MENTAL HEALTH AND LITERATURE

My relationship with books and literature has always been affectionate. I have shared these moments when I have fun. They have been my companions in endless adventures. Every book I've read has taught me something. A new word, a thought or an idea that previously had no knowledge. For me the books have been friends. I read once in "The English and the dancer" that a book is a friend waiting. Much of the time I have devoted to live and I have done with books sharing my concerns and my time. I have devoted much of my reading and has been a compelling reason in my life.

So I want to emphasize at this table coexistence of mental health and literature for me as mentally ill and as a person with experience in life, as a person who has a story to tell, literature has helped me to find out better my disease.

When I realized that my thinking was conditioned by the disease, I went to my psychiatrist to explain that I had some ideas that were di

fferent from the rest of the people. Then my psychiatrist diagnosed me paranoid schizophrenia. Then I went to go to my regular reviews, this time accompanied by my mother. The psychiatrist asked me who spent my time. I told him that much of what he did during the day was for the afternoon reading. I warned that this was not a good idea, that it was detrimental to my recovery. It was an activity that caused me to do it isolation from others.

Obviously I did not listen. My illness to make me feel comfortable reading, although this could be harmful. I do not say that my psychiatrist was wrong. Maybe he thought a young boy of twenty what he had to do was interact with other kids twenty years and enjoy all the wonderful thing that can be enjoyed when one is twenty years. But I had other plans for my recovery as mentally ill. Preferred reading. Share my time with books and live in a different way what for me would formative years.

What I mean is that if we think we can read back against the mentally ill because this has to do it alone and this can cause isolation.

We are not giving importance to training. Curricula mark guidelines but not everything is included in these plans. There is a large body of knowledge that can only be achieved through reading. Read books and novels makes increase our cultural heritage and know experiences that otherwise would not get.

I say mentally ill as part of my recovery and part of my lifestyle has been linked to reading and literature. There are other patients who turn to other activities, such as sports. Here is the chance to interact more with others. I was not looking for more friends than books. Relied more on a novel that in the people around me. Felt less delusions when I was reading that when my time spent interacting with others. This was what my psychiatrist was concerned that the disease was face as I had interdependent relations. I have to say I hid behind the books for the first ten years of my illness accompany me.

Pedro.