A Schizophrenic Will: A Story of Madness, A Story of Hope

A Schizophrenic Will: A Story of Madness, A Story of Hope

By William Jiang, MLS

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 William Jiang, MLS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acclaim for A Schizophrenic Will

Intro to Will’s Bio by Leaf Jiang, PhD

Chapter 1: How far down does this rabbit hole go?

Chapter 2: A Trying Time in a Young Life, Stony Brook Hospital, Room 1010

Chapter 3: My Beginnings

Chapter 4: A Promising Young Life

Chapter 5: Giving it the Old College Try: Stony Brook University

Chapter 6: The Rough Ride Through Stony Brook

Chapter 7: Back to Bedlam

Chapter 8: Being Doomed to be Free

Chapter 9: Picking up the Pieces of a Shattered Life

Chapter 10: Picking Myself up by my Bootstraps, as Best as I Could

Chapter 11: The Thirst for Knowledge and Hope for the Future are Again Engaged: Graduate School at Queens College

Chapter 12: Seroquel: Strength and a Brush with Death

Chapter 13: New York City Voices: Finding that I Still Can Work

Chapter 14: A Librarian is Made: Kingsborough Community College

Chapter 15: Career Combined with Helping Others in my Shoes: New York State Psychiatric Institute

Epilogue

Appendix: Making It Through College With A Mental Illness

About The Author, William Jiang, MLS

Connect with William Jiang, MLS

Other Exciting Books by William Jiang, MLS

Book Teaser: Guide to Natural Mental Health: Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression, Schizophrenia, and Digital Addiction: Nutrition, and Complementary Therapies, 3rd Edition By William Jiang, MLS

Acclaim for A Schizophrenic Will

A talented ambitious young student is afflicted by the most dread mental illness in the prime of his life. This first person account describes this all too common occurrence but what is unique is how he reacts to this adversity and his courageous and successful journey to recovery. Will Jiang’s impressive and moving story is reminiscent of other similar first person accounts of personal struggle and triumph over mental illness including Elyn Saks’ The Center Cannot Hold and Temple Grandin’s Thinking In Pictures: and Other Reports from My Life with Autism. Will’s story will be similarly informative and inspirational to everyone who has the good fortune to read it.

Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D.

President, American Psychiatric Association

Lawrence E. Kolb Professor and Chairman

Department of Psychiatry

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

Director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute

In A Schizophrenic Will, William Jiang tells a riveting and compelling story about his struggles with schizophrenia and his emergence at the other end with a good and productive and gratifying professional and personal life. He also gives advice to other consumers, e.g. on navigating college, and who knows better than someone who’s lived through it himself? Jiang’s story should help people understand what schizophrenia is like and in the process destigmatize an illness that is badly in need of destigmatization.

Elyn Saks, J.D., Ph.D. USC Gould School of Law, Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences

Award Winning Author, The Center Cannot Hold

With an incredible strength of will William Jiang describes his life dealing with one of the hardest conditions to live with: Schizophrenia. Again and again he fights against the disease and despite all odds secures a professional career and fulfilled life. A must read for any person coping with Schizophrenia, whether you are a sufferer, relative, friend, physician or a scientist working on mental disorders.

Christoph Kellendonk Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Pharmacology in Psychiatry

Columbia University

Will Jiang’s experiences as detailed in his book are a wonder to read and can help you to understand schizophrenia better. I highly recommend it.

Dan Frey, B.A. Former Editor-in-Chief

New York City Voices, a Journal for Mental Health Advocacy

This inspirational story is a great read for anybody, but family and friends of those suffering with schizophrenia will especially find it useful for learning what it is like to live with schizophrenia.

Leaf Jiang, Ph.D., Brother

William Jiang's extraordinary chronicle of his life is at once arresting, horrifying, challenging and inspiring. Obviously Will Jiang is a brilliant young handsome man born prematurely to an Anglo-Saxon mother and an absentee Russian Jewish father and later adopted by his Chinese stepfather Yu Jiang: the inordinately touching memories of and tributes from his brothers Leaf, Chung and Justice as well as comments introduced in his preface form an impressive list of people attest to the fact that this is a unique young man.

