Madness as nothing is a desire. A wanting to be normal, as an outsider. It’s an excuse, an escape; madness can’t be normal but instead we force ourselves, want ourselves to fit into what is deemed normal: to forego ourselves for the sake of others.
My conception of what normality is has to be tainted. It’s through a mad filter, yet was there ever a time when it wasn’t my problem? To think on that I have to wonder if I was always mad or if there was a ‘turning’ event where madness actualised.
I was diagnosed—or had my first psychotic episode—early, during my time at university, but was my mind always that of an outsider?
Thinking back to my childhood I conceive of it as a happy time, but that’s me forgetting. In actuality I was quite unhappy. I didn’t understand cruelty in the world, I wanted things to be “fair.” All normal concerns but then most of insanity isn’t out-of-the-ordinary, rather it’s a being forced out-of-the-ordinary for what you feel is just and understandable. It’s being told you are different, and knowing, without having to be told and without an actual direct being-told, that your differences set you apart.
To conceive of myself as an outsider I have to accept I am abnormal, or accept that people view me as abnormal, which have little to separate them. It’s rare that people will state this, so it’s rare that you will fully accept it for yourself. Yet evidence mounts. This is perhaps the first state of madness: being seen—not being different, but being viewed as different. Hence my concerns of fairness.
Although I’ve committed many wrongs all of my life has been in efforts of understanding myself, my difference, and yours, but it’s through a perspective where I can’t understand a difference: what I experience is my normality.
All my actions have been part of building a natural equilibrium between me and beyond; in cooperation with others.
My concerns with fairness are to do with being treated as less—anyone being treated as less. Maybe there’s a fallacy in trying to understand everyone—in not establishing boundaries and scope—when others boundaries are so firm. Is that the first sign—as opposed to the first state—of madness? A willingness to understand others (or afford understanding to others) so as to understand yourself, and so, seeing others as whole and intact and yourself as less so? Is it a valuation of humanity as just—what I want for myself—despite any small evidences against it, despite evidence I do not have the experiences of justice? There is me beyond—in a position where the only person I can judge is myself—and everyone else within—those who can judge me (although my interactions with other schizophrenics tell me there is an “us” beyond.)
If you take others feelings into consideration then intent is supposedly immaterial. If you harm another then its their harm that takes precedence over your intentions. From my mad position I have harmed others, yet that was not my intent. It was not even within my conception. To me it was a matter of building, both for me and an-other, an attempt at understanding and growth. Cruelty, as a personal conception, seems pointless to me. Yet I own my cruelty, not the cruelty I’ve inflicted on others but the cruelty I feel. If I am hurt, then it is my hurt, and that hurt is a factor of me and no-one else. Surely I have done something to bring it on, I have to have, as it is my feeling. If you hurt me then I don’t hate you for that. I may fear for the hurt you could bring to my feelings but I don’t hate you; that would be ascribing my emotions to someone else; an impossibility.
If I hurt another then what do I feel, especially when I see they are hurt or when they respond in hurt? Am I angry at them for misinterpreting me? Am I ashamed at having not made myself clear? Do I feel guilt for having hurt them? Do I worry that this will reflect badly on me, and so increase my ostracism? I do not feel your feelings, your hurt feelings, but I can feel my hurt at seeing another hurt.
There is a solipsism to my madness, a feeling that I am the centre of the world (which isn’t quite solipsism) but, then, I am the centre of me. I can only experience as me. Everything I perceive, think and understand is through “me.” I do not cause all that happens, but anything that happens is my experiencing as I am not someone else. When I have hurt someone—and they accuse me of centring the experience on myself—then I wonder who else I can experience as? The question of my feelings come up again. I am told I only feel bad because I am facing consequences, not because I am seeing someone hurt. “If you did feel bad then why do you do it so often?” Because I don’t have the conception of why this is a hurt, I am not you, I did not intend.“Then put yourself in their shoes!” they say, as if this is possible. As if I could take their role and not view it through my understanding despite whatever clothes I’ve put on: their hurt as experienced by me.
If there is a cruelty in the world then I feel it as my own. Or I suppress it so as not to feel anything; to continue living. Mostly I suppress it. If there is a madness in the world then it is that others can’t experience mine, which is perfectly normal. And when I try to view myself through your eyes, I have to accept my madness, which is perfectly normal to me, but not you.