schizophrenia??

There are two questions to ask yourself here:

First - what symptoms characterize schizophrenia the most? Delusions. Thought delusions - whether hallucinations exist or not - the person is delussional in their thought processes. They have little to no insight into their being and of the fact that they're "insane". Very few schizophrenics would, without medication, post onto a site concerned about their sanity. One of the primary problems of the disease is that the one suffering doesn't recognize their problem - hence the fact that they infrequently take their medication.

Second - if you had schizophrenia, why would that be so bad? I know this may sound like a stupid question (as, really, it would suck) - but in what way would it be worse than, say, some other disorder? You have to figure that due to all your ruminating you would probably catch it early, take medication and feel a ton better.

Research the disorder beyond the simple diagnosis and discover that millions live with it in our society today and, while on meds, can live productive - even successful - lives. It's a bad problem, yes, but not the end of life.

Disarm your fear about the disorder first by realizing that you COULD live with it and that you don't HAVE to be perfectly healthy at all times to enjoy life.

My point behind posting that was that we probably do _not_ have schizophrenia and even if we did there is no amount of worry that would fix the problem - only active work against it (such as seeing a counselor, or actively taking our medication, etc.). Us pondering it wouldn't do a damn bit of good - and so makes no sense, really. Simply listen to your counselors.

I had been afraid of the disorder since I was very young - at about the same time as I feared cancer, AIDs, aneurysms, drive-by-shootings, nuclear war, the sun exploding, tornados, and so forth.

Interestingly the fear of nuclear war made me interested in politics, the cancer made me interested in biology (the same with AIDS), the sun exploding fear made me interested in astronomy (which won me several awards), the fear of tornados turned me into a storm chaser (which I do to this day), and on and on and on....my fear of girls when I was nine turned me into a man-whore when I was 19....

Sometimes these things can be blessings in disguise. Remember, I still believe you don't HAVE to be healthy to enjoy life.