Crazy

Are you or I crazy? Is life crazy? What does it mean to be crazy? Crazy is not being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. Or as Susana Kaysen, author of Girl Interrupted, and herself a patient of a psychological hospital, defines crazy, “It is you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it, if you ever wished you could be a child forever”. What does it really mean to you and me to be crazy and how do you know if you are crazy?

There have been times in my life when I thought I was crazy. There have been times in my life when I know that I was crazy. There have been times when I thought my friends were crazy. I would venture to think that just about everyone has had a time in their life when they at lest thought they were crazy. If everyone can identify with being crazy at some point in their lives, why then, are some put away for being crazy?

When Susana Kaysen talks about being crazy, she talks about it being you or I amplified. But, what does that really mean? What does it really mean to be amplified? The first thought that comes into my mind when I think about being amplified, is music. With music you take a signal that is at a very low level, (low volume) and you run it through amplifiers to make it loud enough to be heard. It is the same with your or I. When we allow outside influence to increase our level, every part of us gets amplified. So, what is so bad about that? We all have things that make us who we are, our characteristics. However, they are not all equal. Just like people have certain things that they are better at, they also have flaws.

When you amplify music if there is any noise it is amplified along with it. What is noise? Noise is just unwanted sounds. This noise sticks out because it does not harmoniously fit together with everything else to form a pleasing sound. This same thing happens when you amplify a person. The person’s flaws are the noise, and the noise is amplified right along with the rest of the beautiful things about that person, which are so enjoyable. However, when some one gets amplified that noise gets really loud and is so annoying that people cannot hear the rest of the person. All of the good traits of the person are drowned out and lost by the noise. The noise becomes so annoying that is all you want to do is turn it off – all of it. Some people cannot hear there own noise. They do not see what they are doing, they cannot hear themselves, or sometimes they just do not want to be able to hear themselves. Creating all of that noise allows for an escape, an excuse, and sometimes an excuse to do whatever they want. Some times people use it to cover up things. When a person is amplified this much, the noise masks anything else that might be just under the surface. They may not be able to repress it anymore. So, to gain distance on whatever they are trying to repress, they amp up themselves to try and drown it out with all of the noise.

Being crazy is not really that bad or scary of a thing. Rather it is giving into craziness that is really scary. Once you give into it and let it run your life you have become a slave to your own worst nightmare. Everyone has gone a little crazy every now and again. In some ways it is good, it helps us cope with stress and all the pressures of life. I know full well about this. I have gone crazy on occasion and I have given in to being crazy. I always knew when I allowed myself to be just a little crazy, because I was in control of being out of control. It is like my crazy sports, skydiving, snowboarding, and rock climbing, these are defiantly considered crazy, especially skydiving. But in these sports, particularly skydiving, I am always in control, if I was not, I would not be typing this right now. These sports are an art of maintaining control in the craziest of situations.

When you give in to being crazy it is not something that you realize you are doing. Most of the time you never realize it yourself. Most of the time you are in denial. You try and keep it a secret not only to yourself but to others around you as well, your family and friends, but still hoping and praying that they will figure it out. However, even if you think that they might have figured it out, you try and deny it all. You do everything you can to convince them otherwise. Then, one day you find yourself trying to explain something, like how it was logical to take a whole bottle of aspirin because you had a headache and the fact that you chased it with a whole bottle of vodka because there were no bones in your hand, like Kaysen tired to explain to her psychologist, or maybe something else just as illogical. Most people do not even realize that they have gone crazy until well after this point.

So, what does it mean to be crazy? I would say that if you are wondering if you are crazy, you are not. If you are trying to convince your friends that you are not crazy, you most likely are. Do I sound crazy yet?