April 16, 2006

bone-shattering reflection in the mirror

what does it take for an insane man to be sane again? ask anyone with a medical background and you would most likely get a lecture on how chemical reactions take place in the brain and how they affect the way we feel, think and react to our environment. a man is said to be mentally ill, they will tell you, when things go haywire within his brain. they would also tell you that such a condition can be treated with psychotherapy and the use of powerful psychotropic drugs that are used to control/limit brain activity of mentally ill patients.

what does it take for a sane man to go insane? what causes the chemical reactions in his brain to go haywire? i wonder if richard marx knew that his words 'my sanity hangs by a thread...' actually describe the mental state of a lot of people. it is entirely possible for anyone to lose his/her mind at anytime. as much as death is a certain possibility. the human brain is so powerful yet so very delicate. a nasty change in the environment could trigger insanity in anyone. anyone at all. regardless of race, sex, age and position in society. insanity, like death, chooses its victims without prejudice nor preference.

on another note, we regard those who we think are mentally ill with immense prejudice and minimal preference. terms such as 'mental' and 'psycho' are so loosely thrown around. thanks to Hollywood, we have been further scared into building the perception that mental disease is dangerous, and even more dangerous is the sufferer. we do not pay attention when we see people talking to themselves on the streets because we do not care. and because we are afraid. perhaps, we are afraid that such a disease might be contagious. perhaps, we are afraid of being attacked by them. perhaps, we are afraid that if we rub shoulders with them, we might become like them.

but we are like them. and they are like us.

they are just as capable of intelligent thought and deduction as anyone, sick or not. they have dreams. they have emotions. so they talk to thin air. or do they really? what if mental disease is not really a disease, but another state of mind where vision, thought and sense are just...different? being different has always meant that you were at the receiving end of society's prejudice. they might see things that we do not. they might understand things in ways we do not.

so what really is insanity? how does one know when the line is crossed? how do you know your thoughts and/or actions do not resemble that of someone who has "lost her mind"?

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