When Power Takes Over
(Authority, Compliance, and the End of Negotiation)
Psychosis can argue with language.
It can reinterpret care.
It can absorb contradiction.
What it cannot negotiate with is authority.
In Chapter Thirteen of Fought Disorder (“Fool Me Twice”), the struggle shifts decisively. Meaning is no longer contested on interpretive grounds.
It is overridden.
From Persuasion to Enforcement
Earlier interventions tried to explain:
Why behaviour was risky
Why beliefs were unreliable
Why help was necessary
This chapter abandons explanation.
Now there are:
Decisions made elsewhere
Instructions that cannot be refused
Consequences for non-compliance
Language stops being dialogical.
It becomes directive.
A Short Passage
This chapter does not hinge on eloquence.
It hinges on phrases like:
“You don’t have a choice”
“This is for your safety”
“We have to proceed”
These are not arguments.
They are closures.
What’s Happening Linguistically
This chapter introduces a thirteenth shift:
Authoritative foreclosure.
In ordinary discourse:
Authority explains itself
Power justifies action
Compliance is negotiated
Here:
Justification is optional
Explanation is secondary
Compliance is enforced
Meaning no longer expands.
It is cut off.
Why This Feels Violent (Even When It’s Necessary)
From the outside, authority looks protective.
From the inside, it feels annihilating.
Because authority does not engage meaning —
it invalidates it.
To a mind organised entirely around significance, this feels like erasure.
The End of Delusional Momentum
This chapter marks the first real halt.
Not because the narrative dissolves —
but because it is prevented from acting.
Movement is restricted.
Choices narrow.
Language loses leverage.
The system is no longer driving.
The Reader’s Reaction
Readers often feel conflicted here.
Relief and discomfort coexist.
Because this chapter raises an uncomfortable truth:
Sometimes recovery does not begin with understanding.
It begins with being stopped.
Why This Is Not a Triumph
It would be easy to frame this moment as salvation.
Fought Disorder does not.
Because power without meaning creates its own trauma.
The story doesn’t end here.
It fractures.
The Aftermath of Authority
When meaning is overridden rather than resolved:
It doesn’t disappear
It retreats
It waits
This is why compliance is not the same as recovery.
Why the Book Continues
This chapter ends one phase.
But it opens another:
Containment
Reflection
Slow recalibration
Language will return — but cautiously.
