Madnes S

Let's talk about madness. Thoughts, experiences, poetry... anything goes!

I've been having a pretty rough time. I just made a long, solitary journey from a place I can't go back to to an uncertain future. And I'm starting to doubt reality. It's all a pretence for being able to act. Is this madness? I try to console myself, but then I realize I'm talking to myself.Is that madness? I'm not self destructive, although I haven't eaten in a pretty long time... But, I feel on the verge of a sanity I have never before even imagined. Is it all subjective, or am I mad? But I feel peaceful...And I hear guidance and cries of pian from the forgotten ancestors, while everyone else ignores them around me. Is this sane or insane?

That sounds like me last year see below. It was a strange place to be in, though I'm starting to forget it a little because I don't live there anymore. I don't really have anything to say... except... I know what you mean. ~Eire

I seriously think I had a moment of insanity at Session 2 this year. It wasn't fun. Sometimes I really wonder about my state of mind and my mental health.

Do I think this? Or am I just imagining it? Or am I just imagining that I'm imagining it?

That's my thought process for a lot of things. And it drives me, and is driving me insane.

Zen

i wish i was insane. or rather, i wish i was sane in this insane world. i'm trying. but i can't seem to rid myself of the 'you have to be cool' ideas. i have to be like everyone else. even when i'm different, i have to be different like everyone else. that's insanity. i want to disregard the world and what other people think of me. i want to live in my own world, where mine is the only opinion that counts. i want to have friends that never push me to be happier or more depressed, or be good or bad or different or the same... it's all the same. it's all insane. i want to be insane so it just doesn't matter to me. i disregard reality. it doesn't give me anything but pain. the only time i'm happy is when i'm insane. i think that's almost what being insane means to me, being happy. being 'realistic' is being pessimistic. insane. well, fuck you reality!

marina

Ah, madness. What a familiar face. There's something about madness that feels kind of...healthy, in a way. I can't help but get that feeling. Going mad keeps me sane, really! It happens when there is something I want deep down but a belief or beliefs I have keep me from getting. And my madness is telling me that it doesn't matter. That ideas, and thoughts are really just that. And that they can't substitute for actual life force. And so madness just seems like a way to get the life force flowing through me once again, because it tends to get stuck sometimes. I have a strange appreciation and gratitude for madness. -courtney

I think madness is relative. I have extreme moments, where my mental stability leaves the room on a coffee break. So I have done strange things to myself, or I have had screaming fits, and occasionally I have gone completely catatonic when all sense of ration is not there. But hey....you deal. Maybe my agoraphobia is madness...I have found myself refusing to go outside, I will retreat into a small room, I won't answer the phone, and I have to supress the urge to completely freak out, but like I said...you deal. -Gennie

I am perfecting the art of going mad; I am intrigued by the idea of insanity, it seems dramatic and romantic... like Shakespearian plays, old myths, and astral paths. What is insanity but a confusion of reality? Never in my life have I questioned everything this much; myself, reality, spirituality, morality, time and space... almost everything. The world seems unstable and chaotic, like sharp sounds on a still summer day. I meditated last night and I heard banging in my room, like someone tapping a wooden spoon against a pan. Sounds. Sometimes hearing seems distorted, so does vision and speech. The world moves too slow, and then it speeds up... ridiculously, like film fast-forwarding. Maybe I'm in the Matrix. It seems like almost anything could happen at this point, and yet I see that the universe is going around in circles, that everything that's happening has happened before. Only slightly disguised. I am doubting the infinity of the universe. Last week sometime at three in the morning, I woke up panicking because I hadn't drank enough water. Standing over the sink drinking disgusting tap water from a glass; I remember one frame of time where there was only me and the sink, and there was nothing out there. Not just empty space, but nothing existed. Is this madness? It's sweet. Its danger beckons to me, mysteriously. Days of walking around dazed, manic feverish highs and then pain like knives are stabbing me inside, vague fear and then overpowering fear, caring and then not caring about anything and everything.

My friend told me that what better for a journey of the mind than a journey of the body? I never thought of my traveling as being something that could be a spiritual and mental journey as well, but once he said that I realized he was completely right. Mostly I have been anxious to "fix myself" before I go away, in the fear that my own madness now will continue on and mess everything up.... but maybe it will not. It's not like depression, where essentiality you shut down. This is.... this is an explosion of the soul, too much being taken it at once, like staring into blinding lights. Never have I been this confused, but never have I been able to express my thoughts so well. And now more than ever, I need to listen to myself, because I think there's something there I need to understand.