But the reason this autobiography is so deeply moving is the fact that Will Jiang was diagnosed at age 19 as a paranoid schizophrenic and given the fact that he is well educated (has earned a BA and ad Masters of Library Science, speaks four languages, served as the Columbia University/NYSPI Medical Library Chief, and has written a number of fine books), the manner in which he is able to not report as a bystander the workings of the mind sinking into psychotic depths but instead relating to the reader the feeling of that descent , treatment, horrors, and eventual recovery is nothing short of astonishing.

This book takes us by the hand and walks us through the first suggestions of mental illness, plunges us into the moment by moment nightmares that assault the mind of a schizophrenic patient, makes us feel the effects of the medications and treatments, and then beckons us into the light and his own discovery of natural nutritional techniques that help heal the brain. It is an odyssey, reading this book, but it is also a journey lead by a guide who knows each aspect of it well.

Will Jiang writes so well that it is hoped he will embrace his gift for his literary talent and continue writing major works. He is an extraordinary man who is doing more to educate the public about the world of the mentally ill victims while providing a brilliant beacon of hope. Highly Recommended.

Mr. Grady Harp

Amazon Hall of Fame top 100 Reviewer, Vine Voice

A Schizophrenic Will: A Story of Madness, A Story of Hope

By William Jiang, MLS

Introduction

By Leaf Jiang, PhD

My older brother, Will, and I have been close throughout our lives. As kids, our aunt described us as two peas in a pod. We played together all the time; whether it was handball, role-playing games, basketball, boxing, play-fighting, or computer games, we had fun and he always included me in his activities with his friends. Will was certainly the pathfinder of this duo, figuring things out and showing me the way. When Will went off to college, I saw how hard he worked -- one (sometimes two) full time jobs with a declared double-major. Before his first breakdown in college, he was 49-chin-up strong, read-more-than-one-book-a-day bright, vibrant, and driven.

The topic of my college entrance essay for MIT was to describe who the most influential person in my life was and how he has shaped me. I wrote about Will and how his work ethic inspired me to work hard and eventually graduated as salutatorian from Stuyvesant High School in New York City, arguably one of the most competitive public high schools in the United States. Even after Will’s breakdown, he was a source for inspiration, help, and support. I remember Will getting me my first academic summer job after my freshman year at MIT. He literally walked through NYU’s physics department and knocked on all the professors’ doors, asking if they needed an intern. I don’t think many brothers would do that for each other.

I remember Will after his first breakdown as an undergraduate at Stony Brook University and being locked up in their mental ward. The future was uncertain at that time and it wasn’t clear if we would ever get Will back. When I visited Will in the ward, he looked like he dropped in weight by 50 lbs, had bruises on his face, and was noticeably uncomfortable. Later, I learned about the paranoid thoughts that lead him there. Even with mind-numbing medication, Will was still able to graduate from college.

It took several years of medication and psychiatric hospital visits before Will figured out what medications and doses worked for him. In the meantime, he earned a masters degree in library science. Excessive thinking, like the thinking that one does when studying or trying to understand complex things, triggers his illness. It is remarkable that he was able to drive himself through school mentally, when all he really could have done was just lie back and let the government checks come in the mail, and when the very act of educating himself was potentially dangerous because it could set off his illness. His masters degree was an admirable achievement.

After graduate school, Will became involved with mental health publications (New York City Voices), was the best man at my wedding, and is working as a librarian. We still keep in touch and it always brings a smile to my face when he tells me that I’m not paid what I’m worth. I am proud to be his brother and I hope that you find Will’s story inspiring because being a part of it has greatly inspired me.

Chapter 1: How far down does this rabbit hole go?

