you think you're untouchable

[erika]

On the ubiquitous use of “crazy” —

“Crazy” (and its progenitor-twin “insane”) is used incessantly by so many. It’s our culture’s catch-all for bad, or overwhelming, or chaotic; it’s an amplifier, with bad or neutral or even good connotations, depending on tone and context; and it’s what we use when we don’t know what else to say, how else to respond (“I got these shoes for only $5! Can you believe it?” “Woah, that’s crazy!”). I encounter this online as well, to be sure, but it didn’t occur to me until tonight how much less the circles I travel in use it, and how much easier it is online to say “um, please stop.”

Because I want it to stop.

I want you to stop.

What? Why? You must be crazy if you think I’m going to stop using crazy!

Because your commute might be long, your life might be chaotic, your workload might be stressful or heavy or overwhelming, your schedule might be unbearable, the length of time you’ve been in school might be longer than typical, but I promise, none of them are crazy. None of them have a mental illness, none of them are neurodivergent, none of them are emovatypical, none of them have been diagnosed with a mood disorder. Not one of those things is crazy. I am crazy. They are things you want to complain or exclaim about. And I am not your prop.

It gets better from there.