Image by Anton Croos
The English language has an absurd number of adjectives to describe insanity. A search of thesaurus.com for the term “batty” (although not obscure, it is not a frequent word for insane) returns four pages of results.
Why so many descriptors? Clearly, we are simultaneously horrified and enthralled by insanity.
I adore the evolution of many of these adjectives. At the turn of the prior century, the phrase “bats in his belfry” became a popular expression to describe near insanity or mental instability. Over time this has resulted in numerous derivatives: batty, bats, batbrain, bathead, batcrap, batshit, and a host homosexual references — which I severely hope were self-ascribed by the community. I find it ironic that a nocturnal, adorable and highly talented creature has come to represent insanity. The behavior of a bat is predictable, sensible, and clever, all things that fail to describe insanity.
I suspect that the bat represents the panic normal people experience when something makes them feel crazy: rare periods of extreme emotion — when rationality hides in the dark and emotions flutter wildly about — both erratic and supernaturally capable in the pitch of night. When the sun rises and normalcy returns, and the bats settle into their cave, these folks breathe a sigh of relief, then tuck away their concerns about their own mental illness below the surface just enough to calm themselves yet cultivate our societal angst.
Then there are the rest of us for whom the expressions are meant, but form whom the actual meanings are warranted: the people who use sonar to navigate the dark, who can mercurially change course in a fraction of a second. The spectrum is indescribably multi-hued and multi-dimensional. Some live in multiple universes, timezones, worlds and aspects simultaneously. With hallucinations — visual and aural, losses of time, intrusive and insatiable mind worms, what some people experience in a 15 minute period would crush a normal human. That they survive at all and usually on the street in utter poverty is a testament to human kind. Others carry a weight so heavy and so consistent, a monster ever-riding their back — a pervasive and persistent dysthymia or a strangling compulsiveness or anxiety. I marvel at the mettle of the person who gets up each day and pushes through ever present barriers that others never experience. Then there are the fractured souls, the broken people, those who should have been whole but for the horrors that life has thrown at them. With tape and bandages, dripping blood along the way, they may take moments to breathe and re-wrap themselves, but remarkably continue forward. My jaw drops at the strength of will it takes to make a life when your very self has been carved and scarred.
I consider myself a most fortunate one. My metaphor is living on the beach.
Sometimes the tide rises so imperceptibly that you find yourself stranded, an island cut off from the rest of the world. Other times you sufficient warning to prepare, to build up the sand-walls and barriers and to burrow in and wait it out. Then there are the times when it is an unexpected tsunami with no hope but to hold your breath as long as you can as the pressure of the submersion presses in on your collapsing lungs. Yes, all of these scenarios require fortitude.
But unlike what others experience — I get the benefit of sunny, shiny days when the world sparkles, and you can splash and revel and almost feel like you can walk on the water it is so calm. These days can last seasons. Long enough to build a house, plant a garden, start a family. Long enough to forget that the water holds any danger at all. When the only fear you remember comes at night when the bats emerge from their caverns along the coast and flit about seeking insects lost in the night. And sometimes even that disquiet mellows as it marvels at the grace and the elegance of these dark creatures.
Yesterday I started a new regimen of anti-depressants: 450mg of Wellbutrin XL coupled with 50mg of Trazadone. My hope is the water recedes and the sun emerges from the clouds.