Story, part two

At this point I sent a succession of emails to my friend, describing in detail how my life and myself had made me such a fuck-up; realizations were hitting me fast and hard. I slept four or five hours per night, and for once in my life I was waking up early and eager to see the day. I got through all the messages I wanted except one that would have been about my supposed brilliance. But near the end of this period of writing I came to a realization so profound that it pushed me into a state of ecstasy, although it looks simple when I write it down:

Neither say more than you mean, nor mean more than you say.
Neither feel more than you express, nor express more than you feel.

And there was a third part.

I returned home to my dorm room. I decided not to worry about my approaching exams, and so it was unfortunate that when my mother called me I said to her, "I know how to talk, I'm going to fail wonderfully!" At this point she declared that I was having a psychotic breakdown. Panicking, I called back in a few minutes and spoke more coherently, but it was too late; my mother had sicced student counselling on me. My joy was converted into fear.

The next night I was sleepless. I was thinking as though my thoughts were a fire burning the deadwood from my mind. It suddenly happened that I identified strongly with Nietzsche (later identifications happened with Thoreau, Cavell, Emerson, Kierkegaard, and my college instructors). I thought that through his words and deeds Nietzsche had confronted the greatest flaw of his time: power. Thinking about it, I concluded that this age's greatest flaw was insanity. I decided to confront my fear of insanity.

After speaking to an RA a few times with the door between us too, I agreed to let him accompany down to student counseling. I really enjoyed filling out the paperwork. When seeing a checklist of symptoms I checked every single one except hallucinations. When I saw the first counselor I was so forthcoming about my past, and so insistent that I had gone through insanity, that he called in a more experienced counselor. My insanely bold conversation with this counselor got me into the University of Chicago Hospital's psychiatric ward.