In life, numerous individuals deal with various psychological illnesses or conditions: bipolar and schizophrenia. In fact, according to the National Alliance on Mental Inness, twenty-five percent of Americans have experience with a psychological condition and roughly 13.6 million Americans live with the aforementioned illnesses. These real life issues and struggles are scattered throughout fictitious literature as authors parallel their characters with the same scenarios as the victims of the above specified all-too-real struggles. William Shakespeare certainly brought a few characters from his famous play “Hamlet” to life that exuded symptoms of a psychological illness; in addition, Terry Trueman leads readers on a life-threatening journey of a young man who struggles…show more content… Zach -- unfortunately -- is tormented by his perpetual “disordered thinking” (Veague 1) as he battles this “psychotic disorder that causes severe mental disturbances that disrupt thoughts, speech and behavior” (Veague 1). Zach often has difficulty deciphering perception versus reality and feels the “need to decide if this situation is real or not” because on occasion he “know[s] what’s going on, and other times [he] [doesn’t] have a clue” (Trueman 6). Zach is aware that he is not like others, for “[he] get[s] massively confused” (Trueman 7). Zach is not the only perplexed party in his scenario; society views him as stupid, retarded, or a “wasteoid” (Trueman 12), wherein reality he is actually intelligent. The reason society’s perception of Zach is skewed is due to his reaction to certain scenarios. Zach does not present himself as having an above average I.Q. (intelligence quotient) in situations he encounters; a prime example was during a hostage situation, all Zach could think about is taking his medicine and candy