I don't want to let it go.... just yet...

-what Eire wrote in June of 2000

Madness is the storms of life. Imagine darkness in the mind, thunder and lightning crashing, falling and flying and getting sucked into mirrors. We all need to go mad once in a while.

Heh. Madness. I have had a lot of that lately. It might have something to do with my bizzare sleeping habits and being on IRC too much. And being in love. It's easy to go mad when you're in love (especially in my case). -Erin

I myself am very attracted to the idea of insanity. I actually would like to experience the reality of a mental institution. I am curious to know what it would be like to be in a straight jacket. You can probobly meet a better class of people.

Stuart

• Somehow I doubt that being in a mental instituation would be as glamous as the movies. I volunteered in a nursing home for a couple years when I was a pre-teen, and it seemed pretty close. It wasn't that people were simply insane, but that they were desperate and hopeless and it was horrible to watch some of them. *sighs* But yeah, I do think about that too.. ~Eryn

• Yes you can find a better class of people( compared to the class I was in before...feel free to shudder ). These are people who Need each other and stick together... though thick and thin. Some are very accepting ( Shudder again )... I have learned to accept others also for when I Volunteered in a group home.

The only way I can see Myself getting access to a straight Jacket would for me to Join a magic Escape artists guild or what not.

• (not true I made one on holloween and I needed someone to let me out.)

I told the couniclors that I since I want to be a psychologist that I wished to know what it is like to be in a group home so i could truely understand the truth of mental illness and the living conditions of them and I was made a House director. ... (on the condition that I would sign and oath of confidentality... I very sorry for keeping secrets and lying ... I signed it to protect the patients. )

• (Yes but I failed to mention that I was being thrown out by my mother ... and I was depressed from My attempt to run for Alderman for my town.)

I quickly became I'll myself .... and was pulled out.

• (That much is true.)

I long for the day that I can be forgiven and accepted for thinking I could just recover and go Directly to university after only two months of counciling. I was so Arrogent ... So Aloof ... I thought I could handle anything and everything.

• (yes by withdrawling into books and Avioding contanct with human beings.)

You can learn a great deal about madness and pain... you can talk and exchange stroies... but Remember that you are vunerable and when you leave if you are not strong enough(Spiritualy, Emotionaly) you won't be the same person afterwards. (Read my next letters below on The Abyss to explain why you should not stay to long in a group home. You might become mad yourself. )

• ( Yes self knowledge Helps one mature.)

Feel free to ask me any questions... I can explain The feelings and emotions that I went through. The experenment didn't end when I left the group home. Integration Is also an area I wished to learn about. But its over now....for the most part.

• ( No I can't ... I just wanted to get the hell out of their.)

I am going through a Deep healing process from the experience.

• ( what experience ... Just a bunch of chain Smoking laughing people pretedning to be mad to collect money from the government ... Execpt for that Guy who pulled out his teeth ... (shudder) ... I was punced a few times in the balls because He thought I was taking his girlfriend ... but other than that (screwed up my hormones for awhile ... "Its where Testoterone comes from" and I can finaly sit down without pain. ) Most of the experience is from guilt and homesickness. (and second hand smoke)

• I have recovered and now feel utterly horrible for what I put myself and everyone else through ... I wish that I had never gone to that group home ... I wish I'd been stronger ... not have gotten i'll ... that I'd listened. Nbtsc helped me realize that I a human being who has frailties like everyone else .

I'm a Christain now ... and My faith in god gives me strength (and my friends tell me when I'm being stupid ... so I can stop)... I belive that I am salavagable ... I don't try stupid things like that anymore ... I should have gotten a licence first ... I want to be a minister or a teacher. I realise what I've done is wrong. I wish to be a Joyful-spirit with good friends who love me and a life of happyness .

I pray for Forgiveness and release .

Joyful-spirit

"Our House" is by Madness. They're a cool Ska band.

It's a good song.

- Zen

" He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster ... When you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you ... " - Friedrich Nietzsche

The Abyss Eventualy Takes you emptys you and ... "becomes" you .... and your memories, your sence of self and even your soul becomes dark ... for a time ... The darkness is all that you see, the center of your existance and no matter who you are or were you are unable to push it away.

you become a shadow of your former self , flashes of distant memories dangle close to your sight but never truely come into sight. Your torment continues as the only memories you are alowed to have are flashes of pain and failure though half awarness and blank confusion. The disorentaion racks your mind as well as your soul and you slowly fall deeper with every atempt to close your eyes to the darkness. Eventuly the abyss itself has no meaning and there is very little strength to get out. It is too late.

