By Yohanna Abdullah

“Anna, kau dah gila!”

This exclamation Anna, you’ve gone crazy! was said by my mother-in-law. I had been speaking non-stop coherently and incoherently about world news and personal problems to my mother-in-law all morning and all afternoon. My two children were playing beside me. I was not aware of their needs as I was convinced that the world was going to end soon as all the men are ‘adulterous’ including Bill Clinton and Anwar Ibrahim and especially the two men closest to me.

“Anna, kau dah gila!”

That sentence struck me as odd for I don’t think I am mad as my mum-in-law had just uttered after listening to me all day. I am thinking what a wonderful orator I was discussing world and personal affairs. I was on a roll, talking very fast and emotively. I was devastated by my husband’s affair with his colleague which I had just discovered the day before and I had apparently collapsed and I felt that the men in this world are mostly flawed and not doing their jobs. Hence the world is going to end.

It is true, I have gone insane like my mother-in-law said. I had my first melt down and was temporarily insane. What’s next on the mad roller coaster ride? Lots as the days unfold into months into years and now it is all of 15 years of going in and out of madness.

What is madness or insanity? It is losing control of your mind and having a different world in your head, where you talk about travelling to outer space with your good friends who are noble and not a traitor to the wife, children and family.  It is thinking you can escape the people who are trying to get you into an ambulance by jumping off the balcony and flying off somehow. It is going stark naked because It feels right and true to your true being which is baring all your heart, mind and soul.

Being mad can be permanent or temporary. When a person with mental illness is not treated, the madness can go on for years till the day they die and in many instances, it is through taking of their own lives. It is no joke as we like to say a little in awe to outrageous friends, “Kau dah gila!” (You are mad!) Madness may be a certain death as the mind is not connected to reality.

Insanity or madness is all in the mind which has brain chemicals gone awry and start playing tricks on you. Yet insanity for me can be a most beautiful experience as I feel closer to God, humanity, plants and animals and angels and all created things. I see the world as actually brighter and more beautiful and see the connections between songs, random overheard conversations, TV shows and advertisements and the way I am feeling. I feel so special in the eyes of God and I see the unseen and do as I feel.

Full Definition of MADNESS from Merriam-Webster

1

:  the quality or state of being mad: as

a :  rage

b :  insanity

c :  extreme folly

d :  ecstasy, enthusiasm

2

:  any of several ailments of animals marked by frenzied behavior; specifically :  rabies

 See madness defined for English-language learners »

Examples of MADNESS

1. He suffered a series of tragedies that nearly drove him to madness.
2. Her friends told her the idea was pure madness, but she went through with it anyway.
3. It was the height of madness for him to drive at such high speeds!

First Known Use of MADNESS

14th century

Related to MADNESS

Synonyms

aberration, dementia, derangement, lunacy, insanity,mania, rage [archaic]

Antonyms

mind, saneness, sanity

Related Words

neurosis, psychosis; instability, irrationality,unreasonableness; delirium, frenzy, hysteria; hallucinosis,hypomania, paranoia, schizophrenia; senile dementia;delusion, hallucination; monomania, obsession, phobia;abnormality, dementedness, unsoundness

Near Antonyms

lucidity, rationality, rationalness, reasonability,reasonableness; normality, soundness