Elyn R. Saks - The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

I T'S TEN O'CLOCK on a Friday night. I am sitting with my two classmates in the Yale Law School Library. They aren't too happy about being here; it's the weekend, after allthere are plenty of other fun things they could be doing. But I am determined that we hold our small-group meeting. We have a memo assignment; we have to do it, have to finish it, have to produce it, have to...Wait a minute. No, wait. "Memos are visitations," I announce. "They make certain points. The point is on your head. Have you ever killed anyone?"

My study partners look at me as if theyor Ihave been splashed with ice water. "This is a joke, right?" asks one. "What are you talking about, Elyn?" asks the other.

"Oh, the usual. Heaven, and hell. Who's what, what's who. Hey!"

I say, leaping out of my chair. "Let's go out on the roof!"

I practically sprint to the nearest large window, climb through it, and step out onto the roof, followed a few moments later by my reluctant partners in crime. "This is the real me!" I announce, my arms waving above my head. "Come to the Florida lemon tree! Come to the Florida sunshine bush! Where they make lemons. Where there are demons. Hey, what's the matter with you guys?"

"You're frightening me," one blurts out. A few uncertain moments later, "I'm going back inside," says the other. They look scared. Have they seen a ghost or something? And hey, wait a minutethey're scrambling back through the window.

"Why are you going back in?" I ask. But they're already inside, and I'm alone. A few minutes later, somewhat reluctantly, I climb back through the window, too.

Once we're all seated around the table again, I carefully stack my textbooks into a small tower, then rearrange my note pages. Then I rearrange them again. I can see the problem, but I can't see its solution. This is very worrisome. "I don't know if you're having the same experience of words jumping around the pages as I am," I say. "I think someone's infiltrated my copies of the cases. We've got to case the joint. I don't believe in joints. But they do hold your body together." I glance up from my papers to see my two colleagues staring at me. "I...I have to go," says one. "Me, too," says the other. They seem nervous as they hurriedly pack up their stuff and leave, with a vague promise about catching up with me later and working on the memo then.

I hide in the stacks until well after midnight, sitting on the floor muttering to myself. It grows quiet. The lights are being turned off. Frightened of being locked in, I finally scurry out, ducking through the shadowy library so as not to be seen by any security people. It's dark outside. I don't like the way it feels to walk back to my dorm. And once there, I can't sleep anyway. My head is too full of noise. Too full of lemons, and law memos, and mass murders that I will be responsible for. I have to work. I cannot work. I cannot think.

The next day, I am in a panic, and hurry to Professor M., pleading for an extension. "The memo materials have been infiltrated," I tell him. "They're jumping around. I used to be good at the broad jump, because I'm tall. I fall. People put things in and then say it's my fault. I used to be God, but I got demoted." I begin to sing my little Florida juice jingle, twirling around his office, my arms thrust out like bird wings.

Professor M. looks up at me. I can't decipher what that look on his face means. Is he scared of me, too? Can he be trusted? "I'm concerned about you, Elyn," he says. Is he really? "I have a little work to do here, then perhaps you could come and have dinner with me and my family. Could you do that?"

"Of course!" I say. "I'll just be out here on the roof until you're ready to go!" He watches as I once again clamber out onto a roof. It seems the right place to be. I find several feet of loose telephone wire out there and fashion myself a lovely belt. Then I discover a nice long nail, six inches or so, and slide it into my pocket. You never know when you might need protection.

Of course, dinner at Professor M.'s does not go well. The details are too tedious; suffice it to say that three hours later, I am in the emergency room of the Yale-New Haven Hospital, surrendering my wire belt to a very nice attendant, who claims to admire it. But no, I will not give up my special nail. I put my hand in my pocket, closing my fingers around the nail. "People are trying to kill me," I explain to him. "They've killed me many times today already. Be careful, it might spread to you." He just nods.

When The Doctor comes in, he brings backupanother attendant, this one not so nice, with no interest in cajoling me or allowing me to keep my nail. And once he's pried it from my fingers, I'm done for. Seconds later, The Doctor and his whole team of ER goons swoop down, grab me, lift me high out of the chair, and slam me down on a nearby bed with such force I see stars. Then they bind both my legs and both my arms to the metal bed with thick leather straps.

A sound comes out of me that I've never heard beforehalf-groan, half-scream, marginally human, and all terror. Then the sound comes out of me again, forced from somewhere deep inside my belly and scraping my throat raw. Moments later, I'm choking and gagging on some kind of bitter liquid that I try to lock my teeth against but cannot. They make me swallow it. They make me.

I've sweated through my share of nightmares, and this is not the first hospital I've been in. But this is the worst ever. Strapped down, unable to move, and doped up, I can feel myself slipping away. I am finally powerless. Oh, look there, on the other side of the door, looking at me through the windowwho is that? Is that person real? I am like a bug, impaled on a pin, wriggling helplessly while someone contemplates tearing my head off.

Someone watching me. Something watching me. It's been waiting for this moment for so many years, taunting me, sending me previews of what will happen. Always before, I've been able to fight back, to push it until it recedesnot totally, but mostly, until it resembles nothing more than a malicious little speck off to the corner of my eye, camped near the edge of my peripheral vision.

But now, with my arms and legs pinioned to a metal bed, my consciousness collapsing into a puddle, and no one paying attention to the alarms I've been trying to raise, there is finally nothing further to be done. Nothing I can do. There will be raging fires, and hundreds, maybe thousands of people lying dead in the streets. And it will allall of itbe my fault.