crazy!
most days that i'm on the train, i see at least one crazy person. when my mother was here, she rode the train twice: once to queens, once back. she had the good fortune to ride the train with not one but two crazies. one man was loudly crazy, a drunk cuban who wildly gestured and yelled for two stops, then stumbled off the train. another was a more refined crazy, seated next to robin, who was fairly quiet for the long train ride but then started to pitch a fit when he rose to get off the train, yelling and punching the door before it opened.
i don't have good luck with crazies on trains, it seems. my first time staying in new york, when i was 21, a homeless man punched the window next to my head. the day i'd gotten here. this time, i rode my first train with a (literally) cracked out black transsexual. oh, new york.
this morning, the man who was seated across from me--seemingly normal at first--started to twitch and mouth words to himself more rapidly, until one of his eyes was squeezed shut and he was mumbling something to himself, looking hatefully around the car. i started to wonder, do these people have jobs? he was dressed pretty well, shaven. the crazy latin woman i've blogged about a few times--she obviously has a job. how do these people live?
and, more importantly, how do you get to that point? how do you get to the point where you'll ride around on a crowded subway car, ready for work, ready to face the world, talking to yourself with one eye squeezed shut? and, most importantly, is it possible that this could happen to me? someday, will my neuroses and insecurities drive me so far over the edge that i'll be that guy? i've never really understood mental illness; how it happens to one. does it just creep up on you one day while you're sitting there reading a book? or you're sitting there cruising myspace and -boing- one eye squeezes shut and you start talking to yourself? or is it a slower process, where the voices in your head that used to be your own voice switch timbre, become someone else's?
i'll just have to wait and see.
posted by Robert @ Tuesday, June 06, 2006
3 comments
3 Comments:
i think it's a slow process
no it's not
yes it is.. i really is..
ok, you win..
you should follow them to see where they work!
There are a lot of people who have fairly advanced psychoses and yet somehow hold down jobs and keep it hidden from their employers, even families. My mother was one for a while and she had friends she met at her support group who were the same way. She heard voices, had hallucinations, and even had seizures for months before anyone knew anything was going on. I wouldn't say you become crazy gradually, I would say that your sanity becomes more and more vulnerable until some kind of event comes along and just breaks whatever's left. But who says it's bad to be crazy? Some of them seem quite happy, like the guy who sings in my subway stop. And then there are all those ecstatic lunatics who get up on podiums and wave their arms at me everyday...
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