Crazy - Personal Essay Excerpt

The thing is, if you knew me, you wouldn’t think I’m afraid to feel. In fact, reading this book I’m sure you don’t think I’m afraid to feel. If anything, you probably think I feel too much. But that’s not actually true. I think too much. I push too much. I force reactions that I think are the right ones because I don’t want to feel how I actually do. In fact, most times I’m so far removed from my real feelings that I’m not sure what I do feel. I talk about how I’m doing honestly to maybe four people, and each time, it’s peppered with trying to present it in the best possible way.

I have long felt there is something permanently singular about me, that there are parts of me that I can’t share with anyone. In my fantasies, I meet someone and they understand me perfectly, knowingly without me having to explain anything to them. In fact, my personal definition of love has forever been having a person understand a part of you that will always be unspoken.

Is that because I don’t want to be honest with anyone?

Once I start thinking about it, it makes perfect sense that I’m so afraid of crazy. If you hate feeling you’re going to be uncomfortable around the feelings of almost everyone else. Simultaneously, to avoid talking about yourself, you are going to make it very easy for people to tell you every little dirty secret they have. I’ve forced myself into the emotional wildness of other people while running scared.

But where has this come from, I think. When did I become afraid to feel and why? Who’s fault is it? Is it that I feel things too deeply, so deeply that I have to avoid it altogether? Is it that I think it’s possible to feel only good all the time? Or am I just insane?

I wonder then if a part of me has always known that I’m afraid to feel. Maybe that’s why I’m an actress and a writer. I want to feel honestly with such a desperation that I’ve made it my life’s work.

Where do I go from here?