Important Books I Think Everyone Should Read #2: The Center Cannot Hold

Hola, Steemians! This is my second installment of books I think are really profound and valuable to the world and everyone should read. My first choice was A People's History of the United States. Today's choice is: The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks.

This is a memoir from a woman with schizophrenia. I think it's so important because of how stigmatized mental illness is in the world, but especially schizophrenia! How many people ignore and shrug off the crazy homeless man on the corner who talks to himself? How many people are shut away in institutions, never to be seen or heard from again? How many people die on the streets because they can't function in the world and no one will help them? How many people are in prison because since we closed down most of the institutions in this country, prison has become the replacement largest mental hospital system? Society is pretty fucking compassionless to mental illness in general, but once you start getting into psychosis, people treat it like it's this scary contagion (side note, one of these installments I'll have to write about History of Madness by Foucault, but I digress). People talk about people with mental illness like their opinions about their own life don't count; they are often considered incompetent to make their own medical decisions. In this country, you can be drugged against your will and tied down to a bed for hours ...because you're ill. And the medical establishment thinks that's what is "best" for you.

What's so different and interesting about this book is not only that it's a voice that is often unheard - not only mental illness, but schizophrenia - but that the author is not the stereotype of a schizophrenic person in the slightest. At the beginning I mentioned all the people who are homeless and locked away, right? Ms. Saks is a LAW PROFESSOR who started having problems when she was a teenager, and yet managed to get her law degree and then go on to teach law at University. Not exactly the crazy homeless man, hey? She describes her episodes of psychosis, when she was on and off meds, how they made her feel, her experiences in psychiatric care both in the US and the UK (side side note, the UK is apparently way more compassionate than we are in the US, no surprise!), and everything in between.

I really want people to read this book and realize that a diagnosis does not make a person, that people need to be treated with kindness and compassion, that if you think it's scary to witness it's way more scary when you feel like the houses are talking to you and the doctors and nurses treat you like you're inhuman so maybe think about the person who is suffering instead of your heebie jeebies, and just really that people are people. I want people to read this book and realize that the homeless guy who talks to himself has a name and a history and his own wants, needs, and thoughts, and maybe at least say hi to him like you would to anyone else you pass on the street instead of avoiding his gaze.

Basically, I want people to read this and be kind. I'm not asking for much, am I? ;)

Let me know what books you wish the world would read in the comments! Be good, Steemians!