The Thing About “Crazy” (Part 2 of 2)

TRIGGER WARNING: saneism, ableism

Note: This is a summary of various ideas from a conversation I had a few months ago with the person I was dating at the time. Sometimes there are direct quotes, sometimes there’s paraphrasing. Thanks so much to them for agreeing to make this available for other people to browse, and for their contribution! 

Say yes to “craziness” in our lives! Break yourself free from the control saneism likes to exert on all of our behaviors! Why? How? What does this mean? Take a look below…

• It makes us more comfortable with each other.
• Alone or with others, do something in public that your inner social norms tell you that you aren’t supposed to do. Jump, dance, skip, hum, wiggle! Cry! Shout! Rock! Don’t conform to expected behavior when you want or need to do something else! Keep in mind, though, that this should be something that comes from you–this isn’t a chance to “make fun” of how “those people” look or act.
• Remember that, although saneism directly oppresses people with mental illnesses, everyone is shoved into a box of behavior because of trying not to look “crazy.” If it wasn’t seen as “crazy,” how many behaviors would people engage in that they don’t engage in now?
• I’m not talking about skydiving or revolution or starting a new business or whatever else people put the word “crazy” inaccurately onto (although that linguistic/psychological divide is there too, and you should do those things that you want but don’t allow yourself for, too). I’m just talking about those things, literal behaviors that mark people as crazy, that are “against social convention.”
• Remember also that “crazy” is more often applied to people who experience other kinds of oppression as well, as a way to discount them. People can be considered “crazy” due to their defiance of norms/oppressed status, people who may not have mental illness. Just think about stereotypes of “crazy women,” or racialized stereotypes that also include “crazy” somewhere in that list of bigoted adjectives. Remember that refusing to police your own behavior based on this list of norms can be lessening this divide too. (That’s not to discount the fact that people often non-consensually read or label others’ personhood or behavior as “crazy,” and that there are many different ways that people try to survive in a world that has this reality. Stay safe, everyone. As safe as possible in the moment, anyway.)
• You may feel frozen even thinking about stepping outside of the “sane” behavior box, a box you likely have tried very hard to conform to. That’s OK. Start small.
• When we say yes to “crazy” behavior, in the literal I-don’t-mind-looking-like-I-have-a-mental-illness-right-now way, and in the figurative, bigoted way it’s used as well, we are saying yes to ourselves and others, just as they are. We are saying yes to the needs we may have to sob or shake or lie in bed all day or rock or hum. We are saying yes to our dreams, to the impossible, the fantastical, all these things that we deny ourselves and relegate to the supposedly illegitimate, impossible, unintelligible, ridiculous, even magical/exhilarating world of “crazy.” These are our realities, our literal realities as mentally ill people. These are also the realities of the world around us, who has closed its doors to literal insanity and anything else it doesn’t want to welcome with that word, thrown casually, “crazy.” “I cannot love crazy things,” we say. “I am unlovable if I am crazy, unhearable, illegitimate, not worth listening to or having around.” We say these things when we say the word “crazy.” Not only are we being saneist in terms of shutting people with mental illness out, we are shutting ourselves out too.
• When we hold ourselves to these confines, it hurts us and the people around us, people we care about. We feel closest to the people we can be really genuine with—and that includes being open about our mental illnesses and being free to express parts of ourselves that are otherwise labeled as “crazy.” Make room for others, too, to be like that around you, to be their genuine selves.
• It hurts others when they feel like they have to apologize for their craziness, when they feel lucky to have people that tolerate craziness. Don’t simply tolerate it! Celebrate it! It is about treating people decently, about treating everyone as whole people with entire selves that contain so much. It’s not a favor to do this. At its best, it’s a deeper, more loving holding of everyone around us. At minimum, it’s treating everyone like a person—which hopefully is loving! Haha, you aren’t getting out of love on this one!
• Keep in mind that at all times, this is a practice of being true to yourself—not of appropriating, imitating, or making fun of others’ behaviors. Set yourself free from the grip of saneism on your life—but don’t make ugly imitations of what that might look like for people with mental illnesses that are not your own.
• All of this has varied intersections and relevancies to physical disabilities and autism, but as that is not a part of my experience, I don’t want to delve into it more. I just want to recognize the closeness of policing of behavior and bodies and how it relates to other forms of ableism.

Also, check out this picture (source below):

https://www.facebook.com/MysteraMagazine/photos/a.260956163935285.67825.163953310302238/738865629477667/?type=1

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