It's MY crazy, and I Will Do What I Want With It!

As a neurodivergent human with a mental health disorder, I tend to say and hear lots of the same things when I engage in conversations. What I say is often on repeat, and what I hear is often on repeat. I cannot be expected to have people positively love me if I don’t recite my story over and again, can I?

So here we are, the conversation stuck in some version of my greatest hits. I listen to my own madness and crazy with a kind of comfort, really. The crazy might not always be kind to me, but at least I know what to expect when it arrives. This makes the prospect of healing terrifying, because the possibility of change is the possibility that things can be worse. I have survived thus far in maladaptive states, after all. Why ruin a bad thing?

Do I really want to gamble on things as that might be even less attractive to me? No thanks. Planet earth is rough enough without the potential to fail.

Yet here I am, primed to open up the machine and cram globs of silly putty into the gears. I am ready to take risks and make a mess. The latter part is something I’m especially good it. Bonus points if things are going fairly well when I do decide to make the mess.

Here I am reminded of the words of Tommy Lee Jones in the 2007 Oscar winning film, No Country for Old Men. As he shows up on the brutal scene of a drug deal gone sour, his deputy remarks that the scene is a mess.

Jone’s reply? “If it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here.”

This is my promise to you: I will suffice until the mess gets here, presuming I am not, in fact, the mess itself.

This leads me to my next point, which has to do with the things that I hear over, and over, and over.

I am a mess because I am crazy. I have a disorder that makes it terribly difficult for me to regulate my emotions in productive ways. If you feel an emotion on a level 3, my level 3 is a level 9. My emotions are large, loud, and often over the top. It’s no wonder I don’t trust them and often lash out in response to the emotions themselves.

What does this have to do with anything? When I explain the crazy, I am repeatedly, and by good people who mean very well, told that I am not crazy. “Oh Nathan, you’re NOT crazy. You just have a condition.” “Don’t say you’re crazy Nathan. You don’t have to use that word.”

Correction here. I am crazy because I have a condition. I do not have a condition in substitute of the crazy. I know I don’t have to use the word. I am choosing to use the word. When I use it, it is my word.

I am owning my crazy.

Recently, I realized that I had really been running from my emotions my entire life. For years I would say that I had an anxious or depressive character trait here and there, but I never looked at myself directly because I did not want to know the answer. If I could just dip into the insanity every once in awhile, that was ok. But, I could not be crazy. I could not be mentally ill. I could not be sick and in need of someone else’s help.

So I ran, metaphorically speaking, and I made the word crazy a term for the others in my life. I had issues, but I was most certainly not crazy. I had fear. I had a temper. I certainly had outburst and maladaptive behaviors, but I wasn’t crazy.

Here’s what I learned: if you are crazy, telling yourself that you’re not is a horrendous idea. It shoves the issue into the background where old bitterness and emotions fester, become infected, and bubble over in a steaming pile of sickness. To deny the term is to deny something about the self.

If the word doesn’t work for you, don’t use it. Nobody said you had to.

When I finally got a formal diagnosis, I realized that I really had no objection to the term crazy. I have, to the periodic displeasure of others, practically worn the term as a badge of honor. As a self-identified crazy, I have put the issues with my mental health on the front burner of the stove. I am putting up the umbrella of crazy to finally know myself and get some answers. When you have been through what I have, there is nothing better than information that sheds light and gives hope.

In this sense, the word “crazy” gives me real, deep, lasting hope. When I use this word I imagine myself to be unique, but challenged. The word crazy reminds me of my diagnosis, as well as the answers that I treasure so deeply. I do not want to be sick, but I am grateful for the fact that I actually have actionable information about the sickness. The honest realization of my craziness has also put me on an honest search for answers and effective therapy.

I understand the reservations, of course. Mental Health stigma is real, and the use of particular terms might not be helpful. What I can say is this: Rather than hiding from a word that sends people scattering like bugs under a lamp, I’d rather put it right out there. Yes, I am crazy. I think and do things that are often unlike the behavior of many. I lash out, lose my temper, spend too much money, you name it. I wear outfits that literally give members of my family "second hand embarrassment (their words, not mine).” I am prone to impulsivity, erratic thoughts, and strange behaviors. This is part of who I am.

So if it is ok with you, I would like to own my crazy, because my crazy has given me a reason to see tomorrow.

I will, against all objections, be granted the dignity of my crazy.

I. AM. CRAZY.

Yours Mentally,

Nathan