Under My Visible Skin: On Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias

True story: having a diagnosis that belongs to the group that Esmé Weijun Wang writes about in The Collected Schizophrenias has left me feeling lonely at times, as if I’m living in a surreal world at others. There’s nothing quite like getting super (and in this case, oddly) upset on a Tuesday afternoon, and then, as a result, hallucinating that the carpet is breathing, only to end up teaching class as planned on Wednesday, dressed in slim jeans, a patterned blouse with a rutched collar, a black blazer, with lip gloss and foundation to boot, to say: My life is maybe not like everyone else’s. (I mention my outfit because using fashion as a way to convey high functioning is one of the many topics Wang addresses in detail. I found myself nodding along quite often as I read this book.) I have so many stories like this, and far worse stories about bona fide, and terrifying, episodes, all amassed over the years as I’ve swung back and forth along the diagnostic pendulum between schizoaffective (quickly, a form of schizophrenia that also includes mood episodes) and bipolar disorder.

As I’ve lived through those years, I’ve encountered all sorts of representations of mental illness in general, and what ails me in particular, in various literature and media. In a few cases, I’ve found something to connect to. (The film Silver Linings Playbook, and the Netflix series Maniac and River, are some examples.) At other times, I’ve only felt more ostracized from myself, and I dare say the world I live in, because what I’ve seen represented has felt false, or worse, only has only added to the ever-present stigma already abundantly present. On top of that, as a reader for a journal, and occasional editor, I’ve sometimes felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of people writing about someone else’s mental illness, whether it be friend or family member. Too often, it has seemed, the voices of those living with serious mental illness aren’t actually the voices being heard. Suffice it to say, I felt only excitement when I learned that Wang, whose novel, The Border of Paradise, I’d read and admired, was coming out with an essay collection addressing schizophrenia. (I already knew we shared a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, which only added to my excitement.) I pre-ordered the book, and come release day, set upon it voraciously as soon as I woke up. And I was not disappointed. Perhaps the best way to describe my experience of reading this book would be to liken it to suddenly finding myself standing in a hallway of half-open doors. Warm light in those rooms, pulsing softly on the other sides of those doors. Cozy light even, if a book of essays about schizophrenia could ever be called cozy. But allow me the word, if only for a moment. You see, the light trickling into that hallway from each room found along that corridor, streaming from the various essays in the collection, is nothing other than the tremulous, murmuring light of being seen.

By writing psychosis from the inside out, as one who has experienced its symptoms and who is able to explain and catalogue them in lucid prose for the reader, Wang serves a dual purpose. She becomes a necessary translator to those who may simply be curious about a condition that no doubt can seem both mysterious and baffling, or who are desperate to understand what a friend or family member diagnosed with one of the schizophrenias might be going through. But she also reminds the reader just how complex mental illness is. Why complex? Because it happens to a person. Wang, after all, is a creative individual living her life as an author, mental health advocate, and entrepreneur. She also deals with psychosis and discusses in essays on a wide range of topics how illness and personhood intertwine and bind. In The Collected Schizophrenias, Wang writes intelligently and ably about complex family dynamics, issues surrounding deciding whether or not to have children (informed and complicated by the knowledge that she has a mental illness that may not only have a genetic component but could also very well make it at times impossible to care for a child), her use of fashion to signal high-functioning, medication, hospitalization, the experience of psychosis, her Lyme disease diagnosis and the role it could possibly have in exacerbating and/or causing her schizoaffective disorder, her embrace of the sacred arts as part of her healing journey, and issues surrounding diagnosis. And yes, through it all, Wang is someone who can and does form and live within relationships to both the world around her and to those she loves and is loved by in turn. (That being said, Wang’s description of the prodromal stage of psychosis, too long to quote here, definitely gave me the impression…and again, I’m also bringing the entire wealth of my own experience to my reading of this…that maybe the world, or perhaps better put, our ability to perceive that world as it is, can be said to betray a person.)

I’ll wind down to the end of this response with another true story: At one point while reading, I found myself suddenly so reminded of something from my own life that I put down the book for an entire day. I was reading an essay in which Wang describes being in a hotel room alone, becoming frightened of her face, and having to cover all the mirrors with towels. Huh, I thought. And then, two words came crashing into my brain. THE FACES. For some reason, Wang’s essay reminded me of a period of my life when I was especially paranoid and envisioned faces with menacing eyes staring out at me, following me from every surface. The memory made me feel weird and sad. It’s been so long since I’ve been genuinely ill (knock on wood!) that it’s become easy to pretend I don’t bear an entire suit of scar tissue from past episodes under my visible skin. But I do. In the end, I realized, the uncomfortable feeling I was sitting with, triggered by Wang’s essay, was something akin to grief. For the person I’d been, terrorized by symptoms and more than a little lost. I even had a mild cry about it all, which turned out to ultimately be pretty cleansing, as tears so often are. And thus it became apparent that, on top of all the wonderful things Wang’s essay collection is, it might also, for some of us, be a healing book. (Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay.) Healing, as reading this book gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own life and the sheer weight of what I have survived. Because here’s another truth: any one of the schizophrenia diagnoses is not a good thing. They make life harder, sometimes almost unbearable. And yet Wang’s act of translating experience into language is an act of survival. For many of us, reading and finding ourselves, or some aspect of ourselves, in these pages is another such act. As if to say: we are here; we are not invisible. In closing, in the pages of The Collected Schizophrenias, Esmé Weijun Wang explains what sometimes feels unexplainable, makes accessible what may often feel inaccessible to the uninitiated, and both holds space with and lights the way for others in similar circumstances.

RESPONDING TO THE COLLECTED SCHIZOPHRENIAS BY ESMÉ WEIJUN WANG was originally published in Anomaly on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.