Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

California Law Professor Battles Schizophrenia, Publishes Her Story

A professor of Law at the University of Southern California has recently written a book about her battle with schizophrenia. The book is titled: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.

Following is a description of her story.

Elyn Saks knows all about working hard towards success - she was valedictorian at Vanderbilt University, graduated with honors from Yale Law School, was a Marshall scholar at Oxford and today is a respected legal scholar at University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

And, since adolescence, Saks has battled schizophrenia and acute psychosis. After decades of hiding her illness, Saks has published a memoir about her struggles and successes in The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.

Doctors informed her that no one who suffered from schizophrenia had any hope of professional success; they urged her to drop out of law school. Unwilling to accept this grave prognosis, Saks persevered in her studies. Today, after making significant changes in her life, she has a thriving career and a happy marriage. Her gripping memoir reveals how Saks has managed to salvage a full life from her crippling, incurable mental illness.

For twenty years, Saks refused to accept that she was mentally ill. She struggled alone against paranoia, voices in her head insisting she do terrible things, and the inability to tell imaginary fears from real ones. Only when she came to terms with her diagnosis was she able to explore treatment.

A combination of methods has been crucial to her transformation: regular doses of antipsychotic medicine; psychological therapy; close personal relationships; and an active professional life that keeps her schizophrenic mind focused on meaningful matters.

Up until now, only Saks’ closest friends knew of her condition – which she controls with daily therapy and medication.

“I wanted to write this book to give hope to people who suffer from schizophrenia and understanding to people who don’t, “ said Saks, an expert in the field of mental health law who also holds faculty appointments at the Keck School of Medicine at USC and the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine in the psychiatry departments. “I hope this story will help implode the myths that surround mental illness. And, honestly, it will be nice not to have this secret anymore.”

Schizophrenia affects approximately 1 percent of the world’s population — more than 3 million Americans — and is classified by the National Mental Health Institutes as one of the top 10 causes of disability in the developed world. A disorder of the brain, the illness causes psychotic episodes of varying duration and severity. Symptoms of a psychotic episode range from unusual thoughts or perceptions and inability to form coherent thoughts to delusions and hallucinations.

However ironic, the life of Saks’ mind has been her salvation. Even as her brain attacks her with fear and hallucinations, it also provides the source of her greatest pride and stability — her work. At USC, she throws herself into writing and spends nearly every waking hour in her crowded office in the law school. Since her arrival at USC in 1989, she has been among the school’s most productive and respected scholarly writers.

Edward McCaffery, Robert C. Packard Trustee Chair in Law at USC, was one of the early colleagues Saks confided in.

“Elyn’s contributions to the law school —as a scholar, teacher, colleague, and now associate dean for research — are extraordinary,” McCaffery said. “She’s an extremely competent person who knows how to deal with her illness. There’s nothing to do other than stand and applaud Elyn — and to learn from her.”

Saks was in her 40s before she was able to admit to herself that her illness was not going away, and that medication and psychoanalysis would be necessary for the rest of her life.

“For 20 years I struggled with acceptance... Ironically, the more I accepted I had a mental illness, the less the illness defined me — at which point the riptide set me free,” said Saks.

The book is available for purchase at Amazon.com - at the following link: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

Source: University of Southern California