The last thing you see ... is utter blackness.

The last thing you hear .. is ... Silence.

You are so afraid.

The last word you utter is an incomprehensable cry for someone to grab you and save you as you fall further into the abyss,

But no one hears your scream ... How could they?

Your last act is to reach out your arms in case someone has heard your cry, but you still fall deeper... with arms outstreached ... pleading. ... begging for mercy ... Compassion ... Forgivness.

But There is no one to save you ... Why would they?

Eventuly the embrace of death becomes a welcome sight. in The last seconds of life the darkness becomes your joy from the hope of being saved then your hope becomes your absloute terror when the hand to are looking for to grab you isn't there and you scream as you fall deeper into the abyss and die ... Alone ... Slowly ... with out hope .. not understanding why but fully knowing your fate.

-I've seen too much darkness, My demons are winning. I fight and die alone. tis the final reward for a fallen child.

• Fallen child .... realising that childish ways don't work and falling untill he realizes that he has wings and decides to use them and become a mature adult.

-Joyful_spirit

Personaly I belive That love (true love that is) Is the same as looking into the abyss ... exept the opposite happens.

True Love fills you and terrifys you at the same time at first. Falling into the abyss could be linked to being unable to overcome the terror that comes from loving another, to find happyness. It is a barrer that holds us all at one time of the other. Some have the courage (or brason foolishness) to cross that barrer and love .. truly love another.

To say to someone that you love them Is to cross (or to attempt couragously cross) that barrer... the next few moments will decide if you live and find true love or die and fall into the abyss in shame. very few are stong enougth to remain neutral and begin the search anew... but we must ... the abyss is worse than death itself.

Falling into depression could be linked to loving something that doesn't love you back or drains you. (Loving something evil ... something that harms you ... Unrequited love ... ect.)

• Love should not enable you to be in the abyss ... Love is something

 so wonderful and out of reach that You are willing to spead your wings for
the first time and catch up with that person ... Love is anything that
builds the person and rises them to new hights in order to maintain it.
 

-Joyful_spirit's Response to himself ( Mad arn't I ... or something else?)

I am happy now. I know who I am now. I found the perfect niche in my mind. I am balanced. I have gotten my bearings. But oh... I could lose it right now. It could go away if I'm not careful. Sneak off behind my back, to leave me groping blindly in the dark once again. Scared, panicked. Shaking. Small. Any minute now, any second now. I must keep it as long as possible. I have gotten my bearings, and now I will grab hold of them so tightly my knuckles will turn white and I will be frozen in time. Frozen with a look of anxious anticipation on my face. For I could be lost in the dark again at any time. Run, run away from the abyss that will inevitably eat me up at any possible moment. Run away. Brace myself. Prepare for my downfall. It will take me further and further away from everything I have ever wanted or needed. Please stop. Do not be afraid of falling. Do not be afraid. -courtney

--

As I sit here (in my room) listening to my fear I ponder my Madness.

Earlier (1am) an Acquantance of mine (not quite a friend and yet neither a stranger (you know those people you see in the hall ways but rarely get a chance to speak to.) Was in her room, which by the fates who's windows are just accross from mine in such a way the when both are open you can talk to eachother with out standing up. She was talking to a man and from what I could tell she was very upset and very drunk. Then I heard her say "Stop touching me" and the amount of horror that filled me was to much. I grabbed my clothes on and Ran to her room, My mind filled with the image of her being raped or ... worse. I did not care that I was 80 pounds underwieght, i didn't care that i was sick .... I didn't care how big the man was attacking her. I only thing on my mind was the image of her being raped ... crying for help and helpless. I got to the room, My fists bared, my eyes prepared for the shock of seing her on the ground.... I was prepared to fight for her .... To stop the horror in my mind.

What I saw however was totaly different from what My mind portrayed. She was talking to a man .... on the phone. He had harrased her eailer because she refused to hold his hand and walk him home from the bar. He had harrased her all night, groping her, following her, coming on to her the whole night and she wanted none of it.

