‘They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.’

Nathaniel Lee

 

We all know someone who has described their ex or current partner as ‘crazy’ or a ‘psycho’ and in some cases it allows us to fog our vision of the person they are talking about, even when we have never met them before or they are a close friend.

We have all acted irrationally during break up’s, during a relationship and during dating experiences. What ever the label of the relationship when feelings of the heart are involved our actions can be more extreme than ‘normal’.

Is it fair for us to judge someone else’s reaction to a situation? Whether we think we know half or the full story, we will never truly know someone else’s journey or feelings.

The early 20 year old version of myself definitely acted out when I was hurt. I once threatened to put an ex’s belongings that he left at my house scattered across several roundabouts throughout Milton Keynes where I lived (if you know Milton Keynes, then you will know that there are a lot of roundabouts, around 130 of them!) So I sent him a message and told him to enjoy going to find his stuff. Now, that sounds slightly ‘crazy’ but at the time I was so hurt, I thought I was in love, after a three year relationship I found out he had been cheating on me while I was at University and he had left me for her. Because of this the image of him driving around Milton Keynes looking for his belongings on 130 roundabouts gave me a little bit of humour about the situation. Does this brand me a ‘psycho’?

Although I have emotionally matured since then, I would largely put this down to the amount of experiences I have had and a shift on my outlook on life and love.

As well as acting irrationally in heated situations, I have been on the receiving end of dating people who claim their ex is a ‘psycho’. It isn’t something I would ever encourage and I find it an instant turn off when someone discusses their ex on a date anyway, let alone branding them as ‘crazy’. My thoughts are if they acted irrationally, surely you have done something to make them feel that way and it usually sends red flags to me. Date number 2 is unlikely to occur. However, when you start dating someone you really like, you want to believe them and start believing the one-sided stories that they tell you.

When I was in a situation like this, one of my closest friends said to me, ‘It’s really bad that you would believe that about another women.’ And it instantly shocked me back into reality.

How sane are any of us really anyway? How ‘crazy’ does the emotions of love & lust make us?

 

“I know you think I’m crazy. Maybe that’s because I am. About Life, about this moment, about you.”

Crystal Woods