Esmé Weijun Wang

You are told when to sleep and when to wake up. If you spend too much time in your bedroom, it indicates that you’re being antisocial; if you do sit in the common areas, but don’t interact with the other patients, you’re probably depressed or overly inward or perhaps even catatonic. Humans might all be ciphers to one another, but people with mental illness are particularly opaque because of our broken brains; we cannot be trusted about anything, including our own experiences.

Depression is often compared to diabetes—in other words, it’s not your fault if you get it, and you’ll be fine if you just take care of it. Schizophrenia, on the other hand, is compared to Alzheimer’s—it’s still not your fault if you get it, but there’s no fixing it, and though you may not intend to be a burden, you’ll still be one until you die.

The story of schizophrenia is one with a protagonist, “the schizophrenic," who is first a fine and good vessel with fine and good things inside of it, who then becomes misshapen through the ravages of psychosis; the person becomes prone to being filled with things that are not so fine and good. Finally, the wicked thoughts and behavior that may ensue become the vessel itself, which is now unrecognizable as what the protagonist once was.