mental illness

what is mental illness?... so many things... a physical imbalance of chemicals in the brain that interferes with the bio-chemistry of thinking and understanding and deciding what actions to take in life... or simply thinking differently, disagreeing so much with the norms of the moment in a culture that the perspective appears irrational to those conforming to the norms... conformity is, after all, the drive to think and act as everyone else does no matter what is right or wrong... so many truths and acceptible human behaviors have been proven wrong over the years, after all... so when it comes down to current psychological theories, there are those who are normal who are not considered mentally ill and there are those varying from normal enough to be considered mentally ill... much of that has to do with the level of control one has over their decisions and actions... those who abandon responsibility and let themselves wander out of control as exhibited by harmful or dangerous actions are viewed as mentally ill... is he or she at risk of harm to self or others, that is the primary question asked when determining if someone should be locked up for a weekend or longer... if the answer is no, someone can be quite irrational and ridiculously irresponsible, but remain in the pervue of the so-called sane...

kill people in war and it is glorious bravery, even if some of those killed are innocent women and children... kill someone in another context and you are criminally deranged, even labelled insane... and then there are feelings... we all experience ups and downs, highs and lows, and yet, we do not perceive everyone as bipolar... to be labelled bipolar, one must experience emotional extremes that scare others and even scare the one experiencing the emotional extremes... again, it comes down to choosing to believe one is out of control... and yet, the extremes of emotion are what life is about and if we were not so afraid of the emotional roller coaster, we'd accept it, the best and the worst, and appreciate the gift of experiencing it all for it is life... we live we die, yet fear overwhelms reason so much we create limits and anyone who exceeds those limits is labelled deviant, dangerous, or worse, that magical word, evil... it really is a nice set up for those who wish to retain power over the masses... don't go starting a revolution now that you know, m'ok?...

but then, what do you know... you know what you dare to know so feel free to ignore what you don't want to know... that's the normal thing to do after all... and my way of chiding the norm or poking the beast is so quietly innocuous it can easily be ignored as if it and i was never here... is that what wayward pines is about, the lasted incarnation of invasion of the body snatchers or the spanish inquisition?... maybe you want to go under the dome of silence now... yeah, well, i'll digress anywhere it takes to keep the madness from encroaching on my personal peace so dance with the devil in the pale moonlight if you must, but hopefully enough of us people will get over our fears and the ignorance that fear perpetuates long enough to stop killing each other and ourselves long enough to wake up and choose to live life to it's full potential instead of just trying to conform to often arbitrary rules until we die and experience some promise of some better version of life after we die... life is here, life is now, fear kills it, love nurtures it, both brings excitement, joy and pain... both are part of the roller coaster ride of emotions that makes us human and alive... choose your motivation, create your experience, and may it be based on love...

we are all bipolar, get over the labels and fears and choose to love the ride...

you may even learn to enjoy it all :)