[baudrunner]

You're right, Harmony Girl. In Canada far more people are walking around medicated than are hospitalized for their condition. People who hear voices are schizophrenic. Sometimes the voices are accompanied by hallucinations. There are two basic types of schizophrenia, negative and positive, where the negative manifests in withdrawal, detachment, and attention deficit, and the positive manifests in delusion and hallucination often resulting in odd behaviours. People who hear voices are usually of the positive type. A combination of the two types exists and also a form where neither type manifests an obvious expression of the explicit symptons. There is no discussing the metaphysical aspects of schizophrenia because the underlying causes are fairly well understood and genetic predispositions are found to occur in 80% of subjects affected by the disorder. The vulnerable chromosomes have been identified as well as some specific genes, although this is still a relatively new area of study. Offspring of schizophrenic mothers have a 25-50% possibility of contracting schizophrenia.

I have never in my life met a perfect human being yet, have you? In fact, while I do not hear voices or hallucinate I am prepared to admit that I do suffer from a mild form of schizophrenia myself. I don't need analysis to tell me that. Bottom line? I am not normal, but I can live with that because after all, who is?