The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

by Elyn R. Saks

While medication had kept me alive, it had been psychoanalysis that had helped me find a life worth living.

Ironically, the more I accepted I had a mental illness, the less the illness defined me—at which point the riptide set me free.

Taking off your clothes can feel like taking off armor; revealing vulnerability feels dangerous. And even the sanest person has to admit that the physical experience of orgasm is disorienting, even somewhat hallucinogenic—for me, that letting-go, falling-through-space feeling hadn’t always been good. When space looks suspiciously like an abyss, and “losing yourself” can equal psychosis, ceding control can be terrifying.