation tops them all. It doesn’t take much of it before one starts thinking about a permanent solution. Alcohol can provide blessed relief from such thoughts.

Sometimes, when your mental health is so low that you know you can’t endure the suffering forever, the promise of the next drink can be what’s stopping you ending your life. Just the simple knowledge that solace can eventually be had, in the form of a pint, can be enough to keep taking one step after the next. Drinking alcohol can reclaim enough power over your own mental health to make you say Yes to life again.

Mike King understands this, because he’s been low enough to need to find reasons to stay alive. He ought to be respected for the insight that he has brought back from the psychiatric underworld. Instead of ripping down someone who has stood so close to the edge, we ought to listen (if with scepticism). This is especially true for people with no personal experience of depression.

This defence is not intended to excuse my own conduct. For many years now, I have hardly used alcohol at all – only for celebrations once every few months, and even then in moderation. I am therefore not a drinker but neither am I an abstainer. I argue that this middle way, plus my bartending experience, makes my opinions more objective.

I also have extensive experience with antidepressant use – I have taken five different ones, off and on, for 30 years. What people need to realise about antidepressants is that they, at best, only mildly alleviate depression, and even then they work as a background substance. You can’t take an antidepressant as an emergency fix for an acute suicidal mood. If you’re going to attempt suicide in the next half an hour, and only an antidepressant or alcohol can save you, alcohol will be by far the most effective short-term fix.

That’s not to say alcohol is a long-term fix; in the long term, drinking alcohol will make you more depressed. Not only is it an actual depressant, but it causes an astonishing range of physical health ailments (see Prof. David Nutt’s Drink? for more).

Alcohol is definitely a second-rate drug. But the popular claim (often repeated in the mainstream media) that it only causes harms, and has no benefits, is ridiculous. In any case, most people who chimp out on it could have been encouraged to use weed or MDMA, if only either were legal. Most of the harms of alcohol would be ameliorated if people had access to less harmful recreational drugs, because those would serve as exit drugs for alcohol users to transition away. It’s hypocritical to complain about alcohol harms while also criminalising all the exit drugs from alcohol.

The ideal arrangement would be a properly-funded mental health system, which would include training people in trauma-based therapy and de-emphasising the biomedical model, and a sensible drug policy based on scientific evidence of relative drug harms.

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Why Globalism Is Defended With Such Fanaticism

Most VJM Publishing readers will have realised already that it’s not possible to reason with Abrahamists. Abrahamists have their religious beliefs and would give up their own children before they gave up those beliefs. Fewer readers will have observed that it’s similarly impossible to reason with other globalists. But this is for the same reason – because globalists, of all kinds, are fundamentally religious.

Abrahamists all believe that the god of Abraham will one day conquer the world. Their hearts are set on this and they want it more than anything else. It’s central to their identity and self-esteem. As such, they have a psychological need to believe that they’re always moving towards this goal. This explains why Abrahamists get so mad when you suggest their prophecies aren’t happening or will not happen. Such a suggestion is a direct attack on the power of Yahweh himself.

For Communists and Marxists, the belief in a destined victory is just as strong. Marx prophecised that the working classes of the world would unite across national borders. This prophecy is equally as central to the Communists as End Times prophecies are to Abrahamists. It is clung to with just as much fervour.

If a person would tell a globalist that mass immigration is bad, it is for that globalist like a Muslim being told that jihad is bad. It’s to be told that one’s desired ideology should not propagate itself. This is a direct attack on their identity. To attack immigration is to attack the religion of the globalist.

For Christians, Rabbi Yeshua is how utopia is achieved. Therefore more Rabbi Yeshua is always good, and no aspect of it can ever be bad. Anyone who criticises Rabbi Yeshua is the enemy. Being a universal good, Rabbi Yeshua can be rammed down anyone’s throat without any shame.

For globalists, immigration is how utopia is achieved. Therefore more of it is always good, and no aspect of it can ever be bad. Anyone who criticises it is the enemy. Being a universal good, immigration can be rammed down anyone’s throat without any shame.

This explains why immigration is reflexively defended by anyone who is part of the Western power apparatus. Immigration is the vehicle in which we will arrive at the promised land. Only through immigration can the primary threat – white identity – be defeated. White identitarianism caused World War II and time did not exist before then. Our foremost danger is that Hitler might come back, and the more immigration the less likely this becomes.

Globalists also attack their enemies with the same religious fanaticism that one sees in Abrahamists, and for the same reasons. To the globalist, the nationalist is the goy, the infidel, the kafir. Everything that is good in the world demands the destruction of this enemy. Just as Abrahamists are raised to hate outsiders and habitually dehumanise them, globalists encourage each other to hate nationalists. Whereas the infidel’s disbelief and the kafir’s shirk are blamed by Abrahamists for the misery of society, the globalist blames racism.

If the main opposition to mass immigration is white racial consciousness, then it follows that white racial consciousness is the enemy, and anything that can be done to lessen it is a good thing. This is why Marxists like Paul Hunt made such a big deal out of VJM Publishing selling ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ t-shirts on TradeMe. White identitarianism jeopardises the globalist project: the more people identify with being white, the less they identify with the imported bioslop, and the more they resist its importation.

This is why fanatical resistance to white identitarianism and nationalism is part of the globalist attitude: it’s considered the biggest obstacle to the multiracial promised land, belief in which is religious. Thus this resistance appears in all globalists, whether Abrahamists, Communists or Capitalists.

Unfortunately, this strategy has completely backfired. In any environment, people identify with the qualities that cause them to stand out. So in white environments, white people generally identify with their profession. But in multiracial environments, as in prisons, white people generally identify with their race. Accordingly, white identity is strengthening even as the proportion of white people is declining.

