Am I A Crazy Person?
By Thoughtis
Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually crazy, if my 24-year-old neuroses extend beyond the typical and veer into Girl, Interrupted territory. Admittedly, these moments don’t happen too often. As a whole, I feel very well-adjusted, happy and have a high quality of life, but sometimes things will happen that will have me questioning my sanity.
I’m sure we all have these moments when we creep ourselves out with our thoughts and behavior. We have to talk to ourselves and be like, “Okay, you’re being a crazy person. Just stop.” and then we usually do. We curb those weird feelings that freak us out and go about our day as a happy functioning person of society. But I think in this day and age especially when we feel ruled by social norms, “going crazy” has been exoticised. Not abiding by the implicit rules feels extremely liberating.
A few weeks ago, I was having one of those Monica “Just one of them days” moments where I felt like I was going to cry if someone just looked at me cross-eyed. I mean, I wouldn’t actually cry because ever since I went through puberty, my tear ducts became frozen and will only start to thaw when something really traumatic happens, but I still felt like it maybe could happen at any moment. Crying. In public. Being crazy. I could see it happening. Someone would bump into me on the street and it would unleash the floodgates. They would ask me what’s wrong and I would tell them in between sobs, “I’m just bein’ Miley” and run away.
My fragile psyche came to a head that day when I was in line at Walgreens to get my prescription for my psoriasis medication (Yeah, I have that now. Me and Kim Kardashian. Chic.) When it came to be my turn, the pharmacy lady told me that my medication actually hadn’t been filled and needed authorization. I told her that I already called my dermatologist and ************************ (real life boring information). She didn’t care. She was not budging. Bye.
Basically my sanity was hanging by a thread at this point and I actually thought I was going to start sobbing right then and there. I wanted to scream at her and be like, “YOU ARE ACTUALLY RUINING MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. I HATE YOU SO MUCH. I WANT TO CTRL ALT DELETE YOU!” But I didn’t. Oh my god, I would never! That would make me…crazy.
Incidentally, scenarios like the one listed above make up the bulk of my “Ryan going crazy” fantasies—me screaming at strangers in Walgreens, or at restaurants, or on the street. It’s me being that person who’s making everyone else around them uncomfortable by acting insane. And I’ve realized that if that’s my crazy fantasy, if that’s what makes me fear Bellevue, then maybe I’m the most normal person on earth. Because I think everyone secretly would like to lose their shit at a stranger and afterwards be like, “I’m sorry but thank you! I feel so much better now!” Or not. Maybe I’m misjudging the entire situation and I’m actually cray cray.
It’s just funny to me how everyone worries so much about their sanity. They worry that their actions might be perceived as weird (no wants to be the crazy friend) so they walk on eggshells. They say the right things, they make sure to not come off as strange. This hyper attention to being “normal” is probably what fuels our desire to go a little nuts. It’s what makes us want to message our ex’s new BF/GF and say, “I lurk you every day. There. I admit it. I don’t care!” or scream at the person in front of us for walking too slow. As of yet, I haven’t actually succumbed to my crazy fantasies but I’ve got time. One day I’m going to do something really weird in public and it will probably feel like the most normal thing I’ve done in a long time.