more about the crazy

Because you can never get enough, right? Two more tangential points that I wanted to address:

One of my friends has quite severe OCD. I don't mean colloquial "I like things just so" OCD, I mean real-brain-disorder, has needed years of medication and behavioral therapy to be able to leave the house without "checking" for two hours OCD. She asked me recently whether my dad had a bit of the OCD, because he became quite anxious over her putting some stuff that she was taking home from my house into her backseat before we went to a restaurant, because what if someone broke into the car and stole it in the restaurant parking lot? and wouldn't be better to leave it at my house and come back for it?

I said that, while it has something of an OCDish flavor to it, it's more of a straight anxiety disorder than, for example, what she has. And I told her about how I need to keep him from ramping up D's anxiety--for example, that day last month when D was going to the doctor's appointment alone, on being told this, my dad's first reaction was (out loud and in front of D) "OMG! Can he *do* that? Will he be okay?" I had to say, "Of course, he can do it, and please do not make him any more nervous about it than he already is, because he's going to be fine." And while I was about to throw up with anxiety about the whole situation, too, I had to hide it, handle it, and be the one who held it all together, because I'm the one of us who can do it and somebody's got to. My friend said, "Yeah, I know, but when *do* you get to fall apart?"

Ah, that's what blogging is for.

But that led us to a discussion of how people like her and me, who have the crazy and know it and have learned some strategies to cope with it, are actually so much less crazy than, oh, people like my dad or one of her sisters or probably 75% of the people we meet every day, who have no idea there's anything wrong with them and/or have no ability to observe and then modify their own behavior or emotions. That's what I personally think one of the goals for D is, and he's making some progress. (I mean, god, he's self-aware enough to know that going to that appointment by himself, no matter how anxiety-provoking, was superior to asking his grandfather to go with him [because, yeah, I had briefly floated that idea.])

The other point to this is that another friend of mine recently expressed some (very) mild reservations to me about possibly becoming romantically involved with someone who is (successfully) on medications for the crazy. I was kind of astounded. Well, first of all, I was astounded that this particular friend would express the reservation *to me* being as I'm the spokesmodel for Please Do Not Stigmatize or Discriminate Against People With Psychiatric Illness. I mean, I can't magically erase people's prejudices, but I'd think I'd be the last person anyone would confess that particular one to. And secondly? I was like, please. The number of neurotic, unstable, and basically nutz persons you've pursued, dated, and/or had sex with without any reservations, and now you're going to worry about the one who by all observable measures so far is stable and generally great just because they have a diagnosis and chose to share it with you? Huh?

How to tie this in with my original point in the other post? Okay. Not only do I think people who are on medications shouldn't be shamed or blamed or embarrassed about it, or made to feel they are weak or defective or using a crutch, I think *often* they are to be congratulated for it. Those of us with the crazy who try really hard to keep the crazy from adversely affecting us and the people around us rock. The end.

(Do I need to * anything in this post?)

xoxo