Fuck Normal

Quite possibly the scariest thing about being involuntarily hospitalized is realizing that your freedom is now essentially determined by outside forces. Questions multiply as you wonder exactly what constitutes normal. Was I ever normal? Little kid memories of crying underneath the bed in a fetal position are so vivid. Who decides what normal is? What about when your identity is just so complex, how do you ever reach the measuring stick of normality?

I remember one of the things they noted in my psych report was that I was morbid. Morbidity is a sign of mental illness. Tell that to all the horror flick fans, or the Edgar Allen Poe readers, or even viewers of 10 o'clock news.

Who can really be considered normal and healthy anymore in this crazy world. Everyone has some major flaw, an addiction, a co-dependency thing, depression, acting out to avoid themselves, I mean, we are all pretty fucked up when you think about it.

One of the things that upset me the most in the hospital was watching George W Bush on television. He was considered normal and healthy, running a country into the ground and advocating for a war on fictional grounds. He was a pathological liar, a sociopath. He thought he was the new jesus, america's neo-colonialist messiah. And yet dignitaries shook his hand and a nation rallied around their troops in mob mentality fashion, while I waited for six weeks in a psych ward eating gross hospital food and becoming more and more dependent on the institution.

So who is normal? I was locked up for being a danger to self or others, while the american president was and is a danger on an even more massive scale.

On a side note, you know what is so obviously going to happen to the united states? While they've got their troops embroiled in an unnecessary conflict, another part of the world is going to smack them in the face, and they're not going to be able to respond because they've already made a military commitment some place else. Going to war in Iraq to prove military might has been the worst decision a president has made in recent times.

But what do I know? I'm the mental patient.

In other news, today I went for my diabetes screening. The anti-psychotic I am on can cause diabetes in people, along with a bunch of other awful things. But it keeps me from getting those odd thoughts, so you know. Nursey couldn't get a vein in my arm, I have crap veins, no way I could be an I.V. drug user. She had to take blood from the back of my hand. In the hospital they once had to use my wrist. Bleh.

I'm nervous about my test results. My family has diabetes running all through it, as do most aboriginal families. Kind of tricky. We'll see what happens, I think I have to change my life style drastically to stay healthy.