Sanity is a matter of perspective; relative to madness, normalcy, and a cluster of other factors. Behavior often signals insanity, but perfectly normal behavior—accompanied by radically deviant thought—sometimes offers clues to insanity. The term, insanity, is out of favor these days, though, because the word is considered judgmental. Psychiatrists tend to prefer to use psychosis, I think, which seems to me equally as judgmental and derogatory, as are the words craziness, lunacy, and madness, among others. For that matter, calling a person insane or abnormal are judgmental and derogatory pronouncements. Mentally ill, a phrase coined (I think) to remove the stigma associated with many of the other terms, comes with a stigma all its own. Language is not the problem, in my view. The problem is attitude or misunderstanding or ignorance or fear or a combination of those things—and more. And judgments based, in part, on a deficit of compassion contribute to the matter.
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Starved for affection. Hungry for love. Thirsty for companionship. Is it just me, or do others see the connection between humans’ physical needs for fuel and our needs for emotional sustenance? Fortunately, I do not feel lacking for those emotional needs. But I feel for those who do.
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Yesterday was another day like so many others; I was tired all day long, possibly because I was fighting a perpetual runny nose that’s been annoying me for several weeks. When I think about my upcoming radiation treatments—every weekday for 27 days—I wonder whether I will have the energy to cope with them along with the chemo treatments and related medical appointments, etc. Damn. It.
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Enough of this. My thoughts are jumbled, tangled, and otherwise twisted into tightly-woven knots that defy being untied.
