Crazy Is Not A Bad Word

Crazy Is Not A Bad Word

By Cathy

How I Survived My Childhood

I'm crazy. I used to feel ashamed of that. I see the world through the eyes of a lunatic. I earned my crazy the hard way. I was raised by maniacs. I reckon I've finally accepted the fact that they probably couldn't help themselves any more than I can sometimes. I was also raised in the Deep South, in a place I lovingly call the asshole of the Bible belt. If you've been there then you know exactly where I'm talking about.

When my parents split up, I bounced from house to house. My reverend grandfather and grandmother opened their Baptist home to me and my mother on many occasions. It took me awhile to forgive mom for that one. It's always funny to me that people act so shocked and indignant when it turns out preachers can be vicious bastards. I spent much of my teen years misdiagnosed and dosed by a shyster with one black and one grey Mercedes. On days he wore his grey Armani he drove the grey Mercedes. I'm sure you've met him. He didn't treat the upper middle class kids with the double sets of parents and mega coverage. He just kept us locked up, played pill popping roulette with us, and taught us to question the validity of every thought or feeling we had. I do hope he rots in hell, tortured by all his ill-gotten gains.

People get annoyed with me because I tell them an entire story just to answer what they believe to be a simple question. I scream like a banshee at times. I learned that from my granma. My granma was a fantastic, beautiful, emotionally crippled woman. She really helped cultivate my insanity, but she loved me, and I knew it. Most of the time. She was what some would call bat-shit crazy. I miss her every second of every day.

I don't scream as much as I used to. I don't self-harm anymore either. I've been coke-free for more years than I can remember. I don't hate me anymore most of the time. When I do, we talk, and sometimes the conversation ends up falling out of my mouth usually in front of people at really inappropriate times. I don't hang my head anymore when I'm caught being crazy. Screw that! I'm the fat old crazy lady who mutters to herself and then laughs like an idiot when you give her that silly look of alarm.

I'm almost 40, and older than I should be. I'm still pretty. I don't mind saying that anymore. I'm pretty and I know it. I'm still working on liking the other parts of me. I've stopped caring that I'm the crazy lady. My old man loves me, even when I scream like a banshee. Who knew how much an old grouchy ass-pie-hermit could heal a mad woman's heart. When I have random outbursts of pure silliness (cos I really need to let it out) he doesn't walk away and pretend not to know me when it happens to be in the middle of the grocery store. My crazy mama loves me, and even though our relationship hasn't always been healthy, it is amazing now. My beloved sons love me, and I would kill for my boys. I have so much love in my life now.

And we're all freakin' nuts! We're crazy and we're the walking wounded. Everyone I know is crazy. My “sane” friends are crazy. Ohmygosh! Have you seen the state of the world? There isn't a sane person on this planet! I'm not even sure if the cosmos itself isn't bat-shit crazy! Sane people stand by and watch their governments drop 21^st century bombs on 18^th century villages? Sane people turn on each other over which political party is doing the best job of fucking the masses? Fuck sanity! Give me paranoia with a side of whatever I may need to keep it from getting stupid!

So, that's now my treatment plan. I take the medication I need to deal with the anxiety, and I have an awesome therapist. Keeping the anxiety in check helps me deal with all the other fun stuff that comes with a personality disorder, PTSD and some other fun labels that are all just part of who I am. I no longer want to be cured. I no longer apologize for being who I am. The more I accept and cherish the crazy parts, the less control they seem to have. Crazy is not a bad word, because without crazy I might not have survived my childhood or my twenties.