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the absence of a calendar and an organized structure quickly knocked me sideways.
There are voices and commands. One must do what they say. Tell them to get away!
I became convinced that something terrible was going to happen, that the plane would crash and burn, and only my sheer force of concentration and will could prevent it.
Perhaps if I held my breath. Perhaps if I closed my eyes and counted. No, closing my eyes in the middle of death-and-destruction fantasies was never a good idea; I needed to be alert.
I didn’t want them to look at me and see a crazy person.
hoping to absorb their normalcy, to take courage from their intrinsic trust that I was a good friend and a decent person.
when it actually came to making the necessary plans and decisions, I was completely flummoxed, and panicky as well. I made lists of what I thought I needed to do, then just as quickly scratched things off and replaced them with others.
My mother raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly, but I brushed away her concern. I’d never cared much how I looked, why should I start now?
there was no place for the craziness to go, and the pressure slowly began to build. In addition, I wasn’t in any sort of treatment or therapy, or taking any kind of medication.
If I just tried hard enough, concentrated hard enough, I could defeat this thing by myself.
She wants to help me. She’ll take care of me. She has the power because she’s God. I will bask in her God-like glow.
Why should I take a drug, when all I’m doing is saying what other people think but for some reason don’t say?
Did I say this out loud? I wasn’t sure.
And knowing exactly what would calm me down, I did what I always did whenever my back was against the wall—I gathered up my books and headed for the library.
one of the chief markers of schizophrenia is not connecting, and not being able to function. At least, this is what I think so far.”
I later learned that the person in charge of grading papers thought that it was one of the two best pieces of work turned in by anyone that year. But it was not what I was assigned to do.
Too anxious to read, I saw only words jumbled on the page, with no coherence. What’s worse, I couldn’t remember anything I’d read up until this moment, and when I tried to write, only gibberish came out—threads of nonsensical words and phrases that meant nothing, in or out of context, exactly the same way it had happened at Oxford when I was at my worst.
Who’s what, what’s who. Hey!”
Where they make lemons. Where there are demons.
surely someone of my intelligence and discipline should be able to exert more power over herself.
Were they wanting to help me get better, or did they just want me to be socially appropriate?
I’d summon focus and energy to keep the demons
away during a visit, and then go to pieces after friends and family were gone.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, aka the DSM,
But understanding and believing are not the same;
fixed yet false beliefs
hallucinations,
The prognosis: I would largely lose the capacity to care for myself.
The medications worked for some people; they didn’t work for others. They had to be constantly monitored by medical professionals and readjusted.
I would become violent, as the delusions in my head grew more real
to me than reality itself. My psychotic episodes would increase, and last longer; my intelligence would be severely compromised.
by giving me enormous amounts of stimulation and attention at a time when I otherwise could easily have retreated into my own world, under the guise of being a sullen or shy teenager.
constant effort to keep reality on one side and delusions on the other was exhausting,
I wondered aloud if I would ever amount to anything. “Maybe it’s too late,” I said. “Maybe I need to be realistic about my life.”
Piling a lie on top of a secret didn’t feel particularly good, but mental illness comes with a price tag—and I was willing to pay it.
was becoming adept at acting normal even when I wasn’t feeling it.
to me, they meant I wasn’t enough.
The library’s the only safe place, I thought. I’ll go work.
Different bodies respond differently to different medication;
“I don’t think it’s a matter of trying, Elyn. I think it’s a matter of whether you need the meds.
I’m not sick, I just need some help so that I can study.
But I was going to have to find a job. Finish school, navigate the bar exam, and then a job. Some job.
And I’d had to battle some terrible demons even to be consistent at that.
I was excruciatingly uncomfortable speaking up in class, so I rarely, if ever, did.
said that he had no idea of who I was—but that I’d written the...
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replay it repeatedly in my head, before I could effectively shut off the tape that ran almost all the time: There’s been an unfortunate mistake, they’ve confused me with some other student, in fact my true performance was less than stellar, and it’s only a matter of time before everyone finds out the truth.
I’m publishable, I’m not mentally ill at all—which means I don’t need to take medication for the mentally ill. I’m done with this.
When you’re scared, on the verge of a meltdown, you instinctively know to head someplace where you’ll be safe; when you reveal something so intimate as psychosis, you want the witnesses to be people you trust.
your whole life has been the story of you fighting to get whatever you need, and getting it. You’re the quintessential survivor—you’ve found friends, therapists, professors who believe in you. And now you’re about to begin your professional life. I didn’t do that for you—you did it!”
For obvious reasons, I’d become interested in what attributes or characteristics comprised “competency” for people who wanted to decide for themselves to take (or not to take) medication for psychosis.
