This book was so thought-provoking! We as a society tend to cast out anyone with disorders like schizophrenia, so this candid set of essays helped in gaining more empathy and a better understanding 😳 

The part with the most impact for me was when Esmé Wang gets asked to leave Yale University and then the accounts of many other people with disorders that had been ‘asked to leave’ educational institutions due to their fear of a bad image 😫

This quote got me:

I would definitely like to do more research into schizophrenia, having had this book as a catalyst. 3.5 out of 5 stars for me, thank you ✨

Again, this book is very much like a memoir and so I choose to leave it un-rated, but I was fascinated by Wang’s experiences and really appreciated that she was willing to share them so publicly as to write them in a book.  I do my best not to be ableist, but I know I have work to do, and that includes ableism around psychosis and the schizophrenias.  Being invited into the mind of someone with schizoaffective disorder was an incredible opportunity for learning and growth.

I loved Esmé Weijun Wang’s book of essays, The Collected Schizophrenias.  Well-researched yet compact, this book follows Wang’s mental health journey through misdiagnoses, forced hospitalizations, and hallucinations to eventually land upon a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type.  Each chapter follows a few different storylines, a nonlinear examination of Wang’s experiences paired with eloquent cultural commentary and sometimes a bit of data regurgitation to provide context.  This book humanizes the schizophrenias in ways that society, and even mental health practitioners, have repeatedly denied.  Also including the author’s experiences with delayed-onset PTSD and late stage Lyme disease (which is also bafflingly controversial in the medical community)—as well as her loving long-term relationship with her husband—The Collected Schizophrenias is an ultimately hopeful book which grants autonomy and power to those who know its namesake.