To return to an earlier question...

okiedokie: Having said that, have you perhaps considered that you may still be suffering from schizophrenia and only comfort yourself with the notion that it is some sort of a spiritual awakening?

spiritual_emergency: You may be right. How would we go about determining if you actually are? How would we test the reality of that hypothesis?

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Having had the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the concepts of spiritual emergency okiedokie , I think you might agree that it is a bit of a puzzle trying to figure out precisely which box my experience fits into, and therefore, which label should be applied to it.

Am I a mystic? Am I a shaman? Am I a schizophrenic?

Truth be known, I don't know. What I do know is that I am well. My relationships are all stable. I have been working for roughly 3.5 years -- the last 3 in a full-time position. My cognitive abilities appear to be fine. I have never entered into a formal therapeutic relationship with a psychiatrist or psychologist. I have not had any form of psychiatric medication -- during or since. I suspect that most people would be hard-pressed to differentiate me from most anybody else.

I also know that regardless of what my experience may or may not be, many people recover from schizophrenia and psychosis. Will all of them recover? No.

It should be borne in mind that Eugene Blueler, who originally coined the term "schizophrenia" originally added an "s" to the end of it to designate that there were different forms of the experience. If I am "schizophrenic", perhaps I lucked out and got a "milder variety" -- one that's easier to recover from. Then again, would I even be considered schizophrenic in another culture or setting? Maybe. Maybe not.

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