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Well, the next stage of my quest to convince a portion of the internet of my sanity has officially reached the next level of debate. Finally, someone claiming to have a background in psychiatry showed up with the intent of essentially calling me insane or psychotic or schizophrenic – you pick your favorite word. So this post will be dedicated to why I don’t have some obscure mental disorder (I’ve been accused of having schizophrenia more times than I care to count) and explaining the differences between being a schizophrenic versus being a Traveler. Schizophrenia (def) - A term coined by Bleuler, synonymous with and replacing dementia praecox, denoting a common type of psychosis, characterized by abnormalities in perception, content of thought, and thought processes (hallucinations and delusions) and by extensive withdrawal of interest from other people and the outside world, with excessive focusing on one's own mental life. Now considered a group or spectrum of disorders rather than a single entity, with distinction sometimes made between process schizophrenia and reactive schizophrenia. The “split” personality of schizophrenia, in which individual psychic components or functions split off and become autonomous, is popularly but erroneously identified with multiple personality, in which two or more relatively complete personalities dominate by turns the psychic life of a patient. There's the definition of schizophrenia as worded by WebMD. Okay, the first topic I’ll choose is the part of that definition that states schizophrenia is characterized but ‘extensive withdrawl of interest from other people and the outside world.’ Let me tell everyone who reads this – that couldn’t be less true of me. My life is so busy and so full of chaos I couldn’t withdrawl if I wanted to! I’m a full-time college student, I’m on the karate team, and I’m on call 24-7 for my modelling job (which, it so happens, involves working with people to an almost annoying extent). I run this website and am active on many others, in addition to corresponding with many, many people who have written me privately to discuss my claims. I’ll not lie and say I necessarilly like people, so to speak, but that’s more because their pettiness and shallowness is irritating to me…and that holds true of the majority of people in this world. However, I love my life. My career goal is to pursue acting, but I’ve had a long-standing interest in modelling and am finally getting to fulfil that dream…no matter how hard a job it is. I love being on the karate team and have many friends attending the same dojo. Back before I moved, when I was in high school, I had the honor of having many good friends…some of whom have stepped up to lend me their support in this endeavor. I don’t spend my days off in ‘la la land,’ as it were. I’ve never been much for daydreaming or losing myself to my fantasies…it’s true what they say about daydreams: they accomplish nothing. Why would I spend my life wasting away fantasizing when I could be out there pursuing my goals? Back when I was first diagnosed with bipolar, I read up on a lot of mental illnesses, trying to understand as much as I could to speed my treatment. Working with my psychiatrist, it became clear I wasn’t bipolar…but suffered from severe depression complicated by a thyroid disorder. The research did more for me though. I understand many mental illnesses for my efforts, and know schizophrenics to be far more prone to existing in their own world. In my daily life, I have to contend with the truth of who I am – a practitioner in the art of astral projection, bound to an archangel for eternity – but I don’t ‘live’ there. In fact, rarely do I need to explain myself to those around me…save the rare instances when I have to briefly establish that I’m not ‘fair game’ in the dating world. Another key piece of information that distinguishes me from a schizophrenic. People with that disorder have their illusions about them at all times…whereas when I was learning about my gift, the training process ensured I would fail regularly. It’s only in the last year or so that I can confidently say I am in control of this gift and able to travel at will. Albeit schizophrenia manifests in a number of ways, one other clear distinction is that shizophrenics don’t know they’re hallucinating and if told they are, rarely choose to look into that possibility. I’ve always been open to learning and growing, always been open to reassessing my thoughts and changing my views as I learn more of my gift and the angel I love. There was a time, early on, when I thought I may be schizophrenic – how many of these patients can you think of that thought ‘hey, maybe I’m suffering from mental illness?’ in your experience? It was only through hours of testing on the part of my psychiatrist and hours of research on my own part that we ruled that diagnosis out. And that, is the conclusion of what I have to say on the matter, and hope that my commentary has helped rule that possibility out in the minds of those frequenting this page. Post a comment in response: |
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