Words on Bathroom Walls

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017

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Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 3 Summary

Adam’s mom drives him to school the first day, and he finds things aren’t too different from his previous school. He meets Ian Stone, his school ambassador who is supposed to show Adam around, but ends up quickly ditching him, Maya Salvador, who has a low opinion of people in general, and Dwight Olberman, who is in most of Adam’s classes and talks a lot. Adam’s biggest struggle is that he has “no frame of reference” for what’s real and what isn’t (17).

Adam’s classes are more or less what he expected. Toward the end of the day, he sees Ian grab a notebook out of a girl’s backpack and throw it in the trash before walking away, looking satisfied. Adam retrieves the notebook and returns it to the girl. Ian sees Adam do this, and the two boys have a stare-down before Ian leaves.

Other than an occasional appearance from Rebecca, Adam experiences no hallucinations. He doesn’t think too much about them because the distance from the visions helps and he’s never had any control over them anyway. He writes that he’ll report the hallucinations when they come. As always, “They’ll show up when they feel like it” (23).

Chapter 4 Summary

A slight increase in Adam’s ToZaPrex dosage puts more distance between him and the hallucinations. At school, he settles into classes and going to mass. One day at church, he feels dizzy. To distract himself, he stares at the windows, which works until “all the figures in the stained glass turned their faces to me” (28). Rebecca looks alarmed, which Adam knows means something isn’t right. Maya sits next to him and asks if he’s all right. When he tells her it’s a headache, she brings him a bottle of water. Every so often, she glances his way, and Adam finally realizes she’s making sure he’s okay. Rebecca smiles at Maya.

At lunch, Adam sits with Dwight, who does most of the talking. Another of Adam’s hallucinations makes an appearance—a group of gangsters. They have a shoot-out in the middle of the cafeteria. Bloody bodies fall to the floor and the mob boss leaves the room. Though the gangsters aren’t new, this is the first time Adam “kept my seat when the guns went off” (36), which feels like progress.

Chapter 5 Summary

In therapy, the psychologist asks about Adam’s father. Adam’s father left when Adam was eight years old, and Adam has never forgiven him. Adam rants about how the psychologist wants Adam to admit his father is the root of his illness, but Adam refuses to do any such thing. His father is not responsible for Adam’s schizophrenia, and Adam won’t blame the man because “you can’t blame a disease on someone” (37).

Chapters 3-5 Analysis

In Chapter 3, Adam discusses having a frame of reference. At a new place, anything could be real or a hallucination, so he relies on observing others to determine what they see. While Adam experiences this difficulty in a unique way, a lack of a frame of reference is not specific to schizophrenia. Any new situation presents unknown elements, and watching how others react as a way of guiding behavior is what neurotypical people usually do. By describing Adam’s unique struggle with telling reality from hallucination as an issue of framing, Walton highlights one of the many ways people with and without mental illness are alike. The challenges people face are the same, but their individual experiences of those challenges are different.

Adam’s hallucinations often know things Adam doesn’t yet consciously understand. This is most often seen through Rebecca’s actions. Rebecca smiling at Maya in church makes Adam and the reader realize that Adam likes Maya, and foreshadows that Maya and Adam will become a couple. It is not known exactly how schizophrenia affects the brain; Rebecca’s insight is one way Walton tries to illustrate how the brain works under schizophrenia’s influence.

Chapter 5 revolves around the desire to find a cause for a disease—something or someone to blame. Research suggests that schizophrenia sometimes develops in response to a traumatic event, such as a parent leaving. The cause of Adam’s schizophrenia is undetermined; perhaps his father’s actions contributed to Adam feeling a lack of stability at home, which may have had an impact on the disease’s development. It is equally possible Adam would have developed the disease if his father hadn’t left. Either way, but Adam refuses to blame his father. Instead, he hangs on to his feelings of anger at his father’s choices as a way of making mental illness not be his entire identity: Adam would have likely been angry at his father for leaving with or without the presence of mental illness.