Stir crazy or just plain crazy

Have you ever been trapped for any amount of time in a confined space providing limited mobility and social interaction?

It can be as big as your house or as small as a box. It could be a car, a train, a plane, or a hotel room. You might feel trapped in your workspace, or a doctors office. It could be for minutes or hours or days or weeks. The only thing that matters is you feel trapped, and you want more than anything to get out, to break free!

I confess, I am a homebody. There is no place I am more comfortable and at peace than at home.  Crowds make me anxious and exhausted. I enjoy the occasional foray into social gatherings, but a few hours is my limit and I want the sanction of my own surroundings again.

I do however, like the freedom to come and go. Knowing that where I am is at my will, my desire, and fully within my power. As much as I love home, I find myself going stir crazy when I am bound there through limitations not my own. Transportation, health, money, or waiting on someone else like the cable guy to show up, all drive me crazy.  The truth may be that I have no where to go, but knowing I can't leave because of something out of my control, makes me stir crazy.

Jeff and I took a train trip once from Vancouver to San Francisco on the Amtrak.  It was exciting and fun to get out and do something we had never done before. On the way home, as we stopped in Salem, the conductor announced on the overhead speakers that we were experiencing a delay due to issues ahead on the rails.  The delay took several hours to work through.  The truth is, we were fine.  We had no plans for after we arrived home.  The boys were out of town and it was just Jeff and I. No one was waiting on us. We were safe and comfortable. But that two hour delay, drove us both stir crazy.  It was time and confined space out of our control. We anticipated one thing and faced another. All we wanted was to be in control of where we were and when.

Stir crazy can stem from being sick and having to cancel plans, or having plans cancelled on you because of someone else sickness. Stir crazy can be born out of boredom due to lack of funding. Nothing makes me crazier than wanting to do something only to realize I don't have the money.  Stir crazy can be an affliction at any age,in any economical status of life. 

Stir crazy can open the door to just plain crazy, if not treated and addressed properly.  It may lead to paranoia, hallucinations, talking to ones self, voices in the head, talking to the TV as if the characters are real and present in the room with you...... Not that I would know or have ever observed this...ahem Jeff.....

My point is....okay maybe I have no point, but stir crazy is real! So.... homebody or not, break free, live, love, laugh, and don't let the walls close in on you.