This book by Carol North, published in 1987, is subtitled “My triumph over schizophrenia.” The writer is a psychiatrist whose struggles with schizophrenia began when she was six years old and intensified during college and medical school. Hers is one of the few cases in which her illness was cured by dialysis, and she now practices and teaches medicine.

In my cursory research of schizophrenia, I have never seen dialysis mentioned as a treatment. The book’s happy ending is therefore not going to be attainable by most schizophrenics. Although there are quite a few medicines to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia, their side effects are often bad enough that many patients prefer to continue living with their confusion and paranoias.

The book was enormously helpful in understanding the inner life of someone with schizophrenia. In a very matter-of-fact way the author describes the extraordinary activity that was going on in her head and shows how she tried to make sense of the chaos. It is helpful to be aware that while people with schizophrenia often reach confused and erroneous conclusions, they can be founded on very real perceptions.

It struck me how important it was for the author to have people around her. By other people’s reactions to the environment she was able to gauge the reality of her perceptions, and she did this fairly successfully during the healthier periods of her life. Again, I hope this insight can help people in their interactions with people who have this illness. It is important to be patient and kind, realizing that your input is crucial and that any frustration that you have with the person issuing strange statements cannot compare with their own stress and confusion.

I will include an interesting excerpt from the book that shows you how simply and factually the author’s experiences are presented. Here the author has been telling her psychiatrist about the voices that she hears:

“You appear to be having some trouble concentrating on what you’re saying today,” said Dr. Hemingway. “Is there a particular problem?”
“Well, yes. They have sound-effect machines. Like now they are using an Echo Machine that makes both of our voices reverberate, and that bothers me so I can’t think very well. There are other machines like the Barking Dogs Machine and the Helicopter Machine that they can use to produce sounds out of nowhere. Sometimes I can’t tell whether noises are my neighbors or the sound-effect machines.”
I felt creepy talking about the voices. It was like talking about them behind their backs, except even worse because I knew they knew what I was saying about them…
“Do you ever hear your thoughts as if they had been spoken aloud?” Dr. Hemingway asked.
Wow, how does he know about that? Has he been reading my mind? I glared at him.
Finally I responded to his question: “Yes, I hear my thoughts out loud. In lecture. It bothers me.” …
“When was that the last time that happened?”
I felt my skin turning gray and starting to slide off my forearms right there in the psychiatrist’s office. The sensation was so alarming that I couldn’t possibly think to answer his question. It took all my concentration just to hold on to my skin. I was too embarrassed to tell him about my skin problem because I was sure it was a result of mental weakness.
“Is there some reason why you aren’t saying anything?” he asked…
I thought it would probably be better for me to tell him about my skin problem than for him to hear it from the voices or pick it up from my own thought waves. I explained to him that I had been quiet for a minute becasue I had been using all my concentration to keep my forearm skin from sliding off.
He offered up another “Mm-hmm.”

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17.95