Hmmm, well I didn't answer either, because my response doesn't really fit into any of the categories.
Truly, in my current world/social circle, there is nobody who has ever called me crazy, either in jest (I doubt they'd be game to joke about such a thing, even though I do tend to usually have a reputation for being able to joke about nearly anything) or as a genuine criticism or judgment.
I have been referred to as crazy, and many less printabel things, by random members of the public with whom I have had aggressive, fear-induced run-ins, and these are more common than I can really admit. At the time such a term certainly distresses me, but right then they could call me a flying pink elephant and the result would be the same. It is the nature of the encounter and all that it signifies for me, not the spoken words, that are distressing.
I just had a symantic discussion about the use of the term "crazy" with T last week. I was saying how deeply I feared I was going crazy and the like, and in the process of countering my fears he was rather irritatedly pointing out that "crazy" is not actually a defined term at all, in that nobody actually knows what it means, it's merely a simplistic social label for anything weird or unusual, and it really doesn't help or inform in any way to keep using it.
Which leads me to my conclusion I suppose, that being that the label, or any equivalent of it, hurts and hinders me more when I pin it on myself than when other people do. And that's a form of stigma that I'm not doing a good job of beating yet.
Maddog
