I can talk about the fact that I went to Yale and Stanford, that my parents are Taiwanese immigrants, that I was born in the Midwest and raised in California, that I am a writer. If the conversation winds its way to my diagnosis, I emphasize my normalcy. See my ordinary, even superlative appearance. Witness the fact that I am articulate. Rewind our interaction and see if you can spot cracks in the facade. See if you can, in sifting through your memory, find hints of insanity to make sense of what I’ve said about who I am. After all, what kind of crazy person has a fashionable pixie cut, wears red lipstick, dresses in pencil skirts and tucked-in silk blouses? What sort of psychotic wears Loeffler Randall heels without tottering?
— In “Fashioning Normal,” Esmé Weijun Wang writes at Catapult about performing wellness in the midst of mental illness.
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