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The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness
By Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett. New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc, 1994, 270 pages, $12.99
Unless a person has schizophrenia himself, it is almost impossible to imagine what life is like, how daily living is affected, and to what extent the lives around you are forever changed. The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness, by Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett, attempts to allow the reader to experience just that, to gain personal and factual knowledge by following someone’s long, and often painful, journey with schizophrenia in the hopes of creating a better understanding of what the disease is and how it affects not only the person diagnosed, but the family and health professionals involved as well.
This is the story of Lori Schiller, “the perfect child”, as described by her family and friends, who at seventeen began to show the first symptoms of schizophrenia: hearing voices. She describes the feelings and thoughts that accompanied her at this time, as well as her reluctance to disclose this information to anyone else. She explains trying to ignore the voices enough to go to college, only to graduate in constant fear of what the voices would say to her or what they might tell her to do.
The story continues to follow Lori’s progression through life as the decision is made by her parents for her to move home, begin seeing a psychologist, and start taking medication. It follows her through frightening hallucinations, numerous hospitalizations, halfway houses, drug abuse, suicide attempts, and relapses. It shadows Lori through twelve years of being misdiagnosed, taking dozens of medications, meeting and rejecting different doctors, and being afraid of wanting to be well. The Quiet Room concludes with Lori finding relief from her symptoms through new medication and eventually being able to live on her own and manage daily life.
The Quiet Room is interesting in that it includes chapters from individuals other than Lori herself, including both her parents, her brothers, her various roommates, and several doctors who worked with her on a long-term basis. This format assists in understanding the full impact a diagnosis of schizophrenia has on the family and friends of the patient, and allows the reader to examine the thoughts and feelings of the patient and others involved. By understanding everyone’s point of view, a more complete picture is made in respect to what living with schizophrenia is like, as well as taking care of and interacting with that person.
This book is most appropriate for persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, their friends and family, and their caregivers. It is advised that this book be read by persons at least in their late teens, as strong language is used and scenes of illicit drug use and sexual assault are present. This book would be extremely helpful for patients in every stage of schizophrenia, whether recently diagnosed or having lived with schizophrenia for some time. Because this book begins when symptoms first present themselves to after hospitalization and almost complete recovery, any person with this disease or person involved with him or her can see how the disease progresses and the changes involved with the progression.
The Quiet Room has numerous strengths when used as a tool in bibliotherapy. Two already discussed are its format of multiple viewpoints in assisting in gaining knowledge about schizophrenia and its documentation of Lori’s complete journey with schizophrenia. Another asset of this book is its exploration of how mental illness can lead to illicit drug use to relieve symptoms as well as showing how mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, can lead to life threatening situations, such as homelessness and sexual assault. A further strength lies in the book’s ability to describe with great detail the thought processes of someone with schizophrenia and why Lori made decisions that defied her own health, safety, and close relationships with loved ones. This aspect of the book may help family members and friends of schizophrenics understand more completely how and why seemingly thoughtless decisions are made by persons with this disease.
The Quiet Room can also be used in psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients and their families as a tool for beginning an open dialogue about how everyone’s lives will change due to the diagnosis of the illness and how symptoms will wax and wane as treatment progresses. The book devotes ample time to Lori’s denial of the disease and problems that result from it and her eventual acceptance of schizophrenia that makes recovery more possible. After reading the book, families and patients could compare and contrast their own fears and concerns related to schizophrenia with the psychotherapist in therapy. The psychotherapist could help the families and patients find specific chapters and topics in the book that relate to their current concerns and problems in dealing with schizophrenia. For example, if a patient and his family is dealing with drug abuse and how drugs are sometimes used by patients to medicate themselves, the psychotherapist could assign chapter twelve of The Quiet Room for the family and patient to read and then discuss what circumstances in Lori’s life brought on her need to use drugs and how her situation is similar or dissimilar from that of the patient’s.
This book examines multiple relapse and recovery quite well, along with the feelings and thought processes that are associated with them, and this aspect of The Quiet Room may provide comfort and reassurance to patients and families who may have become discouraged with treatment progression. Another strength of this book lies within Lori’s journey through multiple prescribed medications, the hope associated with each new drug, and the disappointment experienced when the drug fails to bring relief from her symptoms. This aspect of The Quiet Room could help patients and families, as well as mental health workers, understand that the path to relief of symptoms is not an easy one, nor is it swift.
There are almost no weaknesses concerning The Quiet Room, keeping in mind that younger individuals may not understand the content of the book, and that parents may want to limit children’s access to the book because of extreme language, drug use, and sexually explicit scenes. The Quiet Room is a candid and ultimately courageous journey inside the life of a person suffering from schizophrenia and sheds light on one of the mind’s most ultimate betrayals.