Saks

Elyn Saks says she stopped hiding her struggle with schizophrenia for two reasons: to give hope to people who suffer from the disorder and understanding to those who don't.

The Los Angeles professor tried to keep the secret for years while she climbed the academic ladder, graduating first in her class at Vanderbilt University, earning degrees at the University of Oxford and Yale Law School, rising to associate dean at USC's law school.

Then she decided to share her story in unflinching detail in a book published last year, "The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness."

Saks spoke Friday in Oxnard, where almost 400 mental health professionals and relatives of the mentally ill gave her a standing ovation at a mental health conference.

"My good fortune is not having recovered from mental illness," she told the crowd. "I have not and will not. My good fortune is in finding my life."

Schizophrenia affects more than 2 million adults in the nation, causing hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking and social withdrawal. Many become severely disabled, with some estimates showing half never recover to the point they can live independently.

The author, though, said there are an unknown number of people like herself. Experts at UCLA and USC are studying people with successful careers and schizophrenia, she said.

Saks underwent her first psychotic experience as a teenager, when she was walking home. She noticed the colors and shapes around her were "very intense," and the houses seemed to be putting thoughts in her head.

She didn't get treatment, but managed to earn straight A's at Vanderbilt, where her studies helped her stay focused. But at Oxford she was underweight at 95 pounds on a 5-10 frame, depressed and isolated.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to talk," she said.

As the illness emerged, she imagined that she would be burned at the stake as a witch.

She saw "a face and hair gone wild the visage of someone on the back ward of a mental hospital." She burned herself with cigarette lighters and boiling water.

"The choice seemed clear: drugs or death," she said.

Saks was hospitalized twice in England, and found the care there more humane than in the United States, where her legs and arms were tied to a bed with leather straps for most of the day.

She opposes the use of physical restraints, which, she said, England abandoned more than 200 years ago. They may only be permissible when someone is threatening to harm someone else, she said.

They cause "horrible" pain, have been linked to fatalities, are degrading and may deter people from seeking treatment, she said.

Saks said she benefited from psychoanalysis and effective medication, as well as satisfying work and the support of her husband.

To ease the stigma of mental illness, she called for more people like herself to share their stories and the media to responsibly report on the subject.

The reception to her book has been gratifying, she said afterward, with nearly everyone being loving and supportive.

"I don't have to have a big secret anymore."