Personally Speaking – The power of the pen: Writing and recovery
By Steven Pryce
Writing is therapy to me, a way to figure out my life. After many years spent reaching this conclusion, I now submit my published articles and poems about work and recovery to my psychiatrist. It helps us connect. Schizophrenia is complex and it helps me to use different methods to explain what I’m going through and how I am feeling.
I began writing in college, around the same time my symptoms started. I could not stop writing. Looking back, I realized I had hypergraphia, a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write or draw. In my case, writing. I would take all my textbooks to the library, intending to study, but then just write in my journal. It was my way of keeping it a secret.
After college I got a job doing marketing and sales at Prudential in Cleveland, Ohio, but my symptoms became so severe I had to quit. I was constantly paranoid that I was about to get fired. I thought I was going to change the world. Unemployed, I began writing and submitting short stories to publications. I also wrote a political manifesto. Nothing was published. I became a regular at the Post Office and Kinko’s. “More of these,” they would say, holding up my works and then letting them fall on the counter.
After my first hospitalization, my psychiatrist told me that my symptoms were common. I had researched hypergraphia at the library and told him about it, he agreed with my library diagnosis. The medication helped: it seemed to slow down my racing thoughts and I started to write less. I was able to go to work without bringing a notebook.
I found a job at a lumber store. I always reached my sales bonuses, but I still wanted to write. I hauled lumber and hardware and checked out long lines of customers at the cash register. I worked so much I couldn’t do much else. The only time I went to the library was to study for the company training tests we were required to take. So, I saved some money and took some journalism classes at Kent State University in Ohio.
The following summer, I found work as a freelancer at the North Canton Sun Journal, a weekly publication in North Canton, Ohio. I was on the city beat and covered city council meetings and events. It was exciting. In college, I was told that “you never lose your education.” After my schizophrenia diagnosis, I doubted it, but they were right!
After, I landed a job at a daily newspaper for three months. They fired me after I stopped taking my medication. It was too much stress. During the next five years, I struggled. Between jobs, I tried to independently publish my previous writing and some new stories. Again, I became known at the Post Office and Kinko’s.
After my second hospitalization, I gave up writing. It was important for me to keep a job, a “peer” position at a housing agency. I wrote in my journal, but it seemed very basic. Most of the time, I re-wrote my resume or wrote about my job and things I felt I was missing out on. I had one story published on the internet titled “Holding a Job,” after five years at the same job. I read a lot about my illness and recovery.
I also volunteered at NAMI. Another volunteer suggested I write book reviews for the newsletter. It gave me notice in support groups and in the mental health community. My psychiatrist had the newsletters in her waiting room and other patients asked me about my reviews.
My life was improving, and I was writing, but everything I did revolved around mental health. I wanted to see if I could make it at a mainstream job without going back to the hospital. I took an afternoon shift job at a factory. It went well, and I started dating a nursing assistant who worked the night shift at a nursing home.
There was stress, and people often commented that I was different or that I wasn’t telling them everything. Again, I started reading and decided to write stories about recovery. I felt like I needed the support. I liked the stories I read in Treatment Advocacy Center’s publication, Catalyst, and decided I would send my story to them.
Within two weeks, the Communications Department contacted me. They wanted to submit my story to local newspapers. It was exciting, but I had to be open about my illness. With my steady employment history and positive story, I thought it would be worth the risk.
The story was published in the Akron Beacon Journal and as a Personally Speaking Blog. It meant a lot to me because I read Treatment Advocacy Center’s Founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey’s Surviving Schizophrenia during my recovery. It gave me the confidence to join writing groups in Cleveland, Akron and Canton. Now, I have been published in anthologies, newsletters and the Blue Collar Review, a poetry-focused publication.
Currently, I post my stories on Facebook, and get a good response. I hope more people will have positive stories to tell. It makes a difference. “You’re up there now,” my psychiatrist says about my progress. “We don’t have to talk about the bad stuff all the time.”
Steven Pryce is a workshop specialist at United Disability Services, volunteers at the library and supports the local rugby team. He lives independently in North Canton, Ohio.
