Let it Go, You Crazy Fool, You Demented Soul - Laugh Hard
Let it go, you crazy fool, you demented soul. Let it go that you can be someone else. Let it go that you are not OK, that you are not normal, and that the world is often too much for you. No one is really normal, and the world - with all its cares and woe- is way too much for almost everybody. We, who are mentally ill, are not alone. The whole of society is kind of crazed. Why else would so many people go postal, go bonkers, go bananas, so many get smashed, get stoned, and lose themselves in the refrigerator? Normal folks, they spend their time on the couch, in anger management therapy, reading books on relationship resolution, and joining groups to end their suffering. This is the way of the world. The crazed are simply one small, jagged fragment of a very fragmented universe. All you can do is to laugh to keep yourself from crying, or dying.
Twelve steps can be found from any point of madness: alcohol, cocaine, blubber, and sex.
Sometimes those paces taken away work, but they only work when the worker surrenders and doesn't try to work anymore. He or she doesn't try to fight against the addiction or the illness. I have fought all those demons: drugs, sex, and more: mania, depression, and the desire to die. The more I fought, the more I lost. I wouldn't just let go. I wouldn't surrender to their existence. I wouldn't for the longest time say OK, I'm an addict, I'm mentally ill, and get on with my life. I struggled against the definitions. I denied I was an addict. I denied I was mentally ill. I denied I was bipolar. There was a wonderful T-shirt I had once that had printed on the front, "Denial is not a river in Egypt." Wearing it made me and others laugh.
For the longest time I thought my problems were caused by others. My problems were caused by my screwed-up childhood and these problems were created by my parents, grandparents, and others in my family. I was trapped in a net of cause and effect not of my own making. I was like some poor insect snared in the Black Widow Spider's web stung until dead with her poison. In a sense I had not taken responsibility for myself or my own circumstances. By not owning either I could not forgive myself for my life in all its flaws and failures.
In another sense, I was in a dilemma. I was torn between guilt and hatred twice. I hated myself for having something I did not want and felt guilty for having it. I hated my elders for causing my mental illness and I felt guilty for hating them because they knew not what they did. They caused my problems, but I knew they loved me. They were just humans with problems they could not handle. I hated myself for not having what I wanted because I was not good enough to have it. Being normal, which is good, was what I wanted but wasn't. I was bipolar, which is something bad. Thus I hated myself for being diseased in the brain, but why should I hate me when I was not guilty of anything but being the wrong person in the wrong place? I was trapped in a hopeless spiral of negativity from which there was no escape as long as one attributed blame and avoided responsibility. But if you stop looking outside yourself, if you stop assigning responsibility to others, if you surrender to the situation you're in, the equation changes.
The Buddhists have an interesting view about the human situation, which parallels the predicament I found myself in. As humans, we are trapped in a world in which there are only three outcomes.
1. We don't get what we want and are unhappy.
2. We get what we don't want and are unhappy.
3. We get what we want and it changes and we become unhappy.
They say the only way out of this conundrum is to let go of trying to solve the dilemma. You have to give up on desire, attachment, and fear. In Buddhism this is a very big subject and goes to the heart of the philosophy or religion, if you want to call it a religion. It relates to becoming egoless or selfless, which is way beyond what I am trying to convey in this small essay. Yet there is a quality of selflessness about freeing oneself from the unhappiness of mental illness because one is no longer focused on the problem of self, but on freedom of self from condemnation and dread.
When you give up the desire to be normal- to be free of who you are - circumstances begin to change. In the circumstance of mental illness, if you accept the fact that you have a disease that may be or may not be permanent, but can be lived with when treated properly, it frees you to take responsibility for yourself. No longer are you subjected to second class citizenship. No longer are you just a patient. You are a co-participant in your treatment and recovery. The focus is not so tightly held on self as a sick person, but as a person who has a flaw that adds dimension to his or her being when properly treated. Like a beautiful diamond with a cloud in the crystal, the cloud can add interest.
