Words on Bathroom Walls

“The whole seeing and hearing things that other people can’t is like something straight out of Harry Potter. Like in The Chamber of Secrets when he heard the voice through the walls. Keeping it a secret made me feel privileged, like waiting for my letter from Hogwarts to arrive. I thought maybe it would mean something.

But then Ron ruins that possibility when he says, ‘Hearing voices no one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world.’ Harry ended up being fine. Nobody sent him to therapy or tried to give him pills. He just got to live in a world where everything he thought he’d heard and seen turned out to be real. Lucky bastard.”

These lines from Adam’s thoughts show the disconnect between mental illness and fantasy fiction. There is nothing mystical or necessarily meaningful about the symptoms of schizophrenia or any other mental illness—the hallucinations Adam sees aren’t prophetic or symbolic. By contrast, fantasy fiction often incorporates the symptoms of mental illness into magic systems, falsely glorifying these diseases. In this way, fantasy fiction establishes the harmful and incorrect idea that mental illness is somehow associated with magic and the fantastic.

“By now, training myself to behave a certain way no matter how I’m feeling is second nature. Church is for people who believe in things they can’t see. Life for me is about seeing things I probably shouldn’t believe in. So there’s a nice symmetry there.”

In this passage, Adam has taught himself not to react to what he sees, wearing a mask to hide his reality from the shared reality. This forced behavior is harmful: Rather than being himself, Adam must appear “normal” to be treated like a person, rather than a danger. The comparison between Adam’s hallucinations and religion is interesting: Whereas religious belief in the unseen is socially acceptable because it is shared by many, Adam is not “supposed to” believe in his hallucinations because only he can see them.

“‘Why so long, my son?’ He was a fill-in priest with an Irish accent who says mass for Father Benjamin sometimes. I hate when people say ‘my son’ to people who are not their son. It’s creepy. But he is legitimately Irish, which makes him slightly more interesting than the average American priest. Kind of like a leprechaun who grants wishes. I imagined him saying, They’re always after me Lucky Charms, and tried to feel guilty about it. But I didn’t. That shit is hilarious.”

Adam stereotypes a priest with an Irish accent, imagining the man saying the iconic line of the Lucky Charms cereal mascot. The novel explores the harm of stereotyping through various responses to Adam’s schizophrenia. This passage allows Adam to do his own mocking via stereotype, grounding him in standard teenage humor.

“Most people are afraid of themselves, Adam. They carry that fear everywhere hoping no one will notice.”

In response to someone picking on Adam at school, his great-uncle Greg explained to Adam that fear drives so much of our actions. People make fun of or shun things they fear in order to not show how scared they are. People who fear people with mental illness are likely projecting their fear of developing the disease.

“I’m not supposed to think of my disease as something to deal with. I’m told it’s better to think of it as a piece of me that does not communicate well with the rest of me. But that’s bullshit. The important thing about being crazy is knowing that you’re crazy. The knowing part makes you less crazy.”

Adam rejects the advice of others on how to cope with his disease because they don’t understand what his life is like, so he doesn’t believe they are in a position to tell him how to handle his illness. At the same time, Adam believes in self-awareness. Before his diagnosis, seeing and hearing things he couldn’t explain made him feel out of control; now, knowing why he experiences these things makes him feel “less crazy.” Understanding a situation makes it less scary.

“I don’t waste time feeling sorry for people with mental problems, because I don’t want people to waste time feeling sorry for me. I don’t need the pity—it doesn’t do anyone any good. We see the world differently and make up our own rules. That’s what terrifies everyone. Maybe they’re jealous. But probably not.”

This passage calls to mind the old adage of treating people how you wish to be treated. Since Adam refuses to accept pity for his condition, he doesn’t feel obliged to pity towards others with mental illness. He’d rather think of his schizophrenia as an alternative perspective on the world. People who insist instead of treating it like something scary irritate and frustrate him.

“No, I’m not self-conscious about liking to bake. Yes, I’ve definitely been teased about it before, but screw them. They can’t feed themselves and I can. That’s powerful. It’s really the only truly powerful thing about me. I might not always have a handle on my life, but if I’m hungry, I have more options than grilled cheese and cereal. And if I ever need to cook for anyone else, I can do it. There’s something liberating about being able to make food. No one will ever have to slave over a hot stove for me. I have that at least.”

Adam has no shame about enjoying cooking, which is an activity sometimes coded as feminine. While cooking keeps him centered, it also provides him something to be proud of. Even when he feels least in-control, he knows he can feed himself, which is something the schizophrenia can’t take away. This passage highlights the importance of knowing our strengths.

“It was pretty crappy of them. I mean they could’ve just told me. I would’ve understood. I don’t want them to be afraid of me. They didn’t have to hide everything so I looked like some unbalanced psychopath. It’s not like I’m going to stop cutting the chicken and go after people because I’m feeling ‘stabby.’”

