Personality Quiz: Are You Schizophrenic, Or Am I Just Behind You In Lecture With My Big Ass Magnet?

Reporting by Neutral Milk Hotel For Dogs

Many people report feeling hesitant when it comes to learning more about their brains. The stigma around mental health makes seeking assistance, whether it's talk therapy, psychiatric help, or even just the tight embrace of a willing classmate, something of a taboo subject. Within the low-stress environment of this quiz, we hope you’ll find the space and the pace you need to answer some of the harder questions about mental disorders. Questions like, “Where the fuck is my pen? I swear I just fucking had it and now it’s gone?!,” and “This can’t keep happening, am I losing it? Seriously, I mean, am I losing it?”

Question 1: Where is your pen?

The first step in self-diagnosis is grounding yourself in your environment, taking the time to discern what exactly feels off. You might find yourself in lecture, endeavoring to focus but constantly sidetracked by your own internal monologue. Worse still is when you look down at your swivel-ass desk to find that your pen is gone. For a lot of people, it’s easy to jump to conclusions: your pens keep disappearing, you’re losing your hold on reality, the permanence of objects is no longer a guarantee. Clearly, you are descending into schizophrenia. 

It’s important in these moments to take a minute to breathe. Have you considered another explanation? That someone—someone who loves you dearly and hates that he has to do this—is behind you in lecture, stealing your objects with his big ass magnet? Such questions fall under the category of “meaningful thinking.” By asking not only what’s happening, but why, you can arrive at a rational and productive mindset. This leads us to our second question: 

Question 2: Are you aware that I am the Puppet Master?

I cry more than I used to. I don’t know why I want you to know that, but I do. Sorry. The next step in achieving mindfulness is to examine your environment, which might be skewing your thinking. For example, are you in the presence of the Puppet Master? He who bends the universe, who manipulates matter with the beating, anodic pulse of the cosmic heart? Who would give it all up if you’d only look at him?

Many people who are suffering forget to consider these common explanations, and instead self-diagnose with the more serious disorders on the DSM-5. If you find this to be the case, try repeating a helpful phrase to yourself, the sort of thing you’d say when you’re alone. Like, “Oh wow I really wish I had a boyfriend, someone with a good grasp on how magnets work,” or, “Here I find myself, for the third Thursday this month, making the arduous trek to the pen store.” Finally, it’s always important to ask yourself the oldest and most fundamental question in psychology:

Question 3: Could you ever love a thief?

Tomorrow’s our last class together, so I figured I should ask. I haven’t felt close to you since you attached that Wii strap to your pen, and also started scrawling unknowable symbols up and down your arms. These days I think the real mania is that which we create for each other. You’re not the quiet, sane peer I fell in love with. Nor am I the unsuspecting classmate who, in an obvious violation of the social contract, stole your things while instigating your psychic collapse. Maybe we’re not right for each other. But if I know anything for sure it’s that I owe you a personality quiz. So let’s finish this right. How frequently do you exercise? How much time during the day do you set aside to just cool off and, like, be you? Where’s your happy place? Do you get enough iron in your—oh my god, I’m so sorry. I can’t do this. I have to go. I’m sorry.