PEOPLE THAT HAVE WON -- AN ESSAY




KRISTEN HILJ'S ESSAY

What is schizophrenia? It's a murderer of childhood. It's a seven year old cowering below the curtains when no one is watching. It's an apprehensive little girl bravely trying to cover her fear of the twisted hallucination that waits beyond the panes when people are present and there is no place to hide. God forbid, should anyone know. They might blame her imagination again, tell her to learn not to fear her thoughts, and she can't - not yet.

 

What is schizophrenia? It's a slaughterer of innocence. It's an eight year old asking the man in the mirror questions. His face is not her reflection; she HOPES his face is not her reflection. She goes to school and hears the other kids tell jokes about crazy people who talk when no one is there. She laughs with her friends, thinking they must be only kidding, they must talk to their walls too. She can't tell them about her reflection. It's that imagination again; can't she just grow up and manage it?

 

What is schizophrenia? It's a nine year old convinced that she lives somewhere far, far away. It's wondering whether or not there are corpses spread in the grass up on the hill. It's the sudden realization in a sane moment that there is no such grass, that there is no such hill. It's slipping far, far away again and searching diligently through woods and storybooks and "National Geographics" in search of those gentle valleys. She takes out crayons and draws maps of lands that she suspects do not exist, but can never quite be sure. She wants to show somebody, to have him follow her directions and prove to her whether or not the hill is real, whether she can accept the sane moment as the truth. No one has time to follow the silly maps of a little girl with runaway imagination.

 

What is schizophrenia? It's a mask. It's a ten year old in fourth grade with outstanding verbal skills. It's the well-adjusted child who always gets homework done on time. She tells the truth when teachers ask if she's been up to no good. She smiles a lot and draws happy pictures for her friends. She never speaks out of turn. All the other children see her as so mature. The teachers laugh and read the stories she writes and say, "I hope she doesn't lose that imagination when she grows up."

 

What is schizophrenia? It's an eleven year old who gets invited to all the parties but never goes. She always has an excuse, a reason why she can't be there. Sometimes she has to be forced kicking and screaming to a party that her parents find essential that she attend. She is scared of people who love her. She is a huge mystery to her parents, who only see her in the corner in her room, chewing her nails, trying to write it all out on paper and coming up with nothing but foreign symbols that make her cry. She wants to go home where the people speak that language, but to do that she'd have to break the law of gravity. She cries in the corner, and her parents think, "God, is she EVER going to grow up?"




   Next Page