Very sensitively explored, Andi, and worth so much more since it is drawn from your own personal experience. The insight that emerges here is well worth sharing, as you have managed to do, and it provokes many larger questions and reflections. As you know, the exponentially fine razor-edge that often separates genius from what professionals regard as pathological madness (per the DSM-5, at least) is so very, very thin that it defies simple explanation. Neurologists are still grappling with similar issues, largely unsuccessfully. In my own academic studies in human psychology I learned early-on that any one of us is capable of the most heinous and brutal acts. All that is required is the right set of extreme circumstances, the right compote of pressures, stresses and/or what have you. We are quick to label those who are behaviorally dissimilar to ourselves as somehow being ‘mad’, when in fact quite often they are simply operating in a different behavioral milieu and responding to a different set of values that transcend our own awarenesses. Reality testing is (or should be) an important part of each and every one of us, as we progress through this strange, sometimes beatific, sometimes perverse experience called ‘life’. Thanks for your exceptionally insightful observations.

Cheers, K2