I’m Not Insane . . . Am I?

Maybe I’m a little “off,” but that should be expected for someone like me, who’s gone through what I have. I could imagine a therapist now, looking at me sideways as I tell her what I’ve gone through. She’d never believe that I’d gone through what I had. Precisely, I was too normal. There was something odd about the way I came off and what invisible baggage burdened me. I was wounded no doubt, but the power of will ought not to ever be underestimated.

I have been to twelve mental institutions, and have been diagnosed with nine mental disorders. I used to be in a really abusive relationship with a past husband of mine, but it didn’t help that he wanted to live on the road continuously. As a result of his insistence that we incessantly travel, I ended up being a patient in psychiatric institutions across six states. Maybe the really crazy thing I did was marry a monster. I’d dealt with monsters before, so how was this one any different? I guess it took me a long time to graduate from the School of Hard Knocks for this one, because I believed, foolishly, that love could conquer all. Maybe it can. It’s a possibility I’m starting to believe in, with true love, that is.

Maybe I am insane, and that’s what makes me beautiful.

When people see me, they don’t see the warrior underneath the surface. It’s one thing to get bullied by people at school, which happened when I was younger, but it was something completely different to get hurt by those who you loved, who you thought loved you. Maybe the real definition of insane, when it comes to love, is loving someone who can never truly love you back. I’m convinced you could waste years -no, decades- on someone, and they could still never change if they didn’t want to.

Perhaps I am too off-kilter, having loved so much without reciprocity. I’ve got to remember the cosmos, though, because I do believe there are forces out there I can’t fathom, whose powers are beyond what I could ever imagine, deigning to try and uplift my sorrowful gaze. We all have choices, and I chose to love the impossible, and that’s what really hurt me, making my life unbearable for long stretches of time in my past. It can be argued, equally, that there is no way to force true love, and I think that’s where true insanity comes into play.

I’m not a controlling person. Far from it, actually. If I had no notion of what love was, though, I could see myself spiraling downwards into a hapless existence, trying to convince somebody else to love me, when I’d never even learned to love myself in any way first. I firmly believe that a controlling temperament is the opposite of love, even if it might come across as a good front for confidence and being self-assured. I remember that day when I made myself this promise: I would never force a man to be in a relationship with me. Ever, and I’ve kept to that promise.

Being insane, in its clearest sense, then, is to use controlling behavior to force someone to believe something they wouldn’t otherwise, normally. If that person is constantly subjected to brainwashing, who’s the one that’s insane, now? Is the deceived, misplaced lover insane, for believing in something that is, at its core, unalterably true? Or, is the perpetrator insane? Both must be insane, but one is more so than the other. True insanity is going to stupid lengths to try and usurp control over another person, love being the most disastrous, when it’s used as a weapon.

I’m not controlling, and I’ll never force anyone to be in a relationship with me, but I do have what my paperwork says, which is that I have a history of being a patient at many mental hospitals, where I’ve received my diagnoses of those nine mental disorders. I see things that aren’t there, I dissociate when things get bad enough, I’ll start to fall prey to disorganized thinking, propelling me to see things in only black-and-white terms at times, but does that make me insane?

Is a person bound to a wheelchair insane? I am disabled as well, just in a different way, so should that merit me being called “insane,” when others with my same diagnoses do things I’d never dream of doing, ever?

My heart beats for the heart that beats in turn for me. I have no desire to establish dominance over somebody else. Dominating another person should be entirely obsolete at this point, but sadly, just looking at the world, it’s not that way. Based off this judgment, it’s likelier safer to say that the world is insane than I am, and that I’m just doing my best to not leave a legacy of similar mistakes of intolerance, injustice, and domineering attitudes.

In my own little world, I’m my own ruler, and that means I’m going to keep moving forward as much as possible, no matter the decisions of others unfamiliar or uniformed about the chaos that is my own burden to bear. It’s my practice sword session before I’m called out to battle, the endless rehearsals before performing in a play for the viewing pleasure of royalty, the constant search of the diligent scientist who finds another way to assuage the medical ailments of the world at large; my mind challenges me to remain dignified and practical, every day being my stage to prove, mostly to myself, that I have done all I can to prepare to handle what difficulties may stand before me now, in the future, and forever.

I’m not insane, but I am an insane fighter when it comes to not being overcome by life’s difficulties.

How about you?

What side of the line do you toe?