Nightmare: A Schizophrenia Narrative

Nightmare: A Schizophrenia Narrative by Williamson, Wendell. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780971222908.

Nightmare: A Schizophrenia Narrative is the compelling first-person account of one man’s struggle with a devastating mental illness and its heartbreaking outcome. Wendell Williamson was a promising young UNC law student with many talents and dreams until schizophrenia made his life a living nightmare. His psychotic break in January, 1995, led to a fatal confrontation in the streets of Chapel Hill. In these pages, written while within the confines of a state psychiatric hospital, Wendell describes his painful struggle to make sense of the cruel, irrational world of psychosis. Williamson’s malpractice lawsuit against his former psychiatrist in 1998 sparked a national debate on issues of violence, accountability, and standards of psychiatric care. Told in an intelligent, articulate and sensitive voice, Wendell’s story highlights some of the gravest problems our nation faces today: our failure to recognize the needs of the severely mentally ill, and the connection between severe, untreated mental illness and the escalating random violence in our streets and in our schools.