Room for J

The book I read this week, continuing with the psychology theme, was “Room for J” by David Hanson. It was about the author’s son Joel, often referred to as “J”, who was diagnosed with a severe case of schizophrenia in his late teenage years. The condition made J believe he was Jesus, and therefore God, which caused numerous problems as he went around trying to force people to believe in him. The author uses diary entries from his family to tell the story: J’s mother, J’s brother, J’s nephews, J himself and bits of J’s memoir (which was never published.)
J lived his childhood a relatively normal kid; aside from his giant ego and unwillingness to follow directions. His parents babied him no more than usual, two siblings, and J lived a relatively normal lifestyle. But when he reached his later adolescent years, the schizophrenia began to emerge. His behavior became stranger voices, “God”, telling him what he should do. Hanson and his wife began to question their son’s judgment, and decide to convince J he needs a therapist. This is not easy to do, seeing as J believes he has no problems and he refuses to see the therapist. After much struggling and tears, J finally agrees to a therapist. Though he quickly outwits the therapist and she finds no problem. J problems greatly increase from there, the parents eventually having to call the 911 to control J and going to court to declare J’s mental state.
Personally, I would not recommend this book. It mainly focused on the family’s struggles, when I was more interested in how J’s life was going and the actually schizophrenia. It was very short, a good emergency “oh no, I didn’t do my book report and its due tomorrow” kind of book, but did bring up some interesting points. Even if we learned nothing about schizophrenia.