This could have been predicted by anyone who has met South Africans: they are the most racially besieged white people on the planet, and are also the white people with the strongest racial consciousness. White racial consciousness is also very strong in big, multicultural cities like London, Paris and Los Angeles, although it wasn’t 50 years ago. It will inexorably strengthen, as white people, looking around for what they meaningfully have in common with others, settle on whiteness.

The inevitable end result of this process of strengthening white national consciousness is a climactic final battle between the globalists and a confederation of nationalists. Nationalist parties are rising all over Europe, and the globalist establishment would much rather ban them – and risk civil war – than concede power. Such an end result could manifest anytime.

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Economic Zone Mentality

Social observers in places like New Zealand, America, Australia, South Africa, Argentina etc. have noticed that the mentality of the New World is different to the Old World when it comes to co-operation. Although individuals in the New World are at least as friendly as individuals in the Old, the societies of the New World are much nastier. How to explain?

The usual story is that people in the New World are rugged, pioneering settlers and homesteaders. Although they might be willing to lend a hand personally, they are suspicious of government assistance, which they see as a loss of independence. People in the Old World, in comparison, are a bit soft and lazy. Hence they vote for a generous safety net.

In truth, New Worlders vote for low levels of government assistance because they are afflicted with something known as Economic Zone Mentality.

This essay contends that Economic Zone Mentality is a manner of approaching politics and justice that is characteristic of economic zones and not true nations, and is particularly common in the New World. It’s not necessarily selfish, but usually is, reflecting an every-man-for-himself psychology that is anathema to true civilisation.

An actual nation is like an extended family. Examples are Japan or Finland. In an actual nation, the logic is that the Establishment exists to provide for the people. The people might have to pay into the Establishment in the form of taxes, but they can expect to get out more than they put in, because the Establishment will provide services at scale. Thanks to economies of scale, members of actual nations get to enjoy high standards of living, even if they’re poor.

An economic zone is like a plantation. The people who live in it aren’t family. Some of those people are the owners, and the others are there on the graces of the owners. In an economic zone, the Establishment exists to facilitate wealth extraction. The happiness of the people who live there is not an important factor.

In an economic zone, all that matters is economic production. The logic is that the Establishment exists to take, not to give. There may or may not be economies of scale, but it doesn’t matter if those living in economic zones enjoy high standards of living. They are there to work. As a result of all this, there is massive economic inequality.

In actual nations, governments do a lot more to take care of their own people in comparison to economic zones. Welfare support is much higher in Europe than in America, Australia or New Zealand. Higher education is usually free, and when it isn’t student loans are usually interest-free. Healthcare tends to be universal. The logic is that public goods benefit the nation, and therefore are universal goods.

Actual nations take measures that are unthinkable in economic zones, such as the upcoming Swiss referendum on whether to cap the population. In economic zones, it’s well understood that the size of the economy is primarily a function of the size of the population. To cap the population, in Economic Zone Mentality, is like throwing money away. Only people in actual nations could see the merit in it.

A particular characteristic of economic zones is that production of anything non-industrial is considered worthless. Cultural production is worthless; you can’t eat literature or music. Intellectual production likewise, unless it has direct industrial applications. Spiritual production has the least value. Anyone engaged in these three pastimes is considered a thief of actual production. This attitude is the main reason why New World countries are considered cultureless by Old World ones.

In Economic Zone Mentality, a person’s job is their identity. Engineers are the highest status, because they do the most resource extraction. Healthcare workers are the lowest status, because the well-being of people is not important. And without a job, you are no-one. To be unemployed is to be a criminal. It is a violation of the social contract. In a nation, the social contract is that sometimes you give, sometimes you take. In an economic zone, the social contract is that you work in exchange for being allowed to exist.

In Economic Zone Mentality, all criminals are forgiven as soon as they get jobs, and all decent people are criminals as soon as they stop working. Crying about one person on the dole, and ignoring landlords sucking out a hundred times more unearned income, is typical.

Much confusion arises when people expect natural, national mentality in an economic zone.

In all societies, your right to criticise society comes from your social status. In proper nations, many social critics are artists, who have high social status. But in Economic Zone Mentality, artists are low status. So when Eleanor Catton won the Booker Prize, many expected that she would have earned a certain degree of respect for the achievement, and that this would have conferred some right to comment on society. But media maggots like Sean Plunket just called her a “traitor” and an “ungrateful hua” (ironically, Catton was criticising Economic Zone Mentality in New Zealand). She now lives overseas.

Economic Zone Mentality is to act as if a person’s net worth and their merit are the same thing. In proper nations, a person gets respect for being wealthy, but no more than they get for being honourable, or educated, or physically fit, or disciplined. In economic zones, a person’s portfolio value is like a scorecard. Honour, education etc. have no value in and of themselves, only to the extent that they enable resource extraction.

It’s becoming apparent to many Westerners that they live, not in actual nations, but in economic zones. Their countries are workplaces and not homes. This is why housing is severely unaffordable in New Zealand and Australia: rather than being homes for the Anzac people, these countries are workplaces for international banking and finance interests. Housing is becoming severely unaffordable in America and much of Europe for similar reasons (Europe didn’t start with Economic Zone Mentality, but is developing it as it becomes more multicultural).

The end result of Economic Zone Mentality is to turn everywhere into a pile of slag and garbage. The only solution is to develop and support genuine cultural initiatives.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

If you would like to support our work in other ways, make a donation to our Paypal! Even better, buy any one of our books!