The Collected Schizophrenias

Esmé Weijun Wang is the writer of The Collected Schizophrenias. The collection is a combination of personal narratives, references to popular culture and historical events, institutional and statistical analysis, and Wang’s musings on all of the above. Wang was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in her early twenties after living with a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder for several years. As a result of her illness, Wang has experienced a wide array of traumatic events, ranging from her delusions (being dead or thinking she has superpowers) and hallucinations (seeing corpses, her abusive ex, and more) to being discharged from Yale and involuntarily hospitalized three times, to her experiences with the spiritual world and the occult. These experiences shaped the person she became, her ideals, and the way she leads her life, illustrating The Interweaving of Mental Illness With Identity. Wang’s portrayal is honest and informative, with small doses of humor and sarcasm throughout. Wang pairs her experiences with information to lay a solid foundation for the messages she hopes to impart to the reader, including Hope in the Face of Great Challenges, the prevalence and resulting problems of Stereotypes and Stigmatization of Mental Illness, and the ways Institutions Fail to Treat and Prevent Mental Illness.