Cyprus-Forum.com

[tsukoui]

Scizophrenia is at once a breakdown of the ego and an expansion of it. External influences seem to come from inside. From one's own ego. Yet because the ego also believes they have separate identities, it is thrown into conflict. It is as if one is fighting with oneself. Tearing oneself apart. The spoken words of others are perceived as being part of oneself. They are no different from the thoughts that arise internally. If you think about it, you do not know what you are going to think next. Thoughts just arise. It is the same with external spoken words. You do not know that what is coming next, but that does not mean they are not a part of you. The dysfunction of schizophrenia is to see them as having a different source from yourself. You now have two egos, three, four... and you are challenged with which ego to identify with. How many times have you argued with yourself? There is no problem there, because you see both sides as being you as coming from the same source. If you can do this with "other" people then you can have the opening of schizophrenia without the dysfunction. But then the challenge is not to become an ego-maniac. For this you have to disassociate your identity from your ego. This is the state that I am in now. Sometimes I fall back into the state of multiple sources, and become paranoid, other times I see everything as being me and become an ego-maniac, and every now and then, hopefully more frequently, I become aware that I am not my ego.

[Black Dog]

But there again,having schizophrenia is better than being alone !