The book The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness was written by Elyn Saks. She narrates her story about her journey with schizophrenic illness, its suffering effects she has experienced throughout her life and how she overcame the illness to become the women she is today (Saks, 2007). The aim of the author writing this book was to encourage people with schizophrenia and show them that they can lead a successful life. The paper will involve review of the book and discussion of one facet of the book, which is schizophrenia and its effects.
Discussion of Schizophrenia and its Effects
Saks was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental disorder that affects a person’s thinking and behavior. It usually presents itself in adolescents or early adulthood ( Nielsen, Lolk & Rodrigo-Domingo et al., 2017) . In the case of Saks, the illness first manifested itself when she was eight years old in the 1960s. The symptoms of the illness were presented in form of night terrors and obsessions. These were the early signs of schizophrenia but at this point, the illness was not noticeable. The event that led to it becoming noticeable was when her first full-blown episode occurred while she was in college presenting itself with hearing voices in her head and disturbing suicidal fantasies.
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There is a common trigger each time that caused Saks condition to become problematic. Example of the common trigger in Saks case was fear, darkness, and stress. According to Nielsen, Lolk and Rodrigo-Domingo et al., (2017) , the main triggers of psychotic episode in people with schizophrenia include emotional or stressful life events. Also, in children, fears and darkness is a common problem but they tend to outgrow it as they grow. However, in people prone to schizophrenia, they never grow out and away from their fears.
Saks was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a severe mental illness. The symptoms that led to the diagnosis include delusions, hallucination, hyperactive behavior, and disorganized speech and behavior. Nielsen, Lolk and Rodrigo-Domingo et al., (2017) indicate that diagnosis of schizophrenia is not it. The doctor has ruled out substance abuse and medications. Also, the typical symptoms of schizophrenia include withdrawal from friends, panic attacks, depression, diminished self-care skills and social skills, but its diagnosis goes beyond these symptoms.
Saks was subjected to various types of treatment including rehab, talk therapy, heart treatment for panic attacks, and psychiatrist but none of these brought good results. What worked was her self-determination in treatment and compliance to prescribed medication. Voluntary treatment contributed significantly towards improving Saks health as opposed to involuntary treatment. Her self-willingness to get better and overcome the illness generated positive results. Nielsen, Lolk and Rodrigo-Domingo et al., (2017) points out that for a patient with schizophrenia to get better quickly, medication is key taken alongside with other types of care including talk therapy, psychotherapy, and social skills.
Saks felt stigmatized by others because of her condition. She felt she was being discriminated by other people including her fellow students in college. She felt as if people were talking about her when she enters or leaves the room and this resulted in her withdrawal from friends and other people. Her condition as well resulted in her developing self-stigma. She felt people could feel she was scared, shy and felt inadequate. She could not speak to others unless she was spoken to because she believed her speaking was bad. Therefore, the stigma and the self-stigma had adverse impact on Saks both physically, emotionally, socially, and psychological.
The family did not take Saks complaints seriously. Her parents simply thought it was Saks imagination and did not do anything about it. Her parents and siblings could not notice something was amiss with her. They did not provide her with the help she needed and contributed to further problems. Therefore, the family played a big role in contributing to her problems because no one was attentive to help her in situation.
Conclusion
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder affecting many people in our society. It is difficult to diagnose schizophrenia with the typical symptoms but it is important for people to have knowledge of the early symptoms. Having awareness of the early symptoms would help the people prone to it to get early treatment and manage the illness effectively and led a healthy life.
References
Nielsen, R. E., Lolk, A., Rodrigo-Domingo, M., Valentin, J. B., & Andersen, K. (2017). Antipsychotic treatment effects on cardiovascular, cancer, infection, and intentional self-harm as cause of death in patients with Alzheimer's dementia. European Psychiatry , 42 , 14-23.
Saks, E. R. (2007). The center cannot hold: My journey through madness . Hachette UK.
