Schizophrenic Indie Author “Recovered” Against All Odds

The battle with a mental condition such as schizophrenia can be a daunting and complicated process but Oh Huishan, an international self published author, went into a writing career just because of that. The range of moods and negative feelings that went through Huishan brought her over the edge. She lost her sense of what reality was and the hallucinations and voices in her mind only made things worse. She ended up losing normal self care functions of a human being and had to wear adult diapers, depending on the health attendant lady at the mental hospital ward to bathe her sometimes, at the age of 23 years old.

At some of the darkest moments after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, she decided it was time to make a commitment to help herself get well. Holding onto that little tiny voice of reassurance within herself amidst the chaos, she started writing notes to fight back at the voices she heard even though she could hardly speak or write in the severe stages of her condition. Slowly, single words became sentences and then finally, she started writing paragraphs of positive motivational content that she wished friends would tell her to encourage her to move forward in life despite her situation. Then she continued writing, imagining an audience listening to her written words.

The result was Huishan’s debut book “Words That I Can’t Say — A Workbook For Journal Therapy”. She compiled her writings and self published her debut book in October 2010. It is now available through online book retailers in 26 countries now, spanning from US, UK, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and even South Africa. Her books can be found on Amazon.com as well and in Singapore’s local national libraries.

Her second book “What Comes Naturally… Before I Forget” is a collection of prose and short stories and it was released in August 2011. Huishan is currently going through the last stages of preparations for releasing her third book “Making A Comeback In Life: What to do after losing almost everything”. It is a booklet that consists of quotes of encouragement she has come up with over time, factors to consider in order to gauge the severity of the situation for the reader if their world had fallen apart and some cheap ways of earning an income.

Huishan has given talks 3 times in 2011 as a guest speaker on her personal experiences with depression and schizophrenia locally in Singapore in schools and she has also started producing and selling spoken word mp3s via iTunes worldwide etc.

If you would like to know more, visit Oh Huishan’s official website at www.ohhuishan.com