The Collected Schizophrenias

Dazzling ... in her kaleidoscopic essays memoir has been shattered into sliding and overlapping pieces ... mind-expanding The New York Times Book Review . Esmé Weijun Wang was officially diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2013 although the hallucinations and psychotic episodes had started years before that. In the midst of a high functioning life at Yale Stanford and the literary world she would find herself floored by an overwhelming terror that 'spread like blood' or convinced that she was dead or that her friends were robots or spiders were eating holes in her brain. What happens when your whole conception of yourself is turned upside down? When you're aware of what is occurring to you but unable to do anything about it? . Written with immediacy and unflinching honesty this visceral and moving book is Wang's story as she steps both inside and outside of her condition to bring it to light. Following her own diagnosis and the many manifestations of schizophrenia in her life she ranges over everything from how we label mental illness to her own use of fashion and make-up to present herself as high-functioning from the failures of the higher education system to how factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease compounded her experiences. Wang's analytical intelligent eye honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford allows her to balance research with haunting personal narrative. The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core and provides unique insight into a condition long misdiagnosed and much misunderstood.|Esmé Weijun Wang is the author of The Border of Paradise. She received the Whiting Award in 2018 and was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists of 2017. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan and lives in San Francisco.|Wang's story is devastating... she is wise and eloquent and heart-rendingly honest on the effects of the illness|Wang writes about how mental illness is framed both within the medical system and by society...The word [schizophrenia] is often misused and trivialised...Wang's narrative without pulling punches goes a long way to dispelling such views...many would benefit from this book and I highly recommend it both for the author's clarity and ultimately her expression of hope|Fragmented by design the book's structure heightens the immediacy of its testimony|Impressive ... we learn what schizophrenia feels like from the inside. Wang strikes a perfect balance between explanation and implication|In Wang's kaleidoscopic essays memoir has been shattered into sliding and overlapping pieces. . . . The images and insights Wang summons are . . . often dazzling and well worth the reconstructive work. . . . Her multifaceted arguments can be gratifyingly mind-expanding.|[An] utterly unique book of essays: a deep illuminating and explosively written dive into a life of living with mental illness|Wang . . . is an implicitly trustworthy guide to this netherworld of psychosis and chronic illness. . . . Her characteristic nuance more often carries the ring of wisdom hard won|The Collected Schizophrenias is riveting honest and courageously allows for complexities in the reality of what living with illness is like--and we are lucky to have it in the world|[The Collected Schizophrenias is] resoundingly intelligent often unexpectedly funny questioning fearless and peerless as Wang makes for brilliant company on 13 difficult walks through largely uncharted territory|Going beyond her personal story Wang applies her experience as a former lab researcher at Stanford to add an analytical perspective to The Collected Schizophrenias which gives readers an inside look into the often-misunderstood intricacies of mental health|Intimate urgent and powerful. . . . Wang writes generously about the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life . . . and lends her keen analysis to the big ethical questions about how we treat those whose experience of the world differs from ours|Wang writes with lucid clarity. . . . Harrowing and heartfelt.|An intimate rigorously researched collectio|In a voice both laboratorial and poetic Wang examines her own diagnosis as well as her PTSD and Lyme disease with a gentleness and frankness that mesmerizes and demystifies|Wang is a brilliant writer. . . . This intimate essay collection grapples with her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder and all the sorrow and searching that comes with it. Always artful and illuminating never facile|Wang's clear-eyed look into a complicated reality makes this is an essential read for anyone who better wants to understand why we treat each other--and ourselves--so harshly at any display of weakness; it's a book of compassion and brilliance an unflinching look at a topic that has long repelled too many of us.|Esmé Weijun Wang's compelling essays highlight the humanity behind a schizophrenia diagnosis delivering a necessary read tackling mental illness|Wang creates an unforgettable portrait of a singular brain|Wang is a highly articulate and graceful essayist and her insights in both the clinical and general senses are exceptional.|Wang writes brilliantly and beautifully about lives lived with mental illness|In writing about her experiences Wang puts a face to the silent suffering of millions of people. Her searing honesty coupled with the strength of her writing make The Collected Schizophrenias a remarkable look into a little-understood part of the human condition|An illuminating breathtaking look into the underexplored world of schizophrenia with the rare perspective of someone who's actually been there|Wang . . . eloquently balances personal narrative and empirical research to offer a powerful series of insights into a woefully misunderstood world.|This beautifully written work will expand your thinking about severe mental illness and mental illness in general|The Collected Schizophrenias is illumination and important--not only because it educates and challenges--but because it forces us to consider how much we still have to work to undo historical and systematic damage to challenge our own broken misguided partiality towards what it means to be healthy and sane|[The Collected Schizophrenias] organizes the confusion terror and complexity of [Wang's] experience into an imperfectly cohesive profoundly illuminating whole.|Penetrating and revelatory.|This mesmerizing collection of essays has achieved the rarest of rarities--a meaningful and expansive language for a subject that has been long bound by both deep revulsion and intense fascination|A brilliant guide to the complexities of thinking about illness and mental illness in particular. It will bring hope to others searching to understand their own diagnoses|A masterful braiding of the achingly personal and the incisively researched. . . . This book is a vital illuminating window onto the world we all already live in but find all too easy to ignore|You won't find any pity-baiting sensationalism or false positivity here; Wang is so candidly aware that I'd trust her over my own diary|Esmé Weijun Wang offers us an all-access pass to her beautiful unquiet mind. . . Rarely has a book about living with mental illness felt so immediate raw and powerful|The Collected Schizophrenias is at once generous and brilliantly nuanced rigorous and bold. It had me rethinking what it is to be well or ill.|Esmé Weijun Wang sends out revelatory dispatches from an under-mapped land shot like arrows in all directions from a taut bow of a mind. . . . Her work changes the way we think about illness - which is to say that it changes us|'Dazzling ... in her kaleidoscopic essays memoir has been shattered into sliding and overlapping pieces ... mind-expanding' The New York Times Book Review Esmé Weijun Wang was officially diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2013 although the hallucinations and psychotic episodes had started years before that. In the midst of a high functioning life at Yale Stanford and the literary world she would find herself floored by an overwhelming terror that 'spread like blood' or convinced that she was dead or that her friends were robots or spiders were eating holes in her brain. What happens when your whole conception of yourself is turned upside down? When you're aware of what is occurring to you but unable to do anything about it? Written with immediacy and unflinching honesty this visceral and moving book is Wang's story as she steps both inside and outside of her condition to bring it to light. Following her own diagnosis and the many manifestations of schizophrenia in her life she ranges over everything from how we label mental illness to her own use of fashion and make-up to present herself as high-functioning from the failures of the higher education system to how factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease compounded her experiences. Wang's analytical intelligent eye honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford allows her to balance research with haunting personal narrative. The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core and provides unique insight into a condition long misdiagnosed and much misunderstood.