The boundaries between ‘sanity’ and ‘insanity’ are elastic. Each one of us has a place on the spectrum and it constantly shifts and shuffles depending upon the changes in our outer and inner landscapes. Each of us with our own fears, anxieties, sadnesses, communication problems and struggles to fit in move up and down that range.

“The world is but a great Bedlam, where those that are more mad, lock up those who are less.” -Thomas Tryon (1689)

“Surely we’re all mad people, and they, whom we think are, are not.” -Thomas Middleton, The Revenger’s Tragedy (1606)

Some days are impossible. I have to roll as a stone on the road, slither on sharp stairs, climb up through a lift shaft, squeeze under the door to the room and then at the end, to finally assemble myself on a chair to make a complete feeling. Today, the feeling is of nothingness. All I feel are my empty arms. The air between them is painful. The arms ache. They stretch out, crying, wanting to hold him. They hate it but they are… empty.

My heart and soul are empty. This house is empty. This whole world is empty. Reality is not what it seems to be. Nor is it otherwise. Am I now bordering on the insane? Am I always like this, but covering it up? Who is to decide what is what? No one knows. No one has ever known.  A rock is just a rock. A river is just a river. Misfortune is just bad luck! It is just what it is – the experience of being human. It is absolute. It does not need validation. It does not need a name.

(Inspired by an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection: Bedlam- the asylum and beyond)