Madness

[azurelunatic]

"...Half of what we call madness is just some poor slob dealing with pain by a strategy that annoys the people around him."

"How is it dealing with pain to give yourself more pain?" she asked plaintively.

He half-smiled, hands on knees, staring at the floor. "There is a kind of riveting fascination to it. Takes your mind off the real thing. Consider what a toothache does to your attention span."


Mark and Elena, from Mirror Dance, Lois McMaster Bujold

Sounds like a few of the comments my priestess-confessor has ruthlessly hammered through my skull. I'm not insane, as I am able to sort out what is imaginary and what is not, and I am at least shakily functional. I'm merely dealing with my pain in nonstandard ways...

Comments

[boojum.livejournal.com]

I would also argue that Mark's pain from overeating is much simpler and more his than his pain from his upbringing and from romantic stuff. He knows that he chooses that pain and understands it and knows where the edges of it are. Better that than weird pervasive scary pain. Also, his overeating is less tied in with the ways he sees virtue, so it's not nearly as shameful as the sex stuff or the not-a-good-enough-Miles stuff or the who-am-I stuff. It's Fisher-Price pain, with a lot of the colors rounded off.

[azurelunatic]

Yep.

Same as pain-from-scratch-wound-on-arm is far less complex than pain-of-having-really-tried-to-communicate-and-failed-yet-again.

[redshoeson.livejournal.com]

I like your quote.

[azurelunatic]

Thanks.

...LMB has a habit of writing very insightful things. I've read that book at least five times, and this is the first time that line's hit home to me. This is the first time I've seen that line. Wisdom's been popping up from all over her books at me lately.