“In this bleak abyss the key is to not be afraid, because fear, though inevitable, only compounds the awful feeling of being lost.”

In her opening essay, Wang stresses The Importance of Hope and Perseverance in the Face of Great Challenges. She foreshadows the struggles that she faces during the height of her mental illness and illuminates how easy it is to become lost within one’s own mind.

“These are what I call explanations, rather than causes, because embedded within spiritual narratives are ideas about Why with a capital W, providing larger, more-cosmic reasons for the schizophrenias to occur.”

Wang explores the benefits and downfalls of spirituality as it relates to schizophrenia. Since schizophrenia is a disorder that leaves people especially vulnerable to influence and delusion, it is tempting for people involved in the occult to use that as an access point into their lives. Furthermore, people who work in these fields also tend to place a special significance on schizophrenia, ignoring its biological roots and never offering an actual cause.

“The burden of care becomes the burden that breaks people.”

In discussing Malcoum Tate, a man with schizophrenia who was murdered by his own sister and mother, Wang laments the ways that media and organizations like NAMI focus on the families of people with disorders rather than the person with the disorder themselves. Still, she acknowledges the powerful influence of mental illness on families and regrets how this can result in violence or distress.