HONEY, ARE YOU CRAZY YET?
- inthemoodent
- May 7, 2014
- 4 min read
“Honey, are you crazy yet?” Pubs calls out from the other room. Immediately, I understood the question to mean “Have you gotten the psychological test results back?”
“No, not yet!” I scream in response. And we both laugh at the, not so subtle, implication of the conversation. However, I was anxious to know what they ascertained and curious to find out a little more about myself.
Now that the Skype interview is done, SSA has found that I’m a good fit for surrogacy. I have (a bunch of) kids of my own. Financially stable with a good support system. Although they are based in Houston, they’re pretty confident that they can match me quickly since a young lady from Atlanta recently contacted them about surrogates in this area. Coincidence? Maybe not.
But first, they must be certain I’m not some looney toon who can cause severe emotional or physical damage to others and/or have them plastered all over the news. That’s where the MMPI-2 comes in. The Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory is a 567 question psychological evaluation to access your personality type and detect any forms of psychosis. From the person who hates those little “behavioral tests” when you fill out a job application, I was noticeably dreading this part of the process. They say there are no right or wrong answers but there has to be a certain set of criteria they’re looking for. To make the situation even more awkward, Ms. Erica, the SSA counselor, sat there on Skype as I filled out the questionnaire. She was working and doing other things, but it was still a bit intimidating. I’m assuming she was there to ensure I was the one who actually completed the exercise. She made it clear that she was not clarifying any items. I was on my own to make an interpretation and answer accordingly.
The True/False questions range widely from
Mild: “I have a good appetite”
to quite odd: “Peculiar odors come to me at times.“
to the laughably outrageous: “Sometimes Evil spirits possess me.”
And everything in between…
One that tickled me was “At times, I feel like swearing”
Um…I have 4 kids. I FEEL LIKE SWEARING ALL THE TIME! And some days I do!
*The MMPI-2 is designed to evaluate 10 clinical subscales:
Hypochondriasis (Hs) –a wide variety of vague complaints about bodily functioning that tend to focus on the abdomen and back, and they persist in the face of negative medical tests.
Depression (D) – measures clinical depression, which is characterized by poor morale, lack of hope in the future, and a general dissatisfaction with one’s life.
Hysteria (Hy) –poor physical health, shyness, cynicism, headaches and neuroticism.
Psychopathic Deviate (Pd) – complaints about family and authority figures in general, self alienation, social alienation and boredom.
Masculinity/Femininity (Mf) – how rigidly a person conforms to very stereotypical masculine or feminine roles.
Paranoia (Pa) –measures interpersonal sensitivity, moral self-righteousness, suspiciousness, and delusional thoughts.
Psychasthenia (Pt) - an old term used to describe what we now call obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This scale also taps into abnormal fears, self-criticisms, difficulties in concentration and guilt feelings.
Schizophrenia (Sc) –measures bizarre thoughts, peculiar perceptions, social alienation, disturbing question of self-worth and self-identity, and sexual difficulties.
Hypomania (Ma) –intended to measure milder degrees of excitement, and overactivity characterized by an elated but unstable mood, psychomotor excitement (e.g., shaky hands) and flight of ideas (e.g., an unstoppable string of ideas), grandiosity, irritability and egocentricity.
10. Social Introversion (Si) –measures the social introversion and extroversion of a person.
(*Taken from Psych Central. For more information on this and other psychological issues visit: http://psychcentral.com/lib/minnesota-multiphasic-personality-inventory-mmpi/0005959)
No matter how much my family drives me crazy…I know I’m not psychotic. But with the depth of these items, you wonder if any of us are really “sane”, as it were. And just like the Skype interview, I was tempted to answer how I thought they wanted me to, but refrained. For example, “There are people in my life I dislike.” My knee jerk reaction was “Oh, I like everyone in my life!” Then I thought, “Wait a minute! There is that lady at church I can’t stand.” I’m just being honest! You have to be…because there are ways for evaluators to detect the validity of the test: someone who’s being dishonest, trying to hide psychosis or a test randomly filled out. You might, but the numbers don’t lie.
Do I talk to myself? Yes, but I don’t answer back. Technically, not crazy. Am I high strung and energetic? Yes, but you have to be around here to survive! Do I get mentally excited sometimes and have a hard time quieting my brain? Absolutely, but don’t most creatives and performance artists have beautiful minds like that? I’m not crazy. I’m just me. There’s no other way to explain it. Those of you who know me can attest to that. And if you meet my parents, you’ll understand it even more.
Unfortunately, MMPI can only be given and interpreted by a psychologist trained to do so. Ms. Erica could not share her report with me…only tell me I was fine. Am I really? Crazy is relative. You have to be just crazy enough to do something like this.
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