The Perks of Being a ________.

You are crazy. So am I, and everyone else in this world. I've come to know that everyone has "something". Everyone is "crazy." And I love that.

40 years ago, nobody knew about Autism. Those kids were just a little different. Nobody had ADD, they were just hyper. The kid who stayed home on the weekends did not have clinical depression; the girl sitting next to you in class with two perfect braids and a #2 pencil exactly perpendicular to the edge of the desk and parallel to her pristine white college-ruled paper did not have to take meds for her OCD. The partier was not Bipolar, he was just fun. And the world went on.

Toady, there is an explanation, text book label, and prescribed "cure" for all of these people. So they can feel better. Get back on their feet. Be free to live a normal life. Get out of bed each morning. Eat breakfast. Participate in rush hour traffic. Do your job and earn a good living. Go home. Kiss your kids. Kiss your husband. Pat your dog. Good dog. Eat dinner. Read the paper. Go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Freedom.

40 years from now, there will probably be a text book label for me, too. Doctors will observe me, take notes. Stares at blank walls for 20 minutes at a time. Goes into a room with a purpose, spots something that captivates the subject, doesn't resume her purpose for an hour or so, if at all. Bobs her head and sings with no music on. Her feet are always cold: bad circulation. They will see this as straying from the norm, the poor thing, but don't worry we can get you back on track. And some socks for your feet. They will give me a label, a little orange bottle, and send me on my way with a smile, because they fixed me.

There are a lot more good things to say about modern medicine than bad things, and I can't be sure if this is a bad thing or not. We won't know for many more generations from now, when we can look back on this Age of the Medicated. We are the guinea pigs. But I can't help but feel that this isn't how it's supposed to be. These "disorders" are a part of each and every one of us. They make us who we are, and that's nothing that I think should be "cured."

I've never had to deal with any of the diseases listed above, and I suspect that in extreme cases, medicine was the ticket to their freedom. But I just fear that this obsession with being diagnosed and medicated will escalate as we discover more about psychology, and we will think everyone is mad. When really, we are just starting to understand what makes each of us unique and perfect. And what a beautiful variety of crazies there are.

~Kat