Madness

My Nana is currently in hospice. She's deteriorating quickly. Her skin is gently draped over her bones as she scouts around in her wheelchair. She may not last another year. Yet despite all this, I have a very hard time going to visit her. Seeing her like that... well it reminds me that within my genetic potential lies my single greatest fear. The one thing that haunts my nightmares. It's not death. It's not even seeing those I care for being harmed or leaving me. Those are all parts of life that you have to be aware of and come to terms with.

I'm afraid of going insane.

I've always been a little crazy. And not just in the "He so crazy" kinda way. In the diagnosable mental illness kind of way. I've had panic attacks, minor delusions, depressive episodes, and ended up thinking so quickly I felt like my brain was going to burn. I've even lost arguments with myself. And that's something that takes a particular breed of madness to accomplish. I've heard the whispering shadows and had to teach myself through long and terrible practice what is the ravages of a diseased brain and what's intuition.

It's a difficult balance to find. But it's what I have to do. Because there's the option to drug myself into oblivion. Or drink and smoke and snort myself till it all goes away, or becomes so exaggerated that I'm not longer able to care. The thought crosses my mind from time to time. Not with any temptation, but with a certain practical assessment of options.

Many of the people closest and dearest to me have all had their madnesses. My mother has anxiety. My grandfather has OCD such that at one point he was showering upwards of four times a day and had his doctor tell him that he was washing his skin down the drain with all the scrubbing. My grandmother lives in a state of complete delusion. My father is on social security because of his almost crippling depression.

I know madness. I've seen it. Tasted it's grim nectar. I've felt my mind play tricks on me and have before been confused about what's real and what's not.

It's the razor's edge I must walk. In other cultures, in other times, I'd be a shaman. A walker between this world and the other world. But here, and now? I'm a rather exceptional madman. A unique and distinct creature that cannot help but suckle at the tit of insanity. The insight and creativity I gain from this state is profound. I see the world in a completely different way then most others.

But the cost of that... is that I get to worry. I get to wait for the tinkle of glass as my mind breaks. I hope it's as beautiful as I imagine.