But my behavior was really the result of the illness, which had progressed far enough to produce some of its most famous and sinister hallmarks: confusion, failure of mental focus and lapse of memory.

A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on.

When you're on the verge of going insane, raving mad, you're about to become either a psychotic or a mystic.

But I'm Crazy. I swear to God I am.

I am crazy as hell, but I know it. And knowing it is a kind of sanity that makes the sickness worse.

...My point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was. I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you?

they said you were mentally healthy, but your madness is the worst

His brain convulsed,
his mind split open.
Vertigo, hysteria, lurchings
and launchings came over him,
he staggered and flapped desperately,
he was revolted by the thought of known places
and dreamed strange migrations.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.

Excessive interest in pathological behavior was itself pathological

There was too much going on here — too much that strayed from odd all the way over into seriously weird.

was eleven years later, my life had changed beyond recognition, and yet here I was, still desperately trying to act normal, while the world around me appeared to have gone completely mad.

"You're - psychotic. There's something wrong with you."

"I know," Benteley agreed. "I'm a sick man. And the more I see, the sicker I get. I'm so sick I think everybody else is sick and I'm the only healthy person. That's pretty bad off, isn't it?"

Too sick and freaked out not to want a bullet for every passer by, too sick and freaked out to breathe, too sick and freaked out to care, too sick and freaked out to think of anything but the annihilation of my mind and denial of my life. So sick and freaked out that I think everyone is my friend.