Should I share more stories about my "crazy times"

[Linna Heartbooger]

I was thinking of talking more about some of the wacky things my mind did when confronted with this huge weight... me getting unhinged here and there...
...and also how I interfaced with people when I was in that state.

That's definitely interesting, especially if you compare it to your current perspective.

Yay, you're making it so I will talk some. it's still like pulling teeth when I try to get myself to talk about this.
I look back at old posts of mine and remember what -I- was thinking at the time and I'm like, "Gahhh! so humiliating. I don't want to talk about that."

Well, I was very convinced that I knew specific things that I didn't actually have evidence for... like I was taking very random things as evidence.
But there's no good reason I should get to know the answers to them on the timeline I wanted the answers.
I wanted answers to "How would different things to work out for my friends' lives?"
As I said elsewhere, I thought I could determine answers to questions I desperately wanted to know by using obliquely-phrased Google queries... (They were questions such as, "Is her life going to turn out okay?")
...and following some links according to my whimsy.

So how did I relate to other people?
Clipped responses... evasive, ambiguous.

On the plus side, (my perspective now) I think that evasion and ambiguity can be delightful tools for provoking thinking and learning in ones interlocutor.
We are too impatient with the people in our lives.
We should spool out a story slowly, and see what occurs to the party we're in dialogue with, and then tie that in to what we're saying.
Yes, that's become part of my ideal for the kind of person I want to be, and I don't do it half as well as I want.
(See this post about "how I think we should do conversations on the Watch." I thinking, "Dang! I was talkin' to me! I was trying to convince myself to change the way I do things! And I didn't!")

But it was -easy- doing that then, because I had something obvious to conceal.
I wanted to conceal what I was thinking ...what I thought I was seeing... NOT because I thought it was insane...
...but because I knew it would sound insane to other people... if they weren't seeing it also.

So when I REALLY wanted to tell someone a thing... (it's amazing what a confrontation with another human personality can do; just attempting to talk, I'd realize it would SOUND insane before I even said one thing.)
...I would ask them a series of questions..
Like, "Look at this webpage... doesn't it seem WEIRD to you?"

Well, there is so much that I -don't- want to share in Non-Fic format...
But now I think I -can- write a SciFi story with some stuff in it.
(Lazy Luke, your words stuck with me!)
I figured out a way to do it last night while washing dishes... (should wash dishes more often!)
If I begin to write it, it'll probably be in the Hall of Gifts with a title like:
'"What Should She Do?": The Game Show'

Also... Sorus...
As far as thread-derailment, well... a big part of the premise of this thread is that my story is not just for me.

Yeah, we all do...it's called "Life."

Oh... when I was going through treatments, I often thought of the saying:
"Life's a b*&^%. And then you die."
But I thought of a joke that I mostly kept to myself which is that Christians should flip that around and say:
"Death's a b*&^%, but then you LIVE."
I think that even if I'd "shopped that saying around" at my church, somehow it just wouldn't have "taken off"... dunno.

[Avatar]

I like "If the wages of sin are death, so too is the salary of virtue."

--A

[Skyweir]

[Linna Heartbooger]

I'm currently trying to piece together a story like I'd thought of doing...

If I begin to write it, it'll probably be in the Hall of Gifts with a title like:
'"What Should She Do?": The Game Show'

Also... Sorus...
As far as thread-derailment, well... a big part of the premise of this thread is that my story is not just for me.

I still find it really difficult to get myself to think about -me- at that time.
I'm looking back over a log from a conversation I had on FB and I cringe repeatedly.

Some parts of my present-day thinking is that SO much of what's categorized as crazy vs. not-crazy is socially-determined.
It's a bit like the old joke, "If someone is poor and saying and/or doing irrational things, they're crazy; if they're rich and saying and/or doing irrational things, they're eccentric."
(Except the actual joke is more concise: That's why people don't let me write punchlines.)

What Objective Reality is = not socially-determined.
What people allow themselves and others to talk about is, though.

There was an amazing line in 1984 that introduced the the concept of "crimestop;" (a sort of forbidding oneself to be able to think various things, or believe they might be true.) it said that even a child was capable of engaging in this technique.
Totally the case.

I think every culture, sub-culture, family, every group ...sees some set of ideas as something which everyone should perform "crimestop" on.
Some of -those- barriers were the ones that were broken in my thinking... while other barriers - some of which I maybe wanted to have in place - were as well.

[Edit: changed a bit in my sentence that said "crazy vs. not-crazy." Also the first "crimestop" pp.]

[Skyweir]

I totally get the crazy in very small part ... when I had my own scare ... it was rather terrifying just to go through the biopsies, the many tests, but more viscerally ... the waiting for outcomes and results.

But mine was just a scare ... Cancer is a terrifying disease ... and a killer at that.

Ive seen both parents die from cancer AND cancer treatment.

Recently Ive been in Melbourne and visited with an old friend who has just been diagnosed with some rare squamous cancer ... its in his throat and the back of his tongue. He has started chemo and radiation and is in his second week.

He has been journaling his awful journey but with humour and some degree of introspection. To read his posts youd think he has this and is going to totally fuck cancer in the ass.

But he confided to me that he wakes in the early hours of the morning in a cold sweat and wants to cry and scream out loud.

He probably should allow himself the freedom to do both. He described the juxtaposition between the knowledge of having cancer and knowing he has cancer within him, inside his body ... growing inside of him and its design to kill him.

Im not sure if Im making this clear or not ... but that fear that comes from that knowledge can be paralysing and self destructive.

I see great power in personal belief. Not in gods, healers, external powers ... but belief in oneself. I think humans do experience incredible feats of healing .. but it is their belief that enables the body to rally.

Not saying thats a thing for all but I think it can be ... dependent upon a vast array of variables of course.

But that inner battle ... sometimes brings a person to the brink of madness. We touch what we sometimes describe as the crazy.

I touched that very briefly about 18 months ago.

And in 1997 ... when I clinically died. Since then Ive had a touch of the crazy playing smooth jazz in the background of my being ... reminding me of my mortality. That I dodged that bullet and crazily believing Im on borrowed time. Its weird yes ... but nevertheless its there, all the time. Not drowning out my ability to function rationally but when I get run down and crash hard ... my fear is that my time has come and the Reeper has come to collect whats due.

[Fist and Faith]

I like "If the wages of sin are death..."

Paula Poundstone said, "But after taxes, it's just kind of a tired feeling, really."