I’ve worked very hard to fit into structures and to avoid even entertaining the idea of fitting into others. Every social structure doesn’t mean something to me, but certain ones do. The ones truest and dearest to me are the ones that have to do with my mental stability. For the longest I never wanted to seem crazy. It sounds silly, but it’s true. The worst nightmare of mine is to be crazy. Literally, I’ve had night terrors around a Twilight Zone-esque reality where I was being diagnosed with some horrible mental disease that I didn’t even know I had and even worse is I’d feel quite normal.

I think the fear is valid. See, insanity is not tangible. It’s not really controllable, there’s a pill to suppress it and some surgeries to make you unaware of it, but that crazy demon are still there; that instability in your mind can’t be denied and worse off you don’t know what’s what. Are you right to panic about this or are you crazy? Is this a concern or an obsession? Is this heartbreak or depression? Are you excited or ADHD? Sometimes, some days, if I’m feeling especially ‘zany’, I’ll sit and convince myself why I’m not crazy. Why there is no need for therapists or anti-depressants. I guess, talking to yourself about how not crazy you are is probably counter-intuitive to the claim, but it works and helps me at the least feel more sane. It’s my sick brand of self-medication and it works.

Well, it works famously until you lose the argument. The ongoing debate with yourself about your sanity should be especially fixed to your advantage. Since, you are merely arguing with yourself, you can slant the votes to your side so that you always win. Unless, that little voice in your head drills you so hard with question that you can’t answer that it takes your breath away and all your left with are questions that don’t have the option ‘none of the above’. These are questions so intrusive and disturbing that you won’t get a wink of sleep or a smidge of peace in your mind, until you come up with an pillow-y, soft comforting excuse why it’s not crazy.

Does this happen to anyone else? Sure, everyone ‘says’ they’re okay with being crazy (some even blast a Gnarls Barkley or two about the idea), but when really confronted with the idea that your brain is not your own and that what you use to love, hate, reason, learn and create has a glitch; who really wants to know that they’re not all the way there? In my research, I found two prominent types of denials of ‘maybe’-insanity (yes, ‘maybe’ insanity. Coined by moi; it means that ‘crazy’ is not secured, but not totally excluded as an option of the reason behind your fucked up-ness).

The first genre is the projector. He or she recognizes the chance of being seen as less than stable and projects it on someone who is perhaps more visibly crazy, especially in a social setting. Phrases commonly used by the projectors are: “I’m not crazy! That dude cheated on Halle Berry. Now, THAT’s crazy!” or “I’m not crazy. That bitch is wearing a meat dress. Now, THAT’s crazy!” The projector makes it his or her mission to reflect (and project, of course) all crazy tendencies they might have on to someone else. It’s a slippery slope because those feelings are always going to be harvested inside and once the moon’s on high and your eyes are on low, the projector will be forced to deal with his or her own ‘maybe-insanity’. That’s the scary, scary place where drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, gossip, and procrastination take place.

The second species of ‘maybe’-insanity is the soaker. The soaker is very interesting, but just as detrimental. The soaker gets lost inside of (almost fascinated) with the newfound instability. It uses it as a reason to be emotionally unavailable, rude, visually eccentric, and even promiscuous. The biggest difference between the soaker and the projectors is the soaker takes all of the quirks and scary-ness of ‘maybe-insanity’ and internalizes it. Once internalized it either comes out as over-bearing self-expression or polarizing excuses for bad social behavior. The soaker can commonly be caught saying things like, “Man, I’m crazy. That’s why I’m single. I just have no heart, I’m cold-blooded. Who would want me? I’m a fucking mad man! So, let’s just fuck instead” (so, maybe I had an experience or two) or “Nobody understands me. I’m too weird and nobody can get into my heart.” (Okay, okay! You got me. I’m quoting, narcissistic ex-boyfriends! It’s still valid information, folks!) Of course, to the soaker these are valid issues that drive him or her up the wall. To the rest of us, this is mere bullshit excuses that help avoid self-examination and the ultimate bettering of oneself!

Luckily, for you, me, and all the ‘maybe crazies’ in between there is help! I propose (remember this is just a proposition) that there is no one way the brain should or shouldn’t work. There’s no normal or special. There’s no genius or retarded. There’s simply just yours and mine. The great challenge of life, at least mentally, is for us despite your crazy and my crazy is to be able to bridge and mend that insane gap into a unified half-way house of sorts. Where between your premeditated murder and my believing I can fly off a roof-top when on that very potent xtc pill, we can live in a space that we’re not judged for how normal our medulla oblongata is, but how we use it to cope and create together in this mad, mad world. Crazy? Maybe. Powerful? Definitely.

Related Posts: