I think I'm crazy.

Most people in the world aren't normal. Think about it: the human brain is an extremely complex organ, not only regulating your necessary functions to survive (such as breathing, organ use, being able to realize that petting that bear isn't a good idea), but juggling many other tasks as well. Our brain allows us to form logical theories, to dream and imagine, to feel emotion, to form abstract thoughts, and many more. It isn't surprising that most people have something a little off-kilter upstairs.

There are also those whose brains are a little broken. Not completely broken such as cannibal sadist serial killers, but just off enough to be considered somewhat crazy. In fact, 26.2% of the observable population in the States has been diagnosed with a mental illness. I'm among that somewhat crazy. The old saying goes "a mad person doesn't realize he's mad," but most realize there's something wrong with them.

When I was a kid, 8 to be specific, I had childhood OCD and depression. Sometimes I would have random evil thoughts float across my mind, insidious whispers that would damn me. Since this was long before I became an agnostic, I had the fear of God in me and this made it worse. A common thought I would have was "I hate God and I love Satan." This was pretty terrifying for 8-year-old me, so constantly throughout the day, nearly every hour, sometimes every minute, I would repeat to myself, "I love Jesus and I love God. I hate the devil, and I love Jesus and I love God." Over and over and over and over.

I also would have constantly repeating thoughts through my mind. For instance, I loved to read; always have and always will. When I read a book, the book would be stuck in my head, reading itself to me over and over. Songs were the same. It wasn't the usual getting a song stuck in your head... no, it would play over and over for hours, days even.

Finally my mom took me to a child psychologist and I was diagnosed. Therapy did nothing and the pills did nothing. Finally, after a few years, I grew out of my OCD thoughts. But I wasn't safe yet, because a crazy person is usually crazy forever.

When I was 11 we moved back to West Virginia and I was thrown into a new world where no one really liked me. The depression kicked in, but this time with no OCD. Throughout my teenage years I was constantly depressed and cried myself to sleep almost every night, from 11 to 17. I don't know why I was so sad. Everything just felt so gray. I was constantly thinking of death and suicide, almost like it was an obsession. I cut myself where people couldn't see, bruised myself, and scratched myself till I drew blood.

Now that I'm an adult, I grew out of that psychosis as well, only to fall into another one. I still have depression here and there, but it's not the intense sort, more like the extremely apathetic sort. When I go on these bouts nothing in the world seems that great, and everything is empty. Luckily, these are rare anymore. I thank Sean for pulling me out of it.

Instead, my crazy has been replaced by a much less accepted type of psychosis. I honestly don't know the terms, just what I experience: auditory and visual hallucinations, bouts of extreme anger, a stubborn dislike of things most people enjoy, disagreeability, having entire conversations with myself, repeating random phrases or words that flow through my mind, a constant need to daydream and be in a fantasy world, an inability to remember dreams from reality, and paranoia. I prefer it to the OCD and depression; it makes things a little more interesting and a little less drab.

I actually don't mind it too much. I hate my anger problem, and the hallucinations really throw me off and make me worry for my overall sanity, but at least it has boosted my creativity a ton and has helped my art and writing. Though mental illness is constantly ridiculed and looked down upon by society, some of the greatest artists and writers ever known suffered from some form of it: Vincent van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Kurt Vonnegut, Leo Tolstoy, Edvard Munch, Claude Monet, Mark Rothko. And that's just the ones I know well.

Creativity and mental illness have been officially linked through studies, so being crazy isn't so bad. If you want to kill and eat women that look like your mother, that's bad. If you want to create a masterpiece of literature or art, that isn't. In fact, here's a recent piece I've done in a series I'm working on called Oneironaut, which is an artistic exploration and rendering of dreams.

Oneironaut: Drifting

After all, what is truly normal?

Tell me, my six readers: how crazy are you? Have you experienced anything that would make you question your sanity?