When you give up attachment to your mental illness, it no longer defines who you are. Mental illness taken as a key underpinning of identity is struck away when no longer used as a crutch. No longer can I say I can get away with this or that because I am mentally ill. What I used in the past as an excuse for my actions is no longer viable. I am responsible for what I do. If I act like a crazy person, the onus is on me. Therefore I must do all that is in my power to prevent that occurrence. For me, who knows that I am bipolar, this means I must follow the prescribed course of medication and take care of my health to keep stress at a reasonable level. My identity has found a new ground. I am less egocentric because I am not focused on my identity as a crazy person. I see myself as person with a problem in a world full of people with problems. I am not an island but a part of a larger continent. I am not a person solely in need of help, but a person who can help.
The hardest thing to give up is fear. Mental illness brings with it an enormous amount of fear. There is the fear of what happened, the fear of what could happen again, and the fear of the reaction of others to the knowledge of your mental illness. The stigma of mental illness is real and enormous. The fear of what happened is easiest to give up. It happened in the past. Even if the past was just yesterday, it still is over. Smile-you got through it. When I have a down, and I still do, I know I will get through it. I will survive. Tomorrow is another day, and on that tomorrow I can smile. The fear of the future is harder. No one knows if they will breakdown again. Disaster could strike. But I say you can't focus on it. You must live in today. Keep your awareness here and smile. If you are OK today, that is enough. The alcoholics say "One day at a time." We with mental illness should say the same and laugh wholeheartedly that we are sane today in an insane world.
The stigma of mental illness won't go away until we make it go away. We, the carriers of the disease of mental illness, have to stand up fearlessly before all the cringing cops, doctors, politicians, social workers, do-gooders, couch potatoes, and others fearful folk and say: "We are just like you! We have flaws. We are treatable. We are not contagious. We demand our rights to be treated like full citizens. I shall not be talked down to. We are laughing at the strangeness of life and the beauty of the universe. See the luminosity that surrounds our special group of touched humans."
Let it go, you crazy fool, you demented soul. Let it go that you can be someone else. Let it go that you are not OK, that you are not normal, and that the world is often too much for you. No one is really normal, and the world - with all its cares and woe- is way too much for almost everybody. We, who are mentally ill, are not alone. The whole of society is kind of crazed. Why else would so many people go postal, go bonkers, go bananas, so many get smashed, get stoned, and lose themselves in the refrigerator? Normal folks, they spend their time on the couch, in anger management therapy, reading books on relationship resolution, and joining groups to end their suffering. This is the way of the world. The crazed are simply one small, jagged fragment of a very fragmented universe. All you can do is to laugh to keep yourself from crying, or dying.
Twelve steps can be found from any point of madness: alcohol, cocaine, blubber, and sex.
Sometimes those paces taken away work, but they only work when the worker surrenders and doesn't try to work anymore. He or she doesn't try to fight against the addiction or the illness. I have fought all those demons: drugs, sex, and more: mania, depression, and the desire to die. The more I fought, the more I lost. I wouldn't just let go. I wouldn't surrender to their existence. I wouldn't for the longest time say OK, I'm an addict, I'm mentally ill, and get on with my life. I struggled against the definitions. I denied I was an addict. I denied I was mentally ill. I denied I was bipolar. There was a wonderful T-shirt I had once that had printed on the front, "Denial is not a river in Egypt." Wearing it made me and others laugh.
For the longest time I thought my problems were caused by others. My problems were caused by my screwed-up childhood and these problems were created by my parents, grandparents, and others in my family. I was trapped in a net of cause and effect not of my own making. I was like some poor insect snared in the Black Widow Spider's web stung until dead with her poison. In a sense I had not taken responsibility for myself or my own circumstances. By not owning either I could not forgive myself for my life in all its flaws and failures.
