We’re all a little crazy; I worry about those who don’t know it

By David McElroy · December 24, 2020

I saw her issues so gradually that I was in love with her before I realized something was seriously wrong.

The first time I saw one of her mild breakdowns just made me feel empathy for her. She was out of town on business when she called me one evening crying. Something had triggered some feelings from when she was in middle school. All of a sudden, she was back in that old state of mind when she doubted herself and felt that nobody loved her or understood her.

We talked for hours and I thought it was a good experience for us. Something had triggered a crisis for her and I’d been there for her. I didn’t realize it was the start of a long spiral downward for her.

She would go weeks as a brilliant, confident and successful woman — then suddenly seem to fall off a cliff into an emotional abyss. Her behavior was erratic enough by the time we went to an out-of-town film festival together that I told her she needed to get therapy or else we had no future together.

The pattern persisted — despite therapy — and we broke up. We didn’t speak for a couple of years, but then we started talking again. Things had gotten far worse for her. The world saw her as a bright and successful woman who had everything together, but she often called me as her private emotional life spiraled out of control.

The first time I was truly afraid for her was the night when she suddenly sent me a photo of herself sitting in her kitchen floor — holding a knife to her body. She had talked of wanting to die, but now she was getting serious about it. There were many nights when I feared for her life over the next year. It took a huge emotional toll on me.

She never did kill herself. I eventually cut off contact with her because we were moving in very different directions. What we had remaining — whatever it had become — wasn’t good for my emotional health. I hope she’s emotionally healthy and happy today, whatever’s going on for her.

I’ve been thinking about her spiral into madness for the last few days because reading Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” made me feel as though he modeled Anna on someone very much like this woman I used to know. His depiction of her inner thoughts and outer actions — the irrational fears and the wildly contradictory behavior toward her lover — reminded me of her, at least in spirit.

After I finished the book, I searched a bit and discovered that it’s common to see Anna as an example of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in a fictional character. My own psychologist told me that my ex had been suffering from BPD and she was eventually in treatment for it.

Anna was beautiful, smart and stunningly charming. So was my ex. This is typical of borderlines when they’re on the up side of their cycle. But as Anna spiraled into madness, she alienated the man who loved her and eventually threw herself under a train.

It would be easy for me to draw a simplistic conclusion from my relationship with my borderline ex. It would be easy to just say, “Stay away from crazy partners.” That would be understandable, but it would ultimately be wrong.

As I look back over my life, I see that the women I have loved most have all had emotional or psychological issues at one point or another. And I understand now that this isn’t something I can avoid. I doubt it’s something any of us can avoid.

I’ve come to believe we’re all a little crazy. I can’t point a finger at someone such as my ex — or at Anna — without also pointing a finger at myself. I think that some form of insanity is essentially a “birth defect” for the entire human race.

Some people are more stable than others. Some people are closer to the edge of madness. But my experience is that the people who are the most stable and unwavering in the emotional sense are also the least interesting people, at least to me.

The people who I’m drawn to the most walk a fine line that divides the world of sanity and stability on one side from the abyss of insanity and instability on the other. The people I find most interesting have some sort of experience on that line. They know what it’s like to live on the stable and sane side. They might even have the world convinced that’s the totality of who they are.

But they have also faced the empty chasm of despair and emptiness. They know it’s there.

These people don’t live in that abyss, but in their hearts, they know the abyss is there — and they’re wise enough to know they need help in finding the balance between these two worlds.

I grew up with my father telling me that my mother was crazy. I believed him. That led me to want a partner who was totally stable and boring and predictable. I didn’t say those words, of course, but it’s what I felt like when I first started dating.

I eventually came to understand that my mother was far more complicated than what my father had taught me. She wasn’t crazy, but I saw where her unstable edges were. Under normal circumstances — and with the right sort of love and support — she was perfectly normal and happy and healthy. But that unstable edge was there if she was pushed for too long.

I went through a phase — about 10 years ago — when I detested both of my parents. I hated everything about them. I hated that everything in me had come from one or both of them. I had to work through a lot of self-loathing as I learned to deal with that.

It all started making sense for me when I finally observed that everybody carries his own bit of madness. There’s a wide range of it, but we’re all at least a little crazy — and the people I love and admire best know that and have faced their inner demons.

The people who are most dangerous in our world are those who believe they are the totally sane and rational people — the ones who believe they’re the ones by which others ought to be judged. That’s the way my father saw himself. He saw himself as the exemplar of normal and right. He could never be reconciled to those who wanted to love him because he couldn’t give that idea up and take responsibility for his dark side.

I know better. I’m sure I don’t have everything figured out — about myself or about other people — but I’ve gained enough self-honesty and insight to look at myself and see my very best and my very worst.

I’m a little bit crazy. I’m not entirely rational. And you’re the same way — to one extent or another.

I walk closer to the edge of madness than most people do. I live on the sane side of that line, so I can function among “normal” people and I’m not a danger to myself or others. But I’m close enough to that line that I sometimes see into the abyss.

I look over into that abyss and see both madness and beauty — but I know I can’t live there.

The most interesting people — by my standards — have walked that line. They know what it’s like to be pushed toward the breakdown which takes them over that edge. Even if they’re ashamed to let people know they’ve been there, they’ve seen it and they know it’s a part of who they are.

The people who scare me are those who deny that part of themselves. They’re the ones who aren’t prepared to deal with those moments when they inevitably become irrational and unstable, at least for a moment. Those are the people who crack — because they can’t talk themselves back to sanity by understanding who they really are and where they’ve been.

That’s what happened to beautiful Anna in Tolstoy’s novel. She didn’t know what was going on in her mind. She couldn’t recognize that she needed help. And she destroyed the lives of people around her — including her own two children — by pulling them into her unresolved madness.

Those who deny their own glimpses of madness are a danger to themselves and others. Denial is a sure path to eventual breakdown. Self-knowledge is the way out of danger.

Loving and vulnerable integration with another who understands that abyss is the only way to walk this dangerous human path without falling off into madness or death.

Anna couldn’t save herself, but you and I still can.

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