I walked with her to a room she asked me to help her get to. It was the friend of the person who attacked her ... who I sent her too. And I felt somewhat better becuase this person was her friend too. I relaxed a bit (I belived but I didn't realize how wrong I was untill know) I decided to squat down in the hallway for a bit .... My room is next to the room in wich she was So I listened and sat.

I heard her screaming at her friend.... "You tell him .... You tell him the next time I call the police ....", "No man has a right to touch me like that... he hurt me. and you did nothing to stop it ... even when you where looking at us." It went on for and hour and After listening I didn't realise that I was collapsed against the wall and crying. I heard her words but the voice was no longer hers.... I heard the voice of each of my friends .... condemming me ... and then finaly my own.

Each one of her words inspired deeper and deeper levels of guilt and pain in me. Eventuly it all turned to dispair as I linked everything she had said to something I did to my friends. "Harrasment ... In my face .... My life ... I don't need his crap... Does this child need me to hold his hand, will he die if I don't... I didn't come hear to (Augustana) to be harrased i came here to learn .. I have to much crap on my plate as it is.)

Buy the end of the fourth hour She stared to Throw up in my bathroom (We have shared Bathrooms ... I have my Neighbour as a Can..mate) and I felt so horrible ... For what He did to her .... Then in my mind It was What I Did to her ... What I did to my friends .... I was a horrible person. A stalker, a pig, a lier, an Annoyance, gameplayer, bad listener ... The list kept on in my mind ... The abyss was back and This time I had no excuse to escape it .... I let lt it take me ... I deserved it ... I beged the abyss to punish me ... to Hurt me ... To undo the wrongs I did this year to my friends, to strangers, to people I have never met.

I could have stopped their and gone to sleep but I wasn't finished with myself....So this is why none of my friends .. even my girlfriend bothered to wish me a happy birthday (July 28^th two days ago.) and I wanted to die ... no no I wanted to suffer first .. I had no right to die until I suffered first. I wrote ealier on Wiki about being my own best friend .... How having some one love you inside of you makes you so powerful and strong ... well the down side of that Is while 24 hours a day you can have a friend to be with .... It is the opposite when you hate yourself... I was my own worst enemey and I didn't bother to stop him... Yes "..." you were right ... you deserve to die, but not just jet ... Not until I'm finished with you amd trust me I'll never be finished with you ... you can run from you ememys but you can run from me... Death .. pain ... I give you all ... Torment ... grief .... Nothing can stop me "..." ... I own you more than your father ever could... I know all about you ... You can't hide from me ... you can try to hide from me in the abyss but You will have to come out sooner of later ... you deserve the pain I give ... Yes I see you agree ... NOW feel pain scum. YOU DON't Even have the right to be called scum ... FUCK you just fucking die pig.

The next hour was filled with unbelivable condemation ... if What I did to my self that night came from any other person they would be arrested . Everytime my friend threw up The pain doubled in me... Is this why people drink ... becasue people like me hurt them? I don't deserve to live. I don't care If this is mans natural state. I don't care If what he did was or wasn't wrong. I was ashamed. If this Is what i do to people? If this is what I have become? Then commiting sucide Is the most honerable thing I can do. If Chiveralry Is dead than I don't want to live.

I'll not have a part of this ... I will change my course Or I WiLL Stop iT by any means nessicary.

Only wish someone loved me enough to tell me. Before I became a Jerk and hurt so many people. Before Everyone hated me. Before I hated my self.

I want to die ... But not yet ... I want to come back to Augustana in Sepetember just long enougth to hear my Friends tell me how much they hate me... how evil I am ... How much I don't belong..Anywhere but hell. If I can't undo my crimes then I can Avenge my friends, Avenge them with my death. They deserve nothing less, and I deseve nothing.

• I was a little too rough on myself ... True I needed help ... But what I realy needed was to realize that I never wanted to hurt anyone ... that I was Sick and not evil ... That I have a right to live and be happy ... That I was aware and able to grow up ... and that true friends will understand.

Joyful_Spirit

No I want to live, I want everything to be O.k. again. I want things to go back to when everything made sence... I want my training wheels back. I want to go home. I want my mom. I'm stressed out .. I can't cope ... Why can't I go home? I don't hate tre training wheels more than life itself, But I can't just "Deal with it" like my friends tell me. I need help. I need time .... i need things to slow down, so i can catch up to myself ... i can't meet everyones expectations 100% of the time with a smile and a "Hello!!". I have enough trouble with my own. I need a vacation. Can't someone else take care of the universe while I am away. I go to sleep and when I wake up ... there are three more wars ... 100 murders and a bug walking on my bed going towards my face. The rent is due and I have to figure out the meaning of life ... The secrets of inner peace and the key to the universe by dawn or my friends won't think I'm good enough to be with them, My family will call me lazy and my inner Best/friend will get on my case ... or my real best friend ....I can fight one but not both at once.

