The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness Read Free Page B

haven't felt it themselves, they've at least seen a movie,
or read a book, or talked to a frightened friend—they can at least
imagine it. But explaining what I've come to call "disorganization" is a
different challenge altogether. Consciousness gradually loses its
coherence. One's center gives way. The center cannot hold. The "me"
becomes a haze, and the solid center from which one experiences
reality breaks up like a bad radio signal. There is no longer a sturdy
vantage point from which to look out, take things in, assess what's
happening. No core holds things together, providing the lens through
which to see the world, to make judgments and comprehend risk.
Random moments of time follow one another. Sights, sounds,
thoughts, and feelings don't go together. No organizing principle takes
successive moments in time and puts them together in a coherent way
from which sense can be made. And it's all taking place in slow
motion.
    Of course, my dad didn't notice what had happened, since it was
all happening inside me. And as frightened as I was at that moment, I
intuitively knew this was something I needed to hide from him, and
from anyone else as well. That intuition—that there was a secret I had
to keep—as well as the other masking skills that I learned to use to
manage my disease, came to be central components of my experience
of schizophrenia.

    One early evening, when I was about ten, everyone else was out of the
house for a while, and for some reason I can't recall now, I was there
all alone, waiting for them to come home. One minute it was sunset;
the next, it was dark outside. Where was everybody? They said they'd
be back by now...Suddenly, I was absolutely sure I heard someone
breaking in. Actually, it wasn't so much a sound as a certainty, some
kind of awareness. A threat.
    It's that man , I said to myself. He knows there's no grown-ups
here, he knows I'm here alone. What should I do? I'll hide in this
closet. Must be quiet. Breathe softly, breathe softly.
    I waited in the closet, gripped with fear and surrounded by the
dark, until my parents came home. It was probably an hour, but it felt
like it went on forever.
    "Mom!" I gasped, opening the closet door and making them both
jump. "Dad! There's someone inside the house! Did you see him? Are
you both OK? Why...why were you gone so long?"
    They just looked at each other, and then my father shook his head.
"There's no one here, Elyn," he said. "Nobody's come into the house.
It's your imagination."
    But I insisted. "No, no, I heard him. There was someone. Go look,
please." Sighing, my father walked through the house. "There's
nobody there." It wasn't reassuring so much as it was dismissive. My
feelings about imminent danger never stopped, but talking about it to
my parents did.
    Most children have these same fears, in an empty house or empty
room, or even in a familiar bedroom that suddenly looks strange once
the lights go out. Most grow out and away from their fears, or manage
somehow to put their rational minds between themselves and the
bogeyman. But I never could do that. And so, in spite of the spirited
competitions I had with my brothers, or my good grades, or the
powerful way I felt when I was on water skis or on a bike, I began to
shrink a little inside, even as I was growing taller. I was certain people
could see how scared I felt, how shy and inadequate. I was certain
they were talking about me whenever I came into a room, or after I'd
walked out of one.
    When I was twelve years old, and painfully self-conscious about
the weight that puberty was adding to my frame (and the height that
had suddenly come along with it, as I headed toward six feet tall), I
purposefully went on a crash diet. By then, my parents had given up
bread entirely; they spoke constantly about the need to count calories,
the need to maintain an attractive, healthy, and lean body. Being
overweight was considered a bad thing—it was unattractive; it
indicated that someone was either