The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

by Elyn R. Saks

In spite of my ongoing difficulties ever since undergraduate school (and, in all likelihood, even before that), I hadn’t ever really thought of myself as “ill”—not at Vanderbilt, or even at Oxford, when I was obviously delusional. I truly believed that everyone had the scrambled thoughts I did, as well as the occasional breaks from reality and the sense that some unseen force was compelling them to destructive behavior. The difference was, others were simply more adept than I at masking the craziness, and presenting a healthy, competent front to the world. What was “broken” about me, I thought, was my inability to control my thoughts and fantasies, or to keep from expressing them. In reading everything about mental illness that I could get my hands on, I wasn’t looking for a diagnosis per se as much as I was looking for an explanation for my behavior, which obviously wasn’t acceptable. I thought that if I could figure it out, I could conquer it. My problem was not that I was crazy; it was that I was weak.