I think it's pretty much certainly the first, though it's less genuine szhizoid belief and more serious serious coping by drilling imaginary facts into his mind, not unlike a self cult brainwashing. We've seen chris attempt the latter when he tried to pretend to have multiple personality disorder, and his attention span nor acting ability are sufficient to maintain the act this long, nor to seem even slightly genuine, much less entirely insane like he does. Notice he never once slips up in this interview in referring to himself as chris or anything like that, and he's a fucking idiot, so he certainly would if he was acting.