You're Not Crazy, Just Brainwashed

“Jesus, I mean, you guys do nothing but complain about how you can't stand it in this place here and you don't have the guts just to walk out? What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it.”— R.P. McMurphy, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Let’s get real about the mental health system: it feeds on your doubt. It thrives on your compliance. You sit in waiting rooms, you sit in groups, you sit in institutions and programs that grind you down — and then people complain. They say how deadening it feels. How it strips away their voice. How it keeps them boxed in and sedated, shuffling through endless appointments, labels, and pills.

And yet people stay. They stay because the system has convinced them that leaving is dangerous. That questioning the system is proof you’re still "sick." That if you walk out, you’ll fall apart. Bullsh*t.

McMurphy saw it for what it is. You’re not crazy. You’re no crazier than the average person walking the streets with their own quiet chaos. The system just wants you to forget that. It wants you to be docile, compliant, and dependent. It IS a money-making machine after all.

But you have a choice. You always did. Recovery isn’t about being managed forever. It’s about reclaiming your life, your voice, your power. It’s about realizing you are more than a diagnosis or a patient file. You don’t need to sit quietly and accept endless treatment that keeps you stuck. You don’t need their permission to stand up and walk out (figuratively or literally).

Yes — walking away is scary. Taking back your life is scary. But staying in a system that shrinks you is much, much worse.

You’re not crazy. You’re not broken. You've just been brainwashed. Walk away anyway.