Let's Talk. Not About Boats.

"...and I hope you are having the time of your life..."
                                                 -Gnarls Barkley"




*Deep breath*

This is an… interesting... day in Canada- this is "Let's Talk" Day, a day designed to open dialogue about mental illness and destigmatize crazy…

...sponsored  by a telecom company, a national corporation in an industry where it sometimes seems like the customer service staff and telemarketers are trained to drive you batshit crazy.  

     Anyirony,  Let’s Talk Day has been revered and reviled and retweeted throughout it’s short history, but this year LTD seems to  be at a tipping point- people WANT to have the conversation.

So, Let’s Talk.

*Deeper breath*

Hi, I’m Brian and I’m crazy. 

I’ve been crazy for over 30 years…but it took me at least 25 of those years to figure it out.

See, sometimes when you’re crazy, crazy seems normal, because it’s all you know.

And that is one of the reasons to talk.

When I was a kid, because no one ever talked about crazy, I thought EVERYONE felt like me.  I thought that everyone wanted to sleep all the time. I thought everyone felt like throwing up every morning on the school bus.   I thought that everyone felt they were a completely useless failure and never did anything right.  I thought everyone found it so damn hard to make even small decisions. I thought everyone felt every failure was a huge disaster, no matter how minor, and every success was a statistical blip, no matter how major.
I thought everyone was always on the verge of either anger or tears.

I thought that everyone wanted to die.

Crazy is thinking that everything bad that happens is "luck."

And everything good that happens is "luck."

And unable to care either way.

The fucking insidious thing about crazy, at least my crazy, is that I functioned, and occasionally functioned very successfully, on a daily basis…

...and thus, I must not be crazy.

     Because crazy is obvious, right?  Crazy is on the news, in the papers, in the hospital, in the morgue…

      Ergo, ipso facto,  I must not be crazy.

     So, I sucked it up, dealt with it, walked it off, lived with it, and worked around it, because…

…we didn’t talk about it.

     When I was up,  I was really gawddam UP- I was unbeatable.
I wasn’t just king of the hill, I was King of  KickAss Mountain.  I got the awards, earned the bonuses, bought the toys…

….But, when I was down, I was REALLY down.

    The attendant mood swings were epic and often ugly.  Happiness was rare, but anger was a  running theme.  I was mad at everybody, everything, and myself, and I could never quite figure out why.  That anger saddened me and I really didn't like me very much because of it.  Hell, since we're being honest, I hated me.   I loathed me and the impact of me on those closest to me.  No one deserved a dose of "me", and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

   But, I could fake the fuck out of being "normal."
  I could force a grin onto my face, and shake hands and slap backs and make small talk and write the exams and go to the dances and parties and, later, close the deals and give the seminars, and write...

  ...and it took a toll.

     As time passed the ups became fewer and the mountains more like molehills, while the downs became more frequent and valleys became abysses…

But up or down, it was so. damn. much. WORK.

And that work got harder every year… and then every month…and then every week… and then every day.

     Every morning, for over eight thousand mornings, I found a reason to get out of bed, and then a reason to get dressed, and then a reason to go to work, and then a reason to work and then a reason to…

    I got through the day by breaking my day down into a survival to-do list, and I got through it by finding reasons to tick off another list-item, and then another, until I got near the end of my list or the end of my endurance and could fall into bed, exhausted, but unable to sleep….  and I always had to remember to find a reason to be happy. 

Every day.

… and then I started running out of reasons.

   And death began to look really, really, attractive.

   I was lucky.  I have a wife who loves me in spite of, or maybe because of, my craziness.

   We had The Talk.

   She made The Appointment.

   I got The Prescription

  And we get through it every day.

  Because we had The Talk.

   Life is no longer so much damn work.

   And being happy is no longer something I have to remember to do.
 
   Now the anger is an emotion, not a pulse. I am no longer low-key angry about everything.

   Now, I am angry, and happy, and sad, and all those other emotions, in balance, not out of proportion.

   There are still Bad Days, those days when Churchill’s black dogs scratch at the door. 

   But, there are far far, far more Good Days.

I’m Brian. 

And I’m crazy. 

And I’m okay with that.

Let’s talk.