Category: Non-Fiction

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“I think I have stopped being afraid of the men and women in suits that have hung around for months. Mostly, I just hear them. Their voices are low, as if coming from the floor. I don’t think of hell when this happens. Clearly, they are from some other reality. . . . Sometimes I am glad they are here. They like being around me. I just wish they would take off their dark glasses. I can’t see their eyes, but I bet they’re flat, without fire.”

What is it like to hear voices as if a radio were playing, only to realize that nothing and no one is there?  Several years ago, in the Academy Award-winning film A Beautiful Mind, we saw a portrayal of John Nash, the famous mathematician who tried to control his genius in the face of schizophrenia, a psychiatric disorder that has perplexed the medical community for centuries. Now, in a new literary memoir, MIND WITHOUT A HOME: A Memoir of Schizophrenia (Hazelden Publishing; September 2013; $14.95; Original Trade Paperback), Kristina Morgan exposes the raw, harsh world she lived in, left alone with the voices in her head. She poignantly tells the story of how she tries to destroy herself and how she manages, through the power of a strong support system and the proper medication, to survive.

In MIND WITHOUT A HOME, Morgan talks about being born a tall, awkward, bookish girl, who began to notice the voices as a teenager. They assaulted her with comments such as “We’re your worst nightmare and your best friends.” Her inability to escape her demons led to her first suicide attempt at fifteen years old. Not knowing what to do, her family arranged for her to get plastic surgery on her nose and to take self-improvement classes, only accentuating Morgan’s already low self-esteem.

“During those nine months, I was careful not to talk about the hum that plagued me. I was certain that if the staff knew, they would put me on medication, tell me that no one should experience a hum. Nor did I tell them of my knowledge of other realities. Again, I was terrified at the thought of having to take medication—medication that would mess with my mind.”

At sixteen, she was modeling clothes while at the same time trying to break her arm with a hammer so she wouldn’t have to go to photo shoots. Eventually, Morgan, who had already discovered alcohol to self-medicate her symptoms, surrendered herself to her addiction. Her behavior became even more erratic—more suicide attempts and more hospital visits, residential treatment stays, and tattered relationships that only served to leave Morgan feeling even more isolated and hopeless.

When Morgan first struggled with schizophrenia, little was known about the disorder and how to treat it.  By the time she was well into adulthood, she had descended into full-blown alcoholism as a way to manage her life with the voices in her head.  Instead of getting her help, the people surrounding her viewed her as a threat:

“I let Joan know that I had schizophrenia in the same tone I used when explaining to friends how to bake a cake. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. This scared Joan. I could tell by the way she stiffened her body and leaned back in her chair. I explained to her that the reason I came to her was that I was getting signals from other realities. I just needed to ask someone other than my students if they heard them too. It was a way of checking whether or not I should take a day off. It was a way of learning the truth when my mind wanted to roam.”

Through the help of a program of recovery, the psychiatric community, family, and friends Morgan is now able to manage her illnesses and lives a fulfilling life. Her story in MIND WITHOUT A HOME is told in an intimate style that deepens readers’ connection to Morgan’s struggles and triumphs. Today there is so much more that we know about schizophrenia, yet it is still often misunderstood.  Morgan gives us rare and believable insight into the schizophrenic mind. We witness her courage as she shares her experiences and enlightens and inspires others who live with or are otherwise affected by mental illness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kristina Morgan is a poet with a master of fine arts from Arizona State University. She is currently managing her co-occurring disorders (schizophrenia and alcoholism) with medication and Twelve Step recovery. MIND WITHOUT A HOME is her first book.

ABOUT HAZELDEN

Hazelden Publishing is part of the Hazelden Foundation, a national nonprofit organization founded in 1949, which helps people reclaim their lives from the disease of addiction. With 60 years of knowledge and experience, Hazelden offers a comprehensive approach to addiction that addresses the full range of patient, family, and professional needs, including treatment and continuing care for youth and adults, research, higher education, public education and advocacy, and publishing. It has facilities in Minnesota, Oregon, Illinois, Florida, and New York.

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“Graeber doesn’t pull punches… A deeply unsettling addition to the true crime genre.” —Publishers Weekly

“[Graeber] imbues the story with an intense level of anticipation, with one question constantly in the background: Who will stop this man and when? A thrilling and suspenseful page-turner that is sure to be loved by the majority of readers, who will be both horrified and fascinated.”  —Kirkus Reviews

Over the course of his sixteen years, Charles Cullen had been the subject of dozens of complaints and disciplinary citations, and had endured four police investigations, two lie detector tests, perhaps twenty suicide attempts, and a lock-up, but none had blemished his professional record. He’d jumped from job to job at nine different hospitals and a nursing home, and been ‘let go,’ ‘terminated,’ or ‘asked to resign’ at many of them. But both his Pennsylvania and New Jersey nursing licenses remained intact, and each time he filled out a new application, Nurse Cullen appeared to be an ideal hire. His attendance was perfect, his uniform pristine. He had experience in intensive care, critical care, cardiac care, ventilation, and burns. He medicated the living, was the first code responder when machines screamed over the dying, and exhibited origamilike artistry when plastic-wrapping the dead. He had no scheduling conflicts, didn’t seem to attend movies or watch sports, and was willing, even eager, to work nights, weekends, and holidays… His fellow nurses considered him a gift from the scheduling gods, a hire almost too good to be true. —From THE GOOD NURSE

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed “The Angel of Death” by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.

Cullen’s murderous career in the world’s most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in April of 2007, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE (TWELVE; On-Sale Date: April 9, 2013) weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.

Graeber’s portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen’s professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there’s no telling how many more lives could have been lost.

In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen’s deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America’s medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.

Charles Graeber has written for Wired, GQ, The New Yorker, New York, Outside, Bloomberg Businessweek, and the New York Times, among others. His work has received numerous awards including the 2011 Ed Cunningham Award for outstanding international journalism from the Overseas Press Club and a New York Press Club prize. Born in Iowa, he lives in Nantucket, MA, and Brooklyn, NY. For more information, you can visit www.CharlesGraeber.com.