Podclub-insane vs. unsane

Love+Radio is now one of my favorite podcasts.  I've only heard one, but I can tell this will be like when I finally started listening to Radiolab and couldn't stop until I'd ran out of them within a few weeks (yeah I get slightly obsessive when I find a good story or in this case storyteller).  This episode is all stories about insanity.  There was so much going on that I can't begin to describe it or really even how it made me feel, other than maybe a little like alice must have felt when she found herself having tea with the mad hatter and all his friends.  

We are all a little crazy.  According to the American Psychiatric Association:

One fifth of Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder during any given year. One fifth of school-age children are also affected by these conditions. Severe and persistent mental illness is less common, but still afflicts three percent of the population.

At some point in everyone's life they become a little mentally unstable for whatever reason.  I'm no exception of course.  I have days that I know (or realize a little too late) that I'm acting more erratically than normal.  I put on a face to gauge just how much of my particular crazy others can take, and even then I don't usually let much of it out just in case (at least not on purpose).  I don't think I can honestly say what is normal or not because I've been finding that I tend to have my own normal.  I think maybe thats also something thats true for everyone.  If you go to a doctor and get any tests they'll show you where your results are in relation to what they've determined as normal or the average.  But what if your not average?  The average inseam for women is 31 and if your not that well, your out of luck.  You might as well head off to Nordstrom Rack and get a basket so you can load up on jeans, head off to the dressing room and make a day of it because you will never be buying a pair of jeans at any store that doesn't have a massive selection and you can forget about khaki's.  I guess problems with doctors and average's is another issue for another day but hopefully you get the point...

Its true that we're all very similar in a lot of ways but we're also completely unique and in some ways we live in our own reality.  I go about my day with my own completely unique reality.  Luckily (though my reality might be less interesting than if I was slightly crazier and it maybe included something wonderful like my own personal magical fairy and a time traveling tree) its just enough like everyone else's reality to keep me out of a hospital and unmedicated.