Not All Songs Were Meant For Dancing

I Am Not Crazy

Did you know that we always live in the past? It actually takes 80 m-seconds for your brain to process information that it received, not to mention it takes a time for light from an object to reach your eyes, so technically you see how they looked a fraction of a second ago. Or how about the fact that there are more stars in the visible universe than there are all the grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth? And yet the number of synapses – cerebral cortex alone about 125 trillion – is the amount of stars that would fill 1500 milky way galaxies, and that an atom is 99,99% empty space, which makes everything in the universe mostly nothing?

Call me Josephine, or Jo if you would like. I'm currently residing in a madhouse, on Greenwich street, number 27. 5150 – danger to myself or others. Or at least, that's what they called it the first 72 hours after I was admitted, after having a nervous break-down of course.

See, the thing about nervous break-downs is, you never see them coming. But you can feel them – like silence before the storm. A lot of people asked me why? How come?

Well, I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that I was failing the same exam over and over again. Or that I was living in a house full of talented people, and I was the only normal one. Or my best friend leaving for about 4 months. Or the fact that I was living a love life of a sad 13 year old girl at 19 years of age. Maybe it was the fact that everyone leaves so easily. Or maybe it was just in the genes.

After being placed on 72 hour hold I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Big bowl of poppycock if you ask me.

The hospital shrink had no idea what he was doing. He asked me about my history of mental illness, and after just one answer – my grandmother (whom I was named after, thus an old maidens name –Josephine) was bipolar, he took out his little red notebook and wrote me a prescription for lithium. Sounded like something you put in your car-tank, not in your body. A little pill that will make all my problems go away.

The side effects were...pure out-of-body experience. Your hands, feet, even voice didn't belong to you anymore. I was trying to speak, but strangers words were coming out of my mouth. Talk about being hopped up on drugs.

I asked the doctor if I can stop, because I didn't like myself. Actually I didn't like being this other person. She was stealing my thoughts. He said it would take at least 2 weeks for lithium to fully kick in, so I spent the next couple of weeks in a fog. Being someone else.

After two weeks of boring card games with other patients and staring through the dirty window of the asylum and a lot of therapy sessions, it was determined that I was not bipolar. I was actually very smart. Like genius smart. Like – I had an IQ of 140, which literally meant – genius or near genius.

I wasn't crazy (I have actual paperwork that says I'm not insane), I just saw things differently. I process things incerdibly fast and I have this voice in my head that repeats things, like certain facts or paragraphs from a book time to time. The problem is that sometimes it just won't shut up. But I like it, I like being different. It's like being a square in a room full of circles.

And today is my last day here. Just a few more hours and I'll be going home. Just a –

The voice in my head didn't finish the sentence because something cold and moist just touched my hand. I tilted my head to look at the strange creature, putting down the book in my hands. Right there in front of me was a big golden retriever, staring me right in the eyes, panting for air. Dogs are one of the few animals who can show facial expressions, and I could swear that this one was looking at me with pity, furrowing that part of his face we could call eyebrows. Animals usually don't like me so this was truly a strange occurrence. I just never understood the big fuss about having a pet, taking care of some creature...that's probably why this things normally growl or hiss at me. Bad energy and stuff like that. But not this one.