What They Say About Me

Paranoia.  Insomnia. Mania, then depression, then mania, then depression. Mixed state.  Mixed state.  Mixed state.  An alright day.  Nearly sane.  Paranoia again.  The voices.  I see red balloons in the sky that no one else sees.  Depression. 

There's a reason I don't have many friends, and the ones I do have I keep at a comfortable, hundred mile distance from me.  I'm not right in the head, you see.  That's what they say.  I know they do.  Every time I start feeling really well and think, hey, I have this thing beat.  I could pass for the 2013 rate of normal.  It happens.  A snide comment.  A rumor I was probably not supposed to hear about, but it got back around to me anyway.  

Some of the rumors say I have schizophrenia.  This is a fair misconception, since I do have hallucinations and delusions at times; even the mental hospital tagged me with the diagnosis, later debunked by my regular psychiatrist.  Nope, it's bipolar with a tad of intermittent psychosis thrown in to keep things lively. Drizzled with a heavy syrup of anxieties: bon appetit!  But no, I do not have schizophrenia.  Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention that so and so thinks that I do.  Because their version of "crazy" only has one category and that is schizophrenia.  

I'm not saying there is anything more "shameful" about having schizophrenia than bipolar; I'm just saying get your damn facts straight! 

The big issue at hand, is why do they feel the need to talk about me anyway?  Did nothing awesome come on TV that evening, so they decided to giggle at the way I do dishes or how many times I have to wash my hands or how sometimes I can't get out of bed and ignore the phone ringing and wish I was dead?  Yeah, that's really funny stuff...

It's not just "friends". It's family.  It's neighbors.  It's friends of friends who have never even met me but have heard just enough to convince themselves that I should be caged away, or at least stay under a rock.  I'll try not to suck on it, Dr. Phil.  

The truth is, most days, I could pass for this theory of normal that the people who have never had to step inside a mental hospital or psychiatrist's office get to fluff themselves up with.  They sit in that hammock of mental security.  It could never happen to them.  Mental illness is ugly.  It's a deserved disease.  It's funny, or scary, depending on whether violence was involved.  No one "good" and "prestigious" gets it.  We're ranked on the bottom with the poor, which is a decent ranking since many of us, indeed, have poor economical assets due to our inability to work well in social settings part, if not all, the time.  And that fact tacks on another dirty word: lazy.  Yes, all us crazy people are lazy.  Twas the laziness that led to the craziness. Hallelujah.  Jesus could fix that, if you let him. 

And no, I mean no disrespect to Jesus, or any other religious figure.  But religion does get dragged into the arena of this subject.  Demon possession.  No relationship with God.  A falling away from the Lord.  No "crazy" person is a truly spiritual individual.  Crazy is a punishment, a consequence of a bad life.  That's what they say.  

Do they really exist?  Who knows, maybe they are just another delusion in my head.  But I bet you've heard them too.  And if you didn't hear them, maybe you saw their looks in your direction.  Perhaps you heard them laugh.  Did they shake their heads?  Did they pretend not to see you when they walked by?  Perhaps you don't exist at all.  You are your own delusion.  I certainly feel that way myself.  

It's a passive-aggressive form of bullying. Some who struggle with mental illness will never experience this.  They have a great support system around them that banishes all other outside forces of evil.  But many, many, many of us experience something a little more sinister.  We get asked stupid questions, which is okay because then we get the chance to set the facts straight.  Not that they listen.  More often, we just get talked about. 

Don't date that girl.  She's bipolar and crazy.

He isn't right in the head.  I bet he's going to shoot up a school building one day.

Did you see all the pills she took at lunch time?  God, she must be an absolute lunatic.

That was so selfish of him to try to kill himself.  He didn't even get it right.  I bet he just wants attention. 

Wow, she cries ALL THE TIME.  What the hell is her problem??  

I wonder how they would feel if the tables were turned.  If one day they woke up in these crazy suits we have to wear every day, and they had to live like that for 24 hours.  To feel what it's like to have a head chock full of too much and not enough, to have to try so hard to hide thoughts and behavior for fear of being  found out as having a mental illness.  To wear a mask, to be ashamed of their "weakness". To try so, so hard and still come up short at the end of the day.  

What would they say then?