Just What Is Insanity?

[Msterbeau]

Well?

[phee]

Is this an opinion thread? or do you want someone to post the definition?

[Homicidalheathen]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Benjamin Franklin

I must be nuts then cause I keep expecting people to be decent and honest. And I keep giving them 3rd chances.

[Msterbeau]

I'm sorry. You're too insane for this thread.

[phee]

I think it is much easier to give examples of insanity then to define it....

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

That, my friend, is a very tough question. There seems to be as many types of insanity as there are definitions for it. At what level do you think someone is insane, neurosis… psychosis? I know the difference between those two.

A Neurotic builds a castle in the sky.

A Psychotic moves in.

What about post-traumatic stress syndrome? It affects how one thinks and acts. It alters emotional reactions and levels.

What about Bi-Polar disorder? That can be shown to be a chemical imbalance, but do we really know what the chemical levels should be? Not what is "normal", but what the ideal levels of each chemical are. Do we even know every chemical involved?

You sure can't use brain activity as a gauge. Studies show that people with mental retardation have far more brain activity than a "normal" person.

We, as a people, don't even understand how the brain works. How are we supposed to know when it works right? Most people still think we only use, on average, 10% of our brain. Where as the truth is we just don't know what the rest does.

All I know for sure is

I'm not crazy!

You're the one that's crazy!!

Institutionalized!!!

[Homicidalheathen]

Good one. I guess it depends. If I were an explorer and came across some cannibals.....I might think they are all insane.......but the chance they are all nuts.....low. But what they are doing is nuts to ME........it just depends on your upbringing and stuff.

That, my friend, is a very tough question. There seems to be as many types of insanity as there are definitions for it. At what level do you think someone is insane, neurosis… psychosis? I know the difference between those two.

A Neurotic builds a castle in the sky.

A Psychotic moves in.

What about post-traumatic stress syndrome? It affects how one thinks and acts. It alters emotional reactions and levels.

What about Bi-Polar disorder? That can be shown to be a chemical imbalance, but do we really know what the chemical levels should be? Not what is "normal", but what the ideal levels of each chemical are. Do we even know every chemical involved?

You sure can't use brain activity as a gauge. Studies show that people with mental retardation have far more brain activity than a "normal" person.

We, as a people, don't even understand how the brain works. How are we supposed to know when it works right? Most people still think we only use, on average, 10% of our brain. Where as the truth is we just don't know what the rest does.

All I know for sure is

I'm not crazy!

You're the one that's crazy!!

Institutionalized!!!

[crunchy_pickle (5)]

Insanity - Perceiving the universe around you in a manner that contrasts with the rest of the natural world.

Further insanity - Acknowledging this abnormal perception, and disregarding the perceptions of popular opinion because your insanity makes better sense to you.

Far beyond insanity - Complete and total disregard of anything that contrasts with your altered perspective. Disregarding the known universe as nothing more than God's greatest hallucination.

Just plain fucked - Trolling around in God's hallucination trying to make sense of the senseless. Trying to find peace somewhere in the madness of it all despite "reality's" vain attempts to drag you back.

[phee]

One of my favorites:

"One is always considered mad when one perfects something that others cannot grasp." - Ed Wood

[Scary Guy]

Sanity at least to me is the ability to keep the inner demons at bay. The ability to tell right from wrong (by society's standards of course) and having a correct perception of reality along with the usual fear of death, or rather instinct for survival I should say. Similar to "morality" in more ways than just how they sound when pronounced.

Favorite quotes regarding the subject.

“There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.” — Salvador Dali

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." - Friedrich Nietzsche

[Fierce Critter]

I went insane once.

It was NOT great.

To me, it was a moment when everything closed in on me in an almost palpable sense. Everything got tighter and tighter and tighter until I couldn't figure out how to move, what to say, what to do, and I became a ball of babbling, incoherant terror.

So to me, insanity is being in a state where actions, thoughts and/or behaviors are out of your control.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

ahh.. the Temperary kind...

Been there... when i walked in on my ex-wife and one of her lovers... there was a moment.. as the world fell on me... a rushing as reality slipped from my grasp... the need to do something.. violence... blood and pain... pounding fists and the sound of my scalp and hair tearing away... cool night air.. the axe handle felt so good in my hands... screaming... cold emotionless logic that made so much sense at the time... peole tearing at me.. grabbing me.. bearing me down... drips of blood falling in slow motion.... splashing on wedding flowers...

and a snapping noise... reality sucking me back in... dropping the axe... letting him leave... walking away...

sorrow... emptyness...

it sucked a lot.

[Hellion]

Building pipe bombs while drinking Jack Daniels,yes I have done that,but quit all this bs over 20 years ago,

also lack of sleep can be a big factor in someones mental condition.it has always been known that someone who does'nt sleep much can be very irratable,let alone unpredictable.

Heavy drug use did not help.

I am happy I have left those days behind years ago.

[Steven]

The end result of a life lived without purpose....

[Shade Everdark]

The end result of a life lived without purpose....

All that money wasted on therapy, and I could have just asked you.

Thanks a lot, Steven, where were you when I needed you?

/joke

[Msterbeau]

Insanity is like good art. I'll know it when I see it.

I find it funny that so many people think they're "normal" and "sane". If you want to make me laugh... Use those words.

[Scales]

I think the shared view of sanity is where one has positive motivation to strive for their own integrity within their communities and cultures. With that said, one culture/community looks at another, obviously there's opinion clashes. I'd like to think sanity would be striving for rational, humanist concepts, but animistic tendencies and lack of want for awareness keeps that my own opinion. I have a lot of friends and people I know who would probably say they are normal and/or sane, yet they are the same people who sort of "shun off" a great deal of the world from my experience.. they want a pretty picture in front of them and they can't accept there might be a blank wall.

[Absinthe]

A break taken from reality when your reality does not live up to your fantasies.

[Fierce Critter]

the sound of my scalp and hair tearing away...

You, too?

I swear my head still hurts where I clutched and tore at fistsfull of hair.

The rug burns from dropping to the floor and writhing healed faster.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Mine was from someone else.. the man who was fucking my ex-wife... pulling my pony tail and parts of my scalp off.

[sass_in_the_pants]

Insanity is like good art. I'll know it when I see it.

I find it funny that so many people think they're "normal" and "sane". If you want to make me laugh... Use those words.

Funny...that's also what they say about pornography...

[Msterbeau]

Funny...that's also what they say about pornography...

Ha.. I was thinking that too. Some judge used that once...

[creatureofthenyte]

I was going through a really rough time in my life earlier this year. I thought that I may have been insane during that time. I was in a situation, where no matter what I did to try to make things better, they just got worse and worse. I was at my wits end, its at that point where I think I lost my mind. I was also incredibly depressed at the time.

[Sybil]

All I know for sure is

I'm not crazy!

You're the one that's crazy!!

Institutionalized!!!

*gasps at a memory from long ago*

..is that a suicidal tendencies song..

hmm.

[Steven]

All that money wasted on therapy, and I could have just asked you.

Thanks a lot, Steven, where were you when I needed you?

/joke

well, I can send you a bill.