My brain now needed to work faster. I was taking twenty-three credit hours that included Advanced Physics I, Computer Data Structures, History of the English Language, Chinese, and several other difficult classes. The previous month I had taken 9 credit hours in an intense period that spanned four weeks. The courses included microeconomics, Intermediate French II, and one other class. Was this healthy? Yes, I suppose. But, I soon discovered that my total immersion in academics was a double-edged sword.

That morning I went to the administration building to check up on my attempts to make the government recognize me as a self-supporting adult. To put myself through college, I had been working as a janitor for two years. This was very exhausting in light of the academic load I carried. I desperately wanted to qualify for federal educational grants so I could continue my studies without having to work as a janitor, scrubbing toilets five days a week. I wanted to be able to concentrate exclusively on my studies.

I remember the financial aid officer’s name. When I asked her about the grants and about how much money I would be receiving for the academic year, she replied, None. I was devastated. It was just like the previous two years. Your parents make too much money to qualify you to receive financial aid, she explained. I was floored. I told her I had been self-supporting for two years, and I asked her why the school still considered me a dependent. I didn’t understand. I must have expressed some sort of strange reaction because Delores came out from behind the counter to see if I was ok. I assured her that I was fine. That’s when the first paranoid thoughts came to my head. They know! They know I’ve been getting a few thousand each year from mom. They know. I’ve got to keep quiet about this, I thought. I didn’t know who I might have pissed off in the government.

Still reeling, I walked to the Student Union. Despite not qualifying for grant money, I still needed to eat, and I had to sign up for a meal plan. So, I quietly stood in line holding my student lunch form in my hand and waited for my picture to be taken. I remember my feelings of paranoia. With each passing minute, the intensity of the feelings increased, and I was scared. When it was my turn to have my photo taken, the food services woman asked me which meal plan I wanted. It was an easy question, but at that moment, it wasn’t simple for me. In my paranoid state, everything had more meaning than it was supposed to. Thinking that she was testing me, I hesitated. She said in a louder, impatient voice, Which lunch plan do you want to sign up for? I blurted something out, and I guess it satisfied her. I put on my glasses when they took my picture for the ID so that whoever was after me would not recognize me from behind the light tinted lenses. I remember the look of distraction and fear in my eyes when I later looked at the ID photo. The day was off to a terrible start.

Later that day, I was riding in the car of one of my Chinese friends. A fear of Chinese gangsters suddenly took possession of me. I realize now that I was delusional, but I was convinced that my friends that I had known for two years were Asian gangsters. I also thought they were going to drive me to some isolated spot and put a bullet into my brain. To escape, I would have to act fast and think smart. So, I told them I was not feeling well and to drive me to Stony Brook University Hospital. We were about a mile away, and I felt I would be safe and not be killed by them there. They couldn’t trick me to leave the hospital, because I knew if they did, I would die. They would erase me from the pages of life.

At Stony Brook University Hospital, I was quickly admitted, and I was relieved when I was put in a room behind a large steel door with a small glass window. I felt safe. I looked at the clock. It was 4pm. Good. I could get out soon, and go to the police to tell them what was going on with the gangsters who were in league with some sick government plot to take away financial aid from college students. Then I thought, the police? What if some of them were crooked? A journalist for the New York Times would probably be a better choice. It must be an immense conspiracy if the gangsters could actually reach out to Stony Brook.

A teenager who looked like a rebellious, drug user was in the room with me. He had messy hair and wore a black T-shirt with ripped jeans. He began talking to me about his exploits with drugs. I spoke with him for a few moments. But, I wasn’t going to try to befriend that guy. No way. I was too cautious about my health to become involved with the subculture of drugs and to expose myself to some awful disease.

There was a quiet guy in the room. I tried to talk to him, but he just remained quiet. I thought that was odd. Eventually, I left him alone. About an hour into the hospitalization I began to relax. Then, staff brought a tall black guy into the room. He was a scary dude. Why was he scary? He just stood in the middle of the room and jerked his body around while standing in the same place. His clothes were a mess-- all wet. And after a few more