Benefit Street, Brighton.

People paid good money to go and see the inmates of Bedlam.  I'm thinking of charging for personal appearances on the bus, in the shops, etc. (Imagine if we all did that! They'd soon see how many of us there are and be bellowing for Something To Be Done.)                                   One of the most common comments people make  since I left The Regency Town House is "You're so brave." Not, I hasten to add, because I've left the Town House, but because I tell people why I left. I also hasten to add, to anyone who has said those words to me, that I appreciate what you're saying, and the spirit in which it was said. But it just isn't true. I never have been. Oh, I don't deny that I've done things which might seem brave: dragging my kids from one continent to another with a couple of private detectives one step behind might seem brave - but it wasn't. I was petrified the whole t...

I expect what I mean is: what is it that stops people from seriously  doubting that they are anything other than "normal". People are constantly shrieking things like "AGgghh! You're driving me Mad!" "Hell! Now I'm losing my mind!" "I'm going insane!" They might even legitimately feel that they are - the levels of stress they've gone through are overwhelming their thought-process. It's madness-for-a-moment. They accept that the human condition is to do mad things, and behave in mad ways, but that this doesn't define a person as "mad". So then, how does one know when one has just enough eccentricities? phobias? aberrations? How many of the afore-mentioned are the tip-over point into lunacy? How do we - you - me  know   what the acceptable "norm" is? Lest this sound for a moment disingeuous - it's prompted by genuine feelings: I'd thought I was starting to get though the fog and, ...