I guess I'm not clear on what the question is. Are you asking if you have sz? Or if taking the medication for 3 weeks has changed you? Or if you should be on disability?

I suppose if you thought of sz as being on a continuum, you might fall somewhere along that continuum that was "higher functioning"? In my view, sz is so badly defined that a bunch of different things get lumped into a single category. Hearing voices and paranoia are things that lots of people experience to one degree or another. They don't necessarily mean you're ill.

My son's problems which prevent him from working seem to stem more from his general confusion than anything else. I don't know how to explain it. He's just really really confused. Often it makes it difficult to have even a very simple conversation. He gets flooded with thoughts. Or he gets completely caught up in tiny details. Or he can't shift from one thought to another at will. Or he makes weird associations.

For example, last night he told me that he was happy that Lady Gaga was nominated for a Grammy, even if she didn't win. He was upset when I didn't react to that news the way he thought I should. Apparently he's somehow connected his own success with hers, because he likes her and he owns a leather jacket like the ones her back up singers are wearing in some video. So if she succeeds, he succeeds. If she fails, he fails. But she didn't unequivically succeed or fail. She was only nominated which is good but not great. Finally I told him point blank that his success is in no way connected to Lady Gaga's. That seemed to reassure him. But who knows? He may still be distressed and worried but said he wasn't to make me feel better.

This is one tiny example of the landmines he has to navigate every day just to make sense of the world. If you can imagine trying to cope with living in the world while your mind is playing with you this way, you get an idea of how difficult it is do anything. Hold a job. Have a friend. Get married. Go to the grocery store. It's all a sea of potential confusion and distress.