"Crazy" or just Non-Conforming?

Three Eyed Raven by Angela Rizza

The Cheese Grates It:

Crazy or just Non-Conforming?

Reading the description of schizoaffective personality disorder got me thinking about the way people are labeled, not only by licensed mental health professionals but by armchair psychiatrists and just plain judgmental types. Read the description below, and we shall carry on.

"At least five of the following symptoms must be present: ideas of reference, strange beliefs or magical thinking, abnormal perceptual experiences, strange thinking and speech, paranoia, inappropriate or constricted affect, strange behavior or appearance, lack of close friends, and excessive social anxiety that does not abate and stems from paranoia rather than negative judgments about self."
From the DSM-5 description of Schizoaffective Personality Disorder

Anyone who has alternative belief systems could be pigeonholed into this category, as could anyone who hasn't had the most optimal of life experiences and who tends to be distrustful of the motivations of others. People whose otherworldly beliefs fall into one of the accepted major world religions tend to get a pass for their brand of magical thinking/faith in things that cannot be proven scientifically, but those who believe in the possiblilty or reality of what might be termed the "occult" are ususally judged more harshly.

Do I have schizoaffective personality disorder, or am I just different from most people? Do I have reasons for being the way I am, or is my brain just wired wrong?

Let's have a look!

"Strange beliefs or magical thinking."

I used to be a devout Catholic. I studied the Bible daily. I believed in End Times prophecy, which may or may not be a Catholic thing, I honestly can't remember. In any case, I believed strongly in it. I ws sure the Apocalypse was going to come during my lifetime, and I was trying to prepare so I didn't get Left Behind.

Would I, with this set of beliefs, be labeled something like "schizoaffective," or would I just be labeled religious?

As someone who believes absolutely in the possibility of spirits, an afterlife, beings which might be labeled "angels," "demons," or "deities," would I be labeled with a diagnosis along the lines of "schizoaffective?" Particularly when I have had experiences which involve the seeing of what is commonly labeled "ghosts, spirits, apparitions, non-corporeal entities, phantoms, or haunts."

I will speak to an interesting fact in this matter. Since I do have type II bipolar disorder, a diagnosis with which I concur, and which means that my brain does, in fact, have a few crossed wires, could my experiences be due to my bipolar disorder?

I do not believe so, and I will explain my reasoning.

Bipolar II does not present with either full manias or psychotic features. 

Further, the times when I experienced these phenomena, I was euthymic. Euthymia is a balanced emotional state. I was neither hypomanic nor depressed. I was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I was not severely sleep deprived, which can cause hallucinations. I was sober as the proverbial church mouse and I was in an emotional Goldilocks zone, neither too high nor too low. 

I think I was, in fact, seeing human spirits. It is rare for me to see spirits. I usually can only sense them, which makes it more difficult to trust my perceptions, because "seeing is believing." 

Can I prove the existence of ghosts?

No.

Does believing that spirits exist make me "crazy?"

You know what?

I don't care if it does.

Perhaps the fact of the matter is that I just can't bear the idea that some people and creatures are born just to have horrible misery visited upon them and to die in agony or terror. 

Perhaps I can't bear the idea that those people and creatures who bring what rare joy some of us get in difficult lives cease to exist when their physical form ceases to exist, so I convince myself that some sort of energy, which could be labeled "spirit," continues to exist following the death of the body.

Perhaps I can't bear the idea that some people's minds are torn apart by disease processes which rob them of their memories, their thoughts, their very selves.

If this is what I'm doing, and in moments of doubt I fear that it is, so what? 

If that puts a label such as "schizoaffective" on me, so be it. I can live with that.

As to paranoia, it is worse at some times than others. Sometimes I recognize it, other times I am blinded by it. It makes it difficult for me to form or keep friendships. 

I have been betrayed by people on more than one occasion. I have known people who pretended to be my friends so they could play cruel jokes on me. I have been sexually and physically assaulted by boys and men who I let into my life because I was desperate for love. 

I can "pass for normal" in social situations, but I despise large gatherings, i.e. work parties, where I feel out of place and want to run for the nearest exit.

It makes me sad that I am unable to have friends, but I am learning to accept the fact that I can't. My son is my friend, but I don't think I'm a person who he would "hang out" with as his first choice, and nor should I be. 

It hurts not being anyone's first choice. Sometimes it makes me bitter. Sometimes I act desperate, and then I feel like a fool.

Do I think that I have friends in the spirit world?

I do.

Why didn't I know any of them in life?

I have theories, but I really can't answer that. It's a post for another time.

Conculsion:

If beilieving what I believe and being the way I am makes me "schizoaffective," "crazy," or anything else, then so be it. I am what I am.

The Cheese Hath Grated It