From a review of three new books about the experience of madness, at New Atlantis:
Elyn R. Saks, in The Center Cannot Hold, brings to light her first intimation of schizophrenic “disorganization,” as she calls it, which occurred when her father reprimanded her for interrupting him while he was working. “Consciousness gradually loses its coherence. One’s center gives way. The center cannot hold. The ?me’ becomes a haze, and the solid center from which one experiences reality breaks up like a bad radio signal. There is no longer a sturdy vantage point from which to look out, take things in, assess what’s happening. No core holds things together, providing the lens through which to see the world, to make judgments and comprehend risk. Random moments of time follow one another. Sights, sounds, thoughts, and feelings don’t go together.” This frightening slippage from normal consciousness first occurred when she was eight, and she knew she could not tell anyone about it.
and
Saks continued to function in the normal world even while she was delusional and hallucinating. “For example, I was getting my schoolwork done, and I vaguely understood the rule that in a social setting, even with the people I most trusted, I could not ramble on about my psychotic thoughts. To talk about killing children, or burning whole worlds, or being able to destroy cities with my mind was not part of polite conversation.” Sometimes she felt so crazy that she would simply lock herself in her room and turn off the lights. The only person in whom she could confide her true state of mind was her psychoanalyst, Elizabeth Jones.
Just reading the review offers a little glimpse in to what the experience of going crazy is like, along with the agonies of feeling defective, alienated from others, and shamefully stigmatized.
