The Collected Schizophrenias

Wang’s experiences in a psychiatric hospital after being involuntarily hospitalized are detailed in “On the Ward.” She points out several ironies that exist within the realm of psychiatric hospitals and how these hospitals have done more harm than good over the past century. Wang discusses the origins of the term “asylum,” which originally referred to a place of safety and sanctuary from danger and harm. Through its use in naming psychiatric hospitals “mental asylums,” the word “asylum” has been turned into something which signifies terror, torture, and disturbing secrets. The nefarious nature of psychiatric hospitals is a well-known popular culture trope, albeit often exaggerated and misrepresented.

Wang unwinds some misconceptions about psychiatric hospitals by providing information and facts about them, but she asserts that their bad reputations are not totally untrue; she maintains that both the trauma of being sent there involuntarily and the treatment she endured living there traumatized her. She uses metaphor to describe psychiatric hospitals as akin to prisons: “For those of us living with severe mental illness, the world is full of cages where we can be locked in” (110). This metaphor emphasizes that these facilities often dehumanize their patients, either by treating them poorly or believing them incapable of advocating for themselves. What makes these places particularly unsettling for Wang is the combination of patients experiencing debilitating conditions, all of which affect their cognitions and emotions, and the often-severe side effects from medications they are administered. Since patients with mental disorders are an extremely vulnerable group, they have very little control over what happens to them in hospitals. All of this illustrates How Institutions Fail to Treat and Prevent Mental Illness.

In “On the Ward,” Wang outlines what it is like to live in a psychiatric hospital, especially as a patient with a psychotic disorder. Because Wang is “high functioning,” she is treated somewhat differently than other patients with schizophrenia, but she observes the ways two women with the disorder are neglected and abused. A problem that patients with schizophrenia and related disorders face is the assumption that they are not coherent enough to make decisions about their own treatment; Wang believes this further isolates them, prevents them from trusting doctors, and leads to worsening symptoms.

Wang references a famous moment in history in this essay, in which journalist Nellie Bly infiltrated a “mental asylum” in 1887 and exposed the horrific abuses taking place there. In citing this historical event, Wang draws a line from the past to the present. Although “asylums” no longer exist in their original form, many of the stigmas and resulting behaviors are still prevalent, indicating how Stereotypes and Stigmatization of Mental Disorders came to exist and why they continue to exist. To add credibility to her argument, Wang remains honest and blunt: “I don’t dispute that I was insane in Reno” (100). This honesty builds ethos, and though she often lost touch with reality during that period of her life, she can look back on it with a level of clarity, free from the delusions that once held her hostage.

This essay, like many in the collection, is structured in a semi-disorganized manner, jumping from thought to thought and going backward and forward through time. This style of organization suggests that Wang is willing to illustrate the idiosyncrasies of her mind, creating intimacy with the reader by building her arguments in a way that feels real to her rather than the most logical and orderly manner.