The world hates a coward

People joke about being “Crazy” or a “Nut”. Sometimes they say they’re “Losing it”, or “Going mental”. They use terms and phrases like these to make others think they’re wild and unpredictable and edgy. Basically they’re trying to make themselves look more interesting than they really are.

Anyone who has to tell you something about themselves that should be obvious from the first meeting usually is anything but. For example, guys who talk tough are just the opposite, people who think they’re creative and artsy are actually dull as dishwater and people who think they’re crazy…same deal.

If you’ve ever really felt like you were going crazy, losing your mind, letting go of yourself, you’d never say those things. You’d never pretend.

To actually feel like you’re slipping into madness is terrifying, not fun, or hip, or cool. Hollywood has no clue and they’ve spent years trying to make it so. Losing it, being so overwhelmed by emotion that you have no control over your own body is horrible.

Its how I imagine dying violently might feel.

You cry and scream yourself hoarse. You thrash and pound your fists against anything without thinking about injury just to try and stop the deluge of feeling sweeping over you. You hyperventilate, your heart pounds so hard it seems fit to burst through your ribcage and your palms are clammy. You turn pale and sweaty and you don’t know where to pout your eyes.

And you wonder; “Is this what going crazy feels like? Oh my God, am I losing my mind? Ids this how it happens?”

Like I said, it’s anything but cool and nothing any sane person would ever want to be. It’s no way to live. You have no idea what to do. Comics have characters like The Joker, a crazy, wild, but ultimately acceptable kind of cool He seems free of any inhibitions the way the average 9 to 5er wishes he could be, or thinks he’d like to be but the fact is going crazy is nothing like that.

It’s a scientific fact that anyone at any time can have a psychotic break. Snap. Just like that. The mind is powerful and fragile at the same time. And that person can just “get over it” moments later after they’ve lashed out.

There was a man, a former cop from Jamaica, in a sanitarium in Brentwood, Long Island who slaughtered his wife. He loved her dearly but the stress of his job and all the shit he’d bottled up finally spilled over and he snapped. He tore her to pieces in a psychotic rage. This is all true. He knows he did it because he was shown photos of the crime scene and will spend the rest of his life, quite sane within the walls of that Brentwood sanitarium.

I’ve never gone crazy, but I know I got real close when I lost someone recently. I just lost control and felt myself slipping away. I watched myself freak out in my house, by myself and wondered if I was really going crazy.

But I got lucky and somehow it stopped…after an hour of straight crying and screaming and lashing out at solid surfaces.

And not once during that entire time did I think; “This is cool.” I thought, “Please don’t let this happen! Please bring me back!”

I don’t know what stopped the breakdown I was having, but it did just the same. Just like that.

I think maybe I felt irresponsible for going crazy while everyone else was suffering through it. I wasn’t the only one feeling the loss and I think that brought me back.

But I was so close. Closer than I’ve ever been or ever want to be.

So anyone tells you how crazy they are is full of shit. They don’t know what they’re talking about. No one wants that, not anyone responsible. Not anyone with a heart who cares about the people in their lives. Going crazy is giving up, giving in. Its psychic suicide.

Cowardice.

And the world hates a coward.