You know I love a good song tie-in, even if it’s just a mis-heard lyric. But in the case of this post’s title, I’m riffing on Seal’s biggest hit: Crazy.
In it, he suggests that we’re never gonna survive unless we get a little bit crazy.
Smash cut to my morning – yes, I was up before noon – of news and email reading.
I came across this ad in one of my business newsletters. Now, not to suggest that anxiety is crazy, per se, just don’t get me started on the casual armchair self-diagnostics that I am often confronted by.
Yes, I ask. Also, I know that last paragraph ended with poor grammar. Anyway, I’m kinda over people minimizing legitimate affliction just to overdramatize their own petty struggles. So I demand – figuratively – a doctor’s note.
I don’t know why I don’t have more friends…
Anyway, what’s really crazy here is that this ad suggested that there are 284 million Americans suffering from an actual anxiety disorder. OUT OF 335 MILLION TOTAL AMERICANS!!!
Can we agree to ballpark that stat at an 80%? My blog, my rules, so I say we agree…plus, it’s not like I’m blithely self-diagnosing with a potentially serious mental health condition. I’m just doing some liberal rounding.
So what this ad is suggesting is that 4 out of 5 Americans is suffering from anxiety.
<looks around at America>
Yeah, sorry Seal…I don’t think getting a little bit crazy is helping us even thrive, let alone increasing our rate of actual survival. If anything, the type of crazy running around our country is decreasing our survival rate.
For instance, our COVID death toll as a nation stands somewhere between the populations of North and South Dakota. Think on that for a second, we’ve lost an entire state’s population to COVID in just under two years.
On the plus side – for Seal, at least – it’s not like our least populous states have any huge concert venues…
atleastihaveafrigginglass 
80% does seem high, although at least 80% in my family are struggling with anxiety, so that statistic is someone comforting in the sense that misery loves company.
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Oh, I see…you’re unilaterally promoting yourself to “company”, eh? 😹😹😹
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I wrote “someone” when I meant “somewhat” so I do not think I am ready for a promotion.
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In cases of serious clinical depression or personality disorders I know from witnessed experience psychedelics don’t help. But for the nail biters and what if crowd, hell yeah. Once you watch the garden melt and see the food in your fridge do a song and dance comedy routine it’s easier to stop worrying about why you’re not as happy as everyone on Facebook who is lying. And I can’t imagine how, or why, that many people live in Rhode Island.
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You know me, I’m a big “do the right thing, even when no one is watching” type. That said, whatever camp you park your mental health RV in…we just have to remember that each of us drove it off the lot.
I guess you know where I fall on the wreckreational elective surgery scale…🤓🤓🤓
But on that melting garden scale…can *that* be required?!? Please?!?
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For a couple of years, long ago in a galaxy far far away, I had a wife. With 4 distinct personalities. And severe depression that I never saw. Much later, I learned she blew her brains out when she was 50. Later than that, I learned about the severe depression being genetic. In our time together, we were very cavalier with our “consciousness.” I was told save for about 12 years she heavily self-medicated. Obviously to no avail. On the other hand, I blame being a space cowboy on watching music flow off a piano soundboard. And watching French fries and a pack of Salem cigarettes dance a pas de deux, in the rain, on the narrow dashboard of an MG with its top down. I had “stepped out” to alleviate the anxiety attached to removing a fluorescent blob of bean bag chair from the clutches of someone I once considered a friend now living in the frat house I had given the finger.
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Cool entry and happy 2022! BTW: I’ve always identified myself as somewhat “crazy.” But I have no affiliation with either of the Dakotas! Naked hugs! n:-)
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You’re the right type of crazy, for sure!
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🙂 Thanks for your confidence! Naked hugs!
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