Adam feels hurt that Paul and his mom hid all the kitchen knives because he doesn’t feel they had any reason to do so. Fear of the unknown of mental illness makes even the people who love Adam do things he finds upsetting—even though they are not trying to hurt his feelings and are only doing what they think is best.

“She deserves a normal kid, doesn’t she, Adam? Someone who doesn’t hear voices. Someone who doesn’t make her new husband want to hide all the knives in the kitchen. What happens when your mother is dead and the drug stops working? What happens if Paul doesn’t want you around anymore, and your mom has to choose between him or you? Do you think she’s going to side with the kid who screams at nothing and closes all the blinds in the house like a vampire? You are a selfish, spoiled asshole, Adam. You don’t deserve the love your mother gives you. You don’t deserve the fancy new school your stepfather pays for. And someday soon, everyone at your new school is going to see there’s something wrong with you. They’re going to see what you’re hiding. You won’t be able to live a normal life anymore. You won’t be able to run away. You’ll be doing everyone a favor if you just swallow the whole bottle of pills in your mom’s locked cupboard and end it all. You know where she keeps the key. No one wants you around.”

Adam hallucinates a voice that tells him he is worthless and should end his life to benefit everyone. Without ToZaPrex, Adam might believe this voice and act on its suggestion. Though Adam experiences the voice as coming from outside him, what it’s saying is quite similar to the negative self-talk more neurotypical depressed people experience. Most people can process and dismiss thoughts of self-harm as dangerous impulses; but Adam’s illness makes these words more real, which could lead to him taking drastic action.

“Sometimes I’m jealous of people with regular problems. At school I see the self-conscious girls worrying about their hair or if their legs look fat, and I just want to scream. Someone should tell them their problems are stupid.”

The novel takes pains not to characterize Adam as overly good and unflawed. Here, as in the earlier passage stereotyping the priest, we see one of Adam’s main non-schizophrenia-related shortcomings: Like many neurotypical teenagers, he lacks empathy for others. He dismisses other people’s problems as “stupid” out of envy for those leading what he sees as simpler lives. The novel allows Adam to be selfish and shallow, which goes a long way to making him seem like a realistic, relatable character.

“I’ve started paying more attention to the side effects of other drugs. There’s no question that we are overly medicated as a country. Our obsession with erections alone is just insane. You can barely watch cartoons anymore without bearing witness to some guy’s embarrassing lack of wood.”

Adam touches on the power of pharmaceutical companies in America, which manufacture medications that address legitimate concerns and those solving less emergent problems. Adam notes that often, the side effects of a drug are worse than the thing it supposedly fixes, but people are willing to risk horrific outcomes.

“So I didn’t think of death as a sad thing. I didn’t fear it the way other people do, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was only ever bad when I craved it because being me was exhausting. Death seemed like a release that I was too cowardly to reach for because of my family. Even if I could settle on a method that didn’t repulse me, I could never have put my mom through the pain of finding my body.”

After Adam laments how there’s never total quiet in his head, he admits that death seems peaceful. Adam’s suicidal ideation is quite far advanced—another terrible symptom of his illness. In his worst moments, the only thing holding him back from self-injury is the knowledge that his death would have an immense negative impact on his mother. The novel confirms how important strong loving bonds are for preserving people with mental illness.

“The minute they left I realized that I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Even if I wanted to, I knew the minute I dozed off, I’d have to deal with the voices. This was probably one of those selfish moments when I shouldn’t have been thinking about how hard it was to get back to sleep. I should’ve been focusing on my mom and Paul and the baby, but those were the things I couldn’t control. It never made sense to me to worry about what happened to someone else unless I could help in some way.”

Adam says he’s being selfish here, but looking closer, his actions are instead self-protective—a very different thing. He cares about his mom and the baby, but there is nothing he can do for them. On the other hand, seeking ways to get back to sleep will have a positive impact on Adam’s mind—sleep deprivation is strongly correlated with increased symptoms of mental illness. Learning the importance of self-care is only of the ways Adam matures during the novel.

“But that’s what people do to their kids, I guess. They give them a name and then expect that they’ll grow into it eventually, never suspecting that it might never fit. Because it sucks to disappoint your parents. There’s nothing more gut-wrenching than looking into their eyes and seeing that you’re not what they expected.”

From reading the diplomas in the therapist’s office, Adam knows the therapist is named after his father. This makes him think about the pressure of being someone’s child. Parents place silent expectations on children and expect those be met. If they aren’t, parents may communicate disappointment or other negative emotions that have a direct impact on how children view themselves.

“‘Do you want me to teach you how to bake?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said a little too quickly.

‘Why not?’ I asked. It was unlike her to avoid learning something for herself.

‘Cookies don’t require any thought if all you’re doing is eating them, but they require a certain degree of thoughtfulness if you make them for someone,’ she said.

I could’ve argued, but I didn’t want to take that away from her. Sometimes you just want to enjoy someone handing you a plate of cookies.”

