The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays

I recently could only get through part one of Susan Sheehan's Is There No Place on Earth for Me? where she followed and often accompanied the life of a woman with schizophrenia. As important and compassionate as these types of investigative journalism can be, shedding light on the inhumanity of health systems or society's perspectives on mental health, Wang hits the nail on the head for me with her comment on Nellie Bly's Ten Days in a Madhouse - that these journalists were always free to leave.

Wang expertly juggles many paradoxes here: of sharing an actual lived experience of schizophrenia woven with research, the ability which marks her as high-functioning, which leads others to assume exceptionalism; of wanting to be put together show more outwardly yet but also not present too well that it would prevent her from getting the support she needs; of respecting person-first language but also that schizophrenia is inextricably a part of her.

As expected, the topics can be difficult to read sometimes, but Wang was generously educational, giving very human examples to many otherwise clinical terms, e.g. I could understand psychosis on a surface level, but it was eye-opening to read about her watching movies and shows and being unable to distinguish between them and realty. An important addition to illness writing, especially for schizophrenia. show less

Compared to the common stereotype of the "lunatic", author and person with "treatment resistant" schizoaffective disorder Esme Weijun Wang is very high functioning. She is fortunate to have the support of a loving husband and family, as well as financial stability and a great deal of writing and artistic talent. Nonetheless, she struggles to pass for "normal", especially when she is in the grip of strong delusions and hallucinations. She has even experienced the rare Cotard delusion, in which the sufferer believes that she is already dead.

A major theme of this essay collection is the stigma attached to psychotic illnesses; Wang was forced to leave Yale after it became clear that her mental health issues were severe and chronic in show more nature.

She sort of lost me in the final chapters when she suddenly came up with a diagnosis of late-stage Lyme disease that hadn't been mentioned previously and started dabbling in "sacred arts" (update: I see that she did mention both in chapter one). Nonetheless, this memoir in essays offers a valuable perspective on psychotic illness. Well worth reading. show less

I wanted to like this more but give it 3.5 stars. I felt disconnected from the author. I could tell what she was trying to do by talking about her intelligence, education, long marriage, fashion, etc...but she instead sounded like someone who was over privileged. As a "high functioning" person with schizoaffective disorder, I also try to distinguish myself as one of the normal just so people will not immediately dismiss me as a liar, a mental, a split personality. I liked that she brought up the point that the only thing people will ever believe from you (when you have severe mental illness) is that you are, indeed, crazy.

I contrast this to Elyn R Saks book, which I read right after my diagnosis, and Esme gives a much more realistic, show more sober depiction of how one is treated. I had a lot of hope after Saks book but quickly learned to keep my head down and my diagnosis to myself. People treat you like human garbage when they find out, doctors especially. Forget about anyone ever believing you again.

I see a lot of reviewers mention there are so few books about mental illness and it may be because we already feel like we are in a spectator sport, but unwillingly. Or maybe we are the car crash that people slow down and gape at. It's dehumanizing and retraumatizing to have to talk about electroshock therapy, involuntary hospitalization, restraints, emotional abuse and medical neglect at the hands of medical professionals. I know I don't want to be the spectacle.

I think all of this is why this author tried to take a more clinical approach in her writing. Because she couldn't get too close to that black hole without getting sucked in. I do thank her for her work. This must have been incredibly difficult to write. show less

I’ve struggled with mental health memoirs and autobiographies. I’m always looking for myself in the narrative and feel interrupted when the author shares some personal detail so unlike my own experiences.

But Esmé Weijun Wang's voice captured me from the start.

Maybe it’s because she is fairly impersonal in tone, even when describing deeply personal and emotional moments in her life. She relates research, facts and statistics, and tales of her own psychoses with the same voice. It’s never maudlin, never asks for pity, only understanding and acceptance for her life as it is. Or, maybe it’s because she is so willing to explore herself on the page-- to honestly challenge her own misconceptions and beliefs about schizophrenic show more disorders and mental illness while holding up the same mirror to the reader.

I really loved, and was deeply moved, by this book. Wang details the struggles of living with a chronic, on-going, incurable illness that is highly stigmatized in our society seemingly without fear, which I so admire. And by telling the details of something so intimate and personal, she makes the experience universal and relatable. show less

At best, it's a cliché to describe someone with mental illness as having insight. It's very much a loaded term, and one that Esmé Weijun Wang addresses in her book of essays. Nonetheless, insight is what she has--not only into her illness (primarily schizoaffective disorder) but into herself in general, her life, and society's attitude towards the mentally ill.

Stories of mental illness can fall into some well worn traps: there's the tragic memoir, the triumph over adversity, and the "It's not really an illness". Luckily, she falls into none of these. Schizophrenia has not been easy for Wang, and it has not been a blessing, or her source of creativity. However, she's also very aware of the things in her life that have enabled her to show more be, in her own words, a "high functioning" schizophrenic: her education, her support system. She's unafraid to recount her experiences with delusions and hallucinations, with the Cotard delusion, with PTSD, with her family history of mental illness, and to consider its cost in her life, including her decision not to have children.

Schizophrenia and related disorders, which Wang refers to as "the schizophrenias", are the most feared and most stigmatized of mental illnesses. Wang's own psychiatrist avoided the diagnosis. Literature speaks of schizophrenia as erasing the "real person" within; there's a public association of schizophrenia with violence. The essays do not just address Wang's own personal experience of schizoaffective disorder, but the system: inadequate and patchy treatment, forcing people against their will into treatment, dehumanizing people with mental illness, kicking students out of college, the devaluation of the mentally ill when they are not capable of employment--this being the marker of worth in a capitalist society.

The chronic Lyme essay was the hardest for me; it's hard for me to invalidate her experience, and I sympathize with the desire for answers. At the same time, I've been following the Lyme debate for a decade, and the ways in which the chronic Lyme treatment providers make a lot of money the patients often don't have makes me uncomfortable, and it's hard for me to regard it as harmless. show less

This remarkable collection of essays on schizophrenia, mental illness, and the ways our society both portrays and reacts to such, is written by a woman who has herself been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Starting with the journey to this diagnosis, and ranging through topics like the failings of universities toward students with mental illness, the loss of autonomy during institutionalization, the stigma of schizophrenia in particular, the mutability of our perception of reality. I did sometimes wish it has a more memoir-like format -- there were themes and experiences brought up in essays that I wish were returned to later in the book. But that doesn't change what an amazing thing that this book is -- the writing of someone show more with the intelligence, the support, and the resources to weave together her experiences with studies, academic and medical perspectives and pop culture analysis to really challenge our understanding of mental illness. In the hopes that we can be better colleages, caregivers, storytellers, citizens.

An amazing book. show less

Wang not only humanizes severe mental illness, but forces us to challenge the way we've been conditioned to understand it. With fluid and colloquial prose, she brings to life her intimate experience with schizoaffective disorder and the stigma that came with it. Having a chronically ill partner, I have seen firsthand how the healthcare industry is so quick to turn people away who are too sick or not sick enough. As Wang demonstrates, it is a cruel existence but not one that is without hope.