evidence that I’m crazy

“Do you think my art is evidence that I’m crazy?” I asked my dear one.

We were at Chez Strawberry, spending the afternoon together after some time apart, in a way.  Not totally apart, but our afternoon felt like a homecoming.

“I think you know what I think about that,” they replied.

Something like that.  I remember the look more than I remember their reply sentence.

“If we looked in the DSM, would we see this drawing?  That they put in the DSM preemptively, knowing I would make this drawing?” I asked.

We smiled.

“What if there was an art section of the DSM, and the psychiatrists look at your art and diagnose you based on the art?” I asked.

“Yeah, like Rorschach,” my dear one said.

danger

Evidence that I’m crazy is a big deal in my life.  Less so now that I’m housed.

At a radical mental health collective meeting, then a disability justice workshop, I was explaining to some folks how I didn’t have a baby for 40 reasons.  But the fact that my baby could be taken away at any time is a main one.  Crazy people are at risk of having our kids taken away.  You know I hear voices–that’s enough excuse.  If I’m having a psychotic episode.  You know my whole life is a psychotic episode.

I’ve lost a lot, due to my differences.  Losing my kids would be too much.

And when Ming and I were homeless in Ojai two summers ago, we spent some time at the big library in Ventura.  We would go there so I could read and write.  You know most libraries have a rule that you can’t fall asleep.  Well, Ming falls asleep everywhere.

I had questions like if I was allowed to pray at the library.  Was I allowed to cry at the library?  I wrote a poem about it.

Norms are confusing me.  We can blame autism or extreme creativity.  Sometimes they are one and the same.

evidence that I’m crazy

DSM

ink and markers on scrap paper
Kalapuya land
Strawberry Laura-Marie etc
July 2025