You're Insane!!

This past week I read a very interesting study called Being Sane in Insane Places. I'm not going to go into detail about what the study is, you can read that by clicking on the study yourself, because quite frankly, the study isn't what my blog post is about, but rather the thoughts that were provoked...
I am insane. I came to this conclusion because somewhere somebody thinks I am insane. It is all about perception, and in all honestly that scares the crap out of me. To think that somebody could just label you as insane because of how they perceive the way you act?
I spent a great deal of time considering this, and I drew absolutely no conclusions. Who really decides what is insane? In a world filled with all sorts of different kinds of people with different ideals, morals, backgrounds, upbringings, communities, etc. how do we know who is insane/sane/right/wrong/good/bad? Surely it has to be more than a definition, doesn't it?

Me, Approx. 15. 

I grew up in a very affluent community where the norms were, well, very conformist? Maybe that isn't right... Whatever it was, I was not it. I grew up with a lot of people who were very rich and reserved, and kind of plain. The community frowns on any sort of alternative looks... And for somebody who enjoys playing with hair dye, it wasn't the most welcoming. It was only a phase but since I enjoyed dying my hair a lot and had a more alternative style (phh, early teenage years) I was labeled "emo," "gothic," when I really wasn't a whole lot different, but just used my hair as a canvas for my creativity. People acted differently toward me, my best friend's parents started warning her not to hangout with me, I got consistently asked if I was on drugs, and if I cut myself (which I didn't, and don't). And because of what? A perception? A label? Pink hair?! I may as well have been insane.

At home people thought I was weird, but if I went to the mall, or Saturday Market, people thought I was awesome, I was flooded with compliments and people asked where I got my hair done, they liked it. They didn't think I was emo/goth/on drugs/cut myself. It is all a matter of perception.