What about the crazy people?

I was just reading an inspirational quote on someone’s status update on Facebook, and those little gems of wisdom are supposed to bring comfort to those who are suffering. I get that. But those quotes and phrases and parables don’t address the fact some people really are negatively affected by the world and they really can’t handle the stress.

Ok, so those times when you only saw one set of footprints in the sand, that may have been when God was carrying you…to the loony bin.

And for an awful lot of people, when God closes a door, he opens a window…off the 27^th floor to the concrete parking lot below.

These are nice platitudes, but in the real world people go insane due to life being insane. Sometimes we need a drink or a drug to cope. Sometimes we need to escape to a quiet place for a few weeks to regain sanity.

And sometimes we just go bat-shit crazy and go on a killing spree. Or run naked through a busy parking lot. Or start yelling at cars at the intersection. I once saw a man carrying on an intense conversation with his wristwatch.

Those folks didn’t start life insane. They started life really normal. Who has ever heard of an insane infant or toddler? Apparently God gave them too much for them to handle, and they lost their minds.

Personally I prefer quotes that are more realistic and offer excellent advice for coping, such as:

If you’re going through hell, keep going. –Winston Churchill

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the surgery of life. –George Bernard Shaw

We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem. –Douglas Adams