I do have some filter problems. I have been told my doctors and professors that I am in the elite of the student population at my school (despite the way I dress) but I will blurt out what I think and sometimes make impulsive remarks that border on sarcasm. The other day in a lab class I started meowing like a cat and the professor thought it was funny. Apparently she loves cats.
But I do slip out inappropriate words sometimes and have to watch what I say around certain people. My schizophrenic friend and I hanged out last night for a few hours and we just took our filters completely off and it was glorious. I love talking with him. Sex, violent fantasies, psychosis, having lots of experience with these sorts of things makes for hours of conversation. He has a Japanese tattoo on his arm which means “lunatic”. He has two jobs and is a student at my school, he takes his meds, same antispychotic as I do, actually- Geodon.
Last night we talked about our sexual escapades (we’re both bisexual) for like two hours and talked about schizophrenia and school and people for the rest.
I love taking off my filter. I do it around my friends sometimes, especially around my schizophrenic friend, it is impossible for us to offend one another, as he is a very highly functioning bisexual paranoid schizophrenic, just like me. One time I took off my filter around this sort of quiet friend of mine and he avoided me for a solid month after that, but now we’re cool.
But I hope to one day be partners with someone who can handle me being unfiltered. That would be nice. I had a friend with benefits who was crazier than I was and she and I were quite open about what we thought. She actually scared me a few times, believe it or not. She wasnt scared by what I said, she just thought it was interesting that I wasnt a complete mess after all of the stuff I have experienced- she was a med student, so she knew schizophrenia and what it usually does to people.
What I do in public is I just “use caution” and dont say the wrong words in the wrong places or with the wrong people. In civil conversations, I am articulate, I make an effort. I could probably become a lawyer. I would just go home and take my filter off.
For example, at that powerlifting gym, which is one of the few old school juicer gyms in the entire country, I said whatever I felt like, most of it was rated R, and so did everyone else. I was given the nickname “Looney Tunes” after like three training sessions. To stand out in that environment as crazy means something. For example, most guys would shout the f-word at eachother and the m-f word after a lift, I would shout things like “butt****!” and “c***” in addition to the f word and mf word. I made a lot of sex jokes.
But when I am in my grandparents’ fancy apartment telling them how school is going, I am squeaky clean and you would never guess that I have anything wrong with my brain. They ask me serious and often pretentious questions and I think I respond more intelligently than most of the other grandchildren, as I am planning on graduate school and am the only grandchild who is going to school for free. Im studying neuroscience while some are studying boring crap like film or accounting or history, so what I say is actually pretty interesting and applies to everyone because everyone (well maybe not everyone, but most people) has a brain.
