The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

by Elyn R. Saks

I began to shrink a little inside, even as I was growing taller.

I think of that young girl sometimes, that girl I was. Not yet a teenager, she may well have had admirable willpower; she might have been stubborn, or ferocious, or strong, or fearless—or maybe she was just plain ornery. But one thing she did not have was complete control of what was going on inside her. And she was going to have to learn that the hard way.

I’m not sure there’s a particularly graceful way to inhale one’s first joint. It’s on fire, after all, and there’s ash, and smoke. And of course it’s illegal, so the whole production is vaguely clandestine, even a little nerve-wracking—it’s like you’re being inducted into some kind of secret society, and the tape loop that lists all the dangers of marijuana keeps running through your mind while you’re concentrating very hard on trying not to look stupid or, worse, uncool.

It was around this time that I read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Even though it was fiction, Plath described the central character’s gradual descent into shattering mental illness in a way that could only have come from her own struggles. I identified with it. I identified with her. “I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” That’s me, I thought. She’s me!

In fact, it is not necessarily true that everything can be conquered with willpower. There are forces of nature and circumstance that are beyond our control, let alone our understanding, and to insist on victory in the face of this, to accept nothing less, is just asking for a soul-pummeling. The simple truth is, not every fight can be won.

Tall, geeky, and socially uneasy—

Taking care of myself meant doing more than reading a book or finishing a term paper; it meant strategizing, organizing, keeping track. And some days, there just wasn’t enough room in my head to keep all that together.

And, while the line between creativity and madness can be razor thin (a fact that has been unfortunately romanticized), examining and experiencing the world in a different way can lead to sharp and fruitful insights.

Plus, I was unnerved by the whole idea of the future (and actually having to plan for it). A future meant change, and uncertainty, and I had never been comfortable with either concept. I felt a constant sense of uneasiness, as though the ground under my feet were about to shift. Something had to come next, but what?

I did what I always did whenever my back was against the wall—I gathered up my books and headed for the library.

(And by the way, in my experience, the words “now just calm down” almost inevitably have the opposite effect on the person you are speaking to.)

the highly annoying “I hear you”—in spite of the fact that either he did in fact not hear me, or he did and didn’t much give a damn.

Was my brain the same thing as my mind? Could I hang onto the one while conceding that there was a big flaw in the other?

When you have cancer, people send flowers; when you lose your mind, they don’t.

My good fortune is not that I’ve recovered from mental illness. I have not, nor will I ever. My good fortune lies in having found my life.