Throughout life, I have had this epileptic condition that is also described by Dostoevsky's writing. Whenever I am before a doctor, I mention this "personality disorder" or whatever you want to call it. They always say something to the effect of "it's not possible for us to decide that your condition is related to your epilepsy".
But then wouldn't that mean that there's no such thing as Dostoevsky / Geschwind syndrome and it's just "post-epileptic schizoaffective disorder"?
But more than that, it's interesting trying to "look at the looker". "So this is schizophrenia, huh?" These are "positive" and "negative" symptoms. On reddit, I put up a general question on a neurodiversity sub about whether people wonder what it's like to be neurotypical (not really defining what that means but assuming that those commenting understand), and it was interesting how much of them talked about it like "life is a bit harder I suppose, but I wouldn't like to be neurotypical". Think about Michael J. Fox or Robin Williams. Or Chris Cornell. Or Anthony Bourdain. Is it worth it to have been given your one chance at life to be atypical?
I have read that about 1 in 100 people have schizophrenia and about 1 in 200 have schizoaffective. And 1 in 100 have epilepsy. Such as it is I suppose.
Would I rather not be me, though? It's a strange question in a strange world where life itself is the strangest of the strange. And I don't say that about my life in particular. Life itself is strange. Why this time? Why this world? Why this humanity? Why these physical constraints? Why this level of knowledge and technology? Do enough people ask these questions?
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