Adam likes to cook because he can use the finished product show his affection for others and to take care of them. By contrast, Maya likes the feeling of being taken care, which means she doesn’t want to put in the effort of making food herself.

“Cancer Kid has the Make-A-Wish Foundation because Cancer Kid will eventually die, and that’s sad. Schizophrenia Kid will also eventually die, but before he does, he will be overmedicated with a plethora of drugs, he will alienate everyone he’s ever really cared about, and he will most likely wind up on the street, living with a cat that will eat him when he dies. That is also sad, but nobody gives him a wish, because he isn’t actively dying. It is abundantly clear that we only care about sick people who are dying tragic, time-sensitive deaths.”

Adam makes dark jokes about how society places greater value on certain types of suffering, viewing diseases that kill more quickly as more important. This may have to do with the visuals: Pictures of outwardly sick-looking people elicit sympathy, while mental illness is often a hidden disease. Since schizophrenia and similar diseases don’t make people look sick, they get dismissed as frightening.

“Because no matter what you do, they can still get messed up anyway. There’s no guarantee that they won’t do drugs or get sick or end up hating my guts just for trying to be a good mom.”

Maya never wants to have kids because she doesn’t want to feel responsible for the way her kids would turn out. She worries that mothers get blamed for children who are less than society’s image of perfect, even if they do everything right.

“And I seriously hate when other people tell you what the artist was really trying to say. […] It makes it more difficult if the artist is dead or too crazy to answer, but then we should just look at it. And that’s it. We shouldn’t pretend we understand. I just want to hear it in their voice. I don’t want someone else who has no idea what their work means to speak for him.”

Walton pokes fun at critical and scholarly approaches to art and literature. Students spend much of their literature classes discussing what an author might have meant by their work. In reality, unless the author also wrote a piece detailing the meaning of their work, no one really knows if the supposed meanings are correct. Instead, they should do their best to isolate the voice of the author—that’s where the real meaning lies.

“Here’s my problem. I feel guilty about thinking bad things about old people no matter how much I don’t like them. It’s like I’m programmed to respect old age as a virtue all on its own with the exception of Paul’s evil mother. Respect your elders. When shouldn’t it be…respect everyone? But the thing I forget when I look into their sad, pathetic, cataract-filled eyes is that being old does not make you a good person. Old age is not, in itself, an admirable quality.”

Adam criticizes the idea that age is deserving of respect. While living longer means a person has been exposed to more experiences, it does not mean that person has lived through exceptional situations. Someone could live a hundred years in comfort, and someone else could have more knowledge after twenty years of adversity. Age doesn’t necessarily mean experience, and people should be given respect regardless of their age.

“You’d rather keep quiet and take your drugs until there’s nothing real left in you. Until everything that’s beautiful and creative and interesting about you is diluted.”

Rupert offers insight into how Adam views his schizophrenia. Since his hallucinations reflect his thoughts, a part of Adam acknowledges the beauty of his mind. Some of his disease frightens him, but there are parts he doesn’t want to lose. The novel argues that although mental illness can make life difficult, eliminating it would also mean erasing some parts of a person.

“‘Jesus loves you’ basically says ‘Come as you are.’ ‘Don’t be a homo’ passes judgment. They contradict each other, like everything else in life, I guess. You’ll hear one thing that gives you hope and another thing that takes it away.”

Adam sees the bathroom wall words of the novel’s title as a dichotomy. Their proximity on the bathroom wall shows how good and bad cannot be completely separated. Every experience has positive and negative attributes that must be taken together.

“I met Adam when he was eleven years old. He could have rejected me completely, but he didn’t. By letting me into his life, he taught me that being a parent means becoming what your children need most. Right now, my son needs me to protect him from narrow-minded people motivated by fear.”

Paul writes a letter to St. Agatha’s when the school’s administration wants to take action against Adam after the school shooting in Connecticut simply because of his schizophrenia diagnosis. Paul calls out the societal fears that keep Adam and others with mental illness from living full lives: Adam has shown no violent tendencies, but in the wake of a tragedy, people turn to restricting groups deemed dangerous as a way of casting blame. Paul demands the school see Adam as an individual and not just his illness.

“At least Dumbledore came back toward the end of the last book. Remember? Maybe you don’t. It was at King’s Cross station. That hallucination where he told Harry he had a choice. And then, when Harry asked if it was real or if everything was just happening inside his head, he said: ‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’

He’s right, isn’t he? It doesn’t really matter that no one else can see what I see. That doesn’t make my experiences any less real.

Real is subjective. There are a lot of things that aren’t actually real to everyone. Pain, for example. It’s only real to the one experiencing it. Everyone else has to take your word for it.”

Adam again references Harry Potter. While fantasy fiction equates the symptoms of mental illness with magic, it also offers a different approach to situating the fantastic in real life. Harry Potter experiences things outside the realm of “normal,” but that doesn’t make his experiences illegitimate. The same goes for Adam. His hallucinations are real to him. They make up his version of reality, so he should not be shunned for them.