All my exes have been crazy. It’s just one crazy bitch after another. Crazy sluts. Crazy whores. You fucking whore. You crazy fucking whore. They’re all crazy fucking whores. They all drive me crazy. But baby. Baby. Baby. I’m crazy. For you.

I do a quick search online on women and mental illness and get hundreds of hits. Women Sent To Asylums For Post-Natal Depression. “Crazy” Women Killed In Salem Witch Trials. How “Craziness” Is Used To Keep Women Compliant.“ “Crazy Women. Why Men Think Women Are Crazy. Why Are Women So Crazy? TAKE THE TEST: Are YOU Crazy?

I touch my cheek. Gently. Self-consciously. Feeling at the skin that has healed over from many self-inflicted punches. I think about the dreams I have had since I was fifteen. Dreams of saying how I feel. Dreams of telling the truth. Dreams of my emotions bubbling over in public. Dreams where I am carted away, as everyone I know looks the other way, not wanting to make eye contact with the crazy girl. 

I think of these dreams which have kept me from speaking to doctors about any thoughts of depression. To counselors. To my family. To friends. I think of the men who have called me crazy when I spoke against them. I think of being in a group of friends and someone saying something someone does not like and being called crazy. You like that band? What, are you crazy? You really believe that? You’re crazy!! I think of how we invalidate each other with craziness. How we reduce each other to a word. And how throughout history, women have been reduced to crazy simply by expressing that they have emotions. 

I wonder what would get me sent to an institution if I was living in the Victorian era. Would it be anxiety? Depression? Infidelity? Unhappiness in marriage? Speaking too loudly one time? 

Crazy is a word of reduction. Of differentiation. Of categorizing persons into other. Of shaming. Of silencing. It further stigmatizes mental illness, and keeps those who suffer from it from seeking help. And it keeps women compliant and silent. Scared to speak up. Scared to vocalize their opinions or suffering. Why would they? They’re just crazy. Crazy crazy crazy.

But I am not out-of-control for my emotions. I am not insane for possessing opinions which do not match up with yours. I am not any less for suffering from a mental deficiency which make it difficult to cope. I am not one-word. One-term. One-sentence. 

In the 5th Century, Hippocrates coined the term female hysteria, to describe the abnormal movements in a female’s womb. Side effects of this included sexual desire. Lustful thoughts. Uncontrollable emotions. And then the unmentioned side effects: opinions which do not match up with ours. Failure to comply. Failure to be silent. Dissatisfaction with being controlled. 

In Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, women were bound at the hands and feet, with rocks attached, and thrown into water to determine whether or not they were witches. On the chance that they did not drown, they were declared a witch, and then executed by another means: Lynching. Poison. Burning at the stake.

In my womb I feel a fire growing, stoked over and over again by spittings of crazy. I open my mouth to contest this and wells of water pour out. Witch water. Woman water. In my dreams Hippocrates rises from the dead to send me to a mental institution. My diagnosis: woman.