I now know why every one calls my mother A bitch. Queen of sheba .. ect. tis the only way we can get things done and survive the onslaugth of Expertations everyone ("WE PUT on ourselves") dumps on us. If Bitch works for her then Jerk will work for me. No .... I get things done so that I can meet peoples expectations ... I meet peoples expectaions .. So they will love and accept me... I serve because I need. I need them ... Getting things done by being a jerk won't get me any more friends ... But not getting things done will afect my abilty to survive.

I need a vacation. I need a break from everyones expectations. I am so tired. I want to veg out and for once in my life have enough energy left in the day to meet "My Expectations Once in my god Damed life"

I can't even remember what I want anymore. I am a walking servent. I am my own property ... I've had the dellusion that when you do as you are told and, better still before you are told, you will be rewarded.

Thats one big fucking lie my parents told me. At least I get to see on rare occasions a smile or a hug or god forbid a Thank-you. But like always in the end no one truely cares 3 seconds later and kicks you out of their life, or they never invite you to parties ... never ask you If perhaps mabye that thier might be something, anything in this universe that you could possibly need or want.

Only one person in my enitre life Has ever asked me what I wanted. Only one person in my life has cared enough to be cross at me. Only one person gave me what I wanted even when I turned submisive and refused. Only one person bothered ... even for a time But her. And hell she hates me too.

• It looks Like I was being a crybaby over having to take responsibilty for my self... I find that being healthy and ahead of my studies and getting smiles from people gives me more than I can ever get from Begging for scraps... In fact I feel better than I have ever felt in my life.

Joyful-Spirit ... You have to be joyful to survive living like this. You need to learn to take what little is offered even if it is 3 pennies, a codpiece and a tiny piece of drier lint.

• yes ... from yourself ... when you grow up You can reward yourself far more than that ... work helps you ... it's their to help give you what you need. Tools are valuable and so is work ... How else can you make what you want unless you know how.

I watched Girl Interrupted . . . and then wrote this sort of fictional piece thing. MyInsanity

wow. ok. Laurel thinks that She is crazy sometimes. I often look at myself and wonder why am talking in the third person....I also sometimes can feel myself be crazy. its like a gleam in my eye and....yeah I feel totally and completely insane. like put me away kinda insane. its scary. and then it goes. so yeah.....I also generally hang out with people who are somewhat mentally unsound (bi-polar, borderline personality, etc) and I often wonder if I have the same things they have. cause like...I watch them and listen to them and think wow thats so me. but then I am "normal" again and everything is ok. not only that but everywhere I go I feel like the world is crazy. distorted and moving really quickly and its all in my perifreal [doesnt know how to spell that] vision. somebody told me they were panic attacks but I am not panicing, I have recognised that the world is going to end. I am ok with that. I am also going crazy...I feel like screaming all the time. not out of anger but out of joy. yey! screaming. its really messed up. and Im not talking little play screams either. I mean blood curtling screams. this is all happening more often then it used to. I feel crazy 50 to 75% of the time rather then 25 to 40%. its crazy....Im crazy....WE'RE ALL CRAZY! ~Laurel

and

I'm crying as I'm reading this, feeling all you feel and more. Waiting for the perfect moment to do what you know you should have done all the while...why isn't life easy? Yes, all people are crazy, or getting there. I think Life is a journey in which the object is to go crazy as slowly as possible. And there are so so many rules to life. If you go crazy too fast...you die. If you go crazy too slow...you die. If you deny your capacity to go crazy...you die. Death surrounds and indwells us, and insanity is just a skewed view of death. Will we find the right view before it overcomes us? Do we have any chance at all? A friend once wrote, the only way to get something in life is to try really really hard...or give up completely. How true. How sad. How noble. Nothing is ever happy in life, I think. You get to the point, (is it the ultimate, high as you can go point?) where happiness does not exist. Nobility. Sadness. Tranquillity. Despair. No. With that one word, thou art doomed. For despair is death. Never despair. never ever ever.

~Wind~