In another sense, I was in a dilemma. I was torn between guilt and hatred twice. I hated myself for having something I did not want and felt guilty for having it. I hated my elders for causing my mental illness and I felt guilty for hating them because they knew not what they did. They caused my problems, but I knew they loved me. They were just humans with problems they could not handle. I hated myself for not having what I wanted because I was not good enough to have it. Being normal, which is good, was what I wanted but wasn't. I was bipolar, which is something bad. Thus I hated myself for being diseased in the brain, but why should I hate me when I was not guilty of anything but being the wrong person in the wrong place? I was trapped in a hopeless spiral of negativity from which there was no escape as long as one attributed blame and avoided responsibility. But if you stop looking outside yourself, if you stop assigning responsibility to others, if you surrender to the situation you're in, the equation changes.
The Buddhists have an interesting view about the human situation, which parallels the predicament I found myself in. As humans, we are trapped in a world in which there are only three outcomes.
1. We don't get what we want and are unhappy.
2. We get what we don't want and are unhappy.
3. We get what we want and it changes and we become unhappy.
They say the only way out of this conundrum is to let go of trying to solve the dilemma. You have to give up on desire, attachment, and fear. In Buddhism this is a very big subject and goes to the heart of the philosophy or religion, if you want to call it a religion. It relates to becoming egoless or selfless, which is way beyond what I am trying to convey in this small essay. Yet there is a quality of selflessness about freeing oneself from the unhappiness of mental illness because one is no longer focused on the problem of self, but on freedom of self from condemnation and dread.
When you give up the desire to be normal- to be free of who you are - circumstances begin to change. In the circumstance of mental illness, if you accept the fact that you have a disease that may be or may not be permanent, but can be lived with when treated properly, it frees you to take responsibility for yourself. No longer are you subjected to second class citizenship. No longer are you just a patient. You are a co-participant in your treatment and recovery. The focus is not so tightly held on self as a sick person, but as a person who has a flaw that adds dimension to his or her being when properly treated. Like a beautiful diamond with a cloud in the crystal, the cloud can add interest.
When you give up attachment to your mental illness, it no longer defines who you are. Mental illness taken as a key underpinning of identity is struck away when no longer used as a crutch. No longer can I say I can get away with this or that because I am mentally ill. What I used in the past as an excuse for my actions is no longer viable. I am responsible for what I do. If I act like a crazy person, the onus is on me. Therefore I must do all that is in my power to prevent that occurrence. For me, who knows that I am bipolar, this means I must follow the prescribed course of medication and take care of my health to keep stress at a reasonable level. My identity has found a new ground. I am less egocentric because I am not focused on my identity as a crazy person. I see myself as person with a problem in a world full of people with problems. I am not an island but a part of a larger continent. I am not a person solely in need of help, but a person who can help.
The hardest thing to give up is fear. Mental illness brings with it an enormous amount of fear. There is the fear of what happened, the fear of what could happen again, and the fear of the reaction of others to the knowledge of your mental illness. The stigma of mental illness is real and enormous. The fear of what happened is easiest to give up. It happened in the past. Even if the past was just yesterday, it still is over. Smile-you got through it. When I have a down, and I still do, I know I will get through it. I will survive. Tomorrow is another day, and on that tomorrow I can smile. The fear of the future is harder. No one knows if they will breakdown again. Disaster could strike. But I say you can't focus on it. You must live in today. Keep your awareness here and smile. If you are OK today, that is enough. The alcoholics say "One day at a time." We with mental illness should say the same and laugh wholeheartedly that we are sane today in an insane world.
The stigma of mental illness won't go away until we make it go away. We, the carriers of the disease of mental illness, have to stand up fearlessly before all the cringing cops, doctors, politicians, social workers, do-gooders, couch potatoes, and others fearful folk and say: "We are just like you! We have flaws. We are treatable. We are not contagious. We demand our rights to be treated like full citizens. I shall not be talked down to. We are laughing at the strangeness of life and the beauty of the universe. See the luminosity that surrounds our special group of touched humans."
Carlton Davis, an author, artist, and architect, has bipolar disorder. He has written a moving memoir called "bipolar bare."
This story, which includes 32 original drawings, is about coming to
grips with the illness and appreciating it as a gift. To learn more
about the book visit http://www.bipolarbarebook.com/
