It's a danger of taking such classes, you can't help but try and fit yourself into one disorder or another. In fact, I'd go so far as to say some take these classes specifically in hopes that they can figure out how to do so.

But geez, really schizophrenia's a pretty serious thing. And while on the one hand I feel perfectly balanced and sane and all -- well, for instance, I was gonna point out that I feel much saner now than when I was taking my prescribed anti-depressants. Unfortunately, if you actually have a truly psychotic break, you are more likely to be more sure of your sanity when you're off meds than on. You know, the homeless guy who's arguing that he's Jesus is really sure that he's quite sane.

So okay -- I can thank my lucky stars that I know I'm not quite that delusional. Okay, so I've a bit of a messiah complex. I can also be somewhat paranoid, but that's a far cry from believing my thought are being monitored. In short, I seem to have some of the delusional characteristics, but I can't be totally crazy here because I'm not claiming as solid fact any things that are patently impossible.

That is, unless I have and have just forgotten. I dunno, if you've read an entry where I was talking about how the government's trying to poison me through my tapwater or how my stuffed Pikachu doll is guiding me through my mission in life -- help a brother out and remind me of my craziness, here.

(One exclusion on that: The evil twin. Nah, that just sounds crazy.)

Anyway, I don't seem to have the delusions or the hallucinations, so I wouldn't really worry so much as far as the "positive" symptoms go. Unfortunately, we've these other set of symptoms that describe something psychologically lacking, which are called "negative". And I'm not so sure if I can wriggle quite so well out of all of those.

Having flat or inappropriate affect -- basically, you don't show the emotions that are deemed acceptably normal in various social situations. That is, showing pretty much no emotion ever, or stuff like laughing at inappropriate times.

Holy shit. If I am smiling or laughing, half the time people have no idea what I'm on about, and if they don't I usually don't imagine that explaining will help share the humor with them. Hell, at work I've even been accused of being "flat".

But there's more. "Avocation" is a negative symptom that basically translate to utter lack of motivation, disorganization, and difficulty with following through with completing tasks. Jesus Christ on a cracker, folks. That's been me all over for some time now.

Case in point, my job. Realistically, my most lofty aim in employment there has been that it keeps me off the streets during the prime "party" hours of the week. So, it's helped keep me sober and it's helped force me to socialize, through this period where I've avoided my friends like the plague. (Social withdrawal, btw? A fallout symptom of avocation. Can't be bothered to do something as simple as socialize.)

And so, this slacker job that I'm really way overqualified for? Just slept through that shit, tonight. Okay, not all the way through, but far enough so that going in would be pointless. And it's not the first time I've done it, either.

So -- you know, I've never been fired from a job in my life? Okay, when I was about nineteen I did leave a place that was undoubtedly not sorry to see me go, but even there I was not actually just "let go." Hell, I managed to do a pretty goddamn demanding job in the military for four years. So what I'm getting at is this: When I've only been motivated to work the most barest minimum of a slackass job in the first place, if I get fired from such a job without actually intending to... I dunno. Maybe I should worry?

But really, as it happens -- if I'm actually schizophrenic, my having gotten some kind of clue about it really isn't likely to help me much. Another negative symptom is "anhedonia", which is essentially becoming unable to really feel much of any emotion, be it happiness or sadness or whatever. And while I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that I do actually feel stuff, I can't help but recall that even I have noticed some lessening of those emotions in recent times. I mean, in the least, I haven't really seemed to get too worried or depressed over anything in quite a while.

And that's where I say I don't think having an intellectual understanding of symptoms is likely to be helpful to anyone who's actually schizophrenic. Just having the symptoms will be detachment enough from reality to make the knowledge irrelevant. You know, recognizing that you don't feel emotions isn't enough to make you feel them.

So I dunno. Be kinda scared, kids. Possibly, in reading Passing Strange, you are making yourself witness to one man's slow descent into the world of the truly out to lunch. Well, realistically, probably not. But if so, I promise to try and make insanity as absolutely interesting as possible.