By Paulo Coelho
When I was young, my parents sent me to a mental institution three times ( 1966, 1967, 1968). The reasons in my medical files are banal. It was said that I was isolated, hostile and miserable at school. I was not crazy but I was rather just a 17-year-old who really wanted to become a writer. Because no one understood this, I was locked up for months and fed with tranquilizers. The therapy merely consisted of giving me electroshocks. They were intended to clear the uppermost layer of my memory in order to bring peace to my head. I promised to myself that one day I would write about this experience, so young people will understand that we have to fight for our own dreams from a very early stage of our lives.
When I realeased “Veronika decides to die”, a book that was a metaphor of my experience in a lunatic asylum, the press started asked me if I forgave my parents. In fact, I did not need to forgive them, because I never blamed them for what happened. In their own point-of-view, they were trying to help me to get the discipline necessary to accomplish my deeds as an adult, and to forget the “dreams of a teenager” .
I am glad that not only I kept my dreams, but this experience gave more strength to fight for what is important to me. I dared to be different. I told to myself: “you are unique, and you have to accept you as you are, instead of trying to repeat other people’s destinies or patterns. Insanity is to behave like someone that you are not. Normality is the capacity to express your feelings. From the moment that you don’t fear to share your heart, you are a free person. ”
Khalil Gibran has an excellent text about parents and children:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
So, as one week ago I wanted to hear ( and share) your thoughts on the struggle between love and dream, I encourage you to post your comments here. And if some of your read “Veronika decides to die”, you are also welcome to comment on the book.
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like veronika, i also decided to die… since, i still live, i dont have a choice but just to live…. sad…
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Cher Paulo,
En tant que parents, j’ai agit de la meme maniere que les votres.
Je me suis rendue compte lorsqu’on a diagnostique mon fils qu’il n’etait pas plus fou que vous et moi. De ce jour, j’ai voulu faire quelque chose pour la depression. Je ne savais pas comment m’y prendre.
Lorsque la meme chose m’est arrivee, cela m’a ete confirme. Le fait que je suis venue sur ce blog n’est pas un accident. J’en suis certaine.
Avec amour,
Marie-Christine
Dear Paulo]
As a parent, I did exactly the same as your Mum and Dad.
I realised when my son was diagnosed that he was not mad at all. From that day on, I swore I wanted to do something about mental illness. I just did not know how to go about.
When the same thing happened to me, I had the confirmation.The fact I came onto this blog was no accident. Of this I am sure.
With love,
Marie-Christine
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I am not sure if one of Paulo Coelho’s goals in writing ‘Veronika decides to die’ was to not only inform the readers of the exact location of Ljubljana, Slovenia but also to stir interest in its political circumstances in and around the year 1997 . If it was, it is safe to say that , that particular mission is accomplished as far as I am concerned. This book was first published in the year 2000 (ISBN # 0-06- 0I9612-2). The central theme of the book, contrary to what its title suggests is, living life to the fullest.
Predominantly set in a mental asylum, the tone and content of the book is cathartic. I salute and thank the author for keeping his promise to himself back in the 60s, the one he made to document the wisdom he gather from his personal experiences in various mental asylums. Someone needed to speak for the misunderstood and perhaps feared non-conformists across the world. The author has made a case for people that have an inner voice, which they find impossible to suppress in spite of their “best” efforts . When this “disability” surfaces, it overtly , unfortunately and eventually sets them apart. When these people find no support from their families to be true to themselves, they experience what it is to have one’s soul squelched. He describes beautifully what it is to be strangled spiritually and mentally by one’s own parents (and well wishers) out of sheer, raw ,unadulterated love. But more importantly Coelho dips further into his wisdom and largess to offer an alternative to succumbing to this excruciating existence .
I would consider this book a self-help book for those that are non-conformists and for those that are not it is a revealing psychological journey into minds of people that are more in touch with their soul.
Coelho’s style of trademark style of writing is unmistakable. Precise, accurate but colloquial. In driving the point home to the simplest and the most alienated mind he doesn’t leave comprehension to chance, clearly explaining the technicalities of medicine in layman terms. In order to make all his points realistically he has created more than one character and pointed out the commonalities as well as discrepancies of their circumstances. He has brilliantly used chronology, political milieu, family dynamics, etc. to convince the reader of his thesis. Most fascinating is his usage of an irony within an irony, as he describes the mental asylum as the place where people are not only unexpectantly cured of their maladies but also for the exact opposite reason as the society would imagine academically . Coelho creates the perfect arena to spot light not only the dues one pays to live in a society organized by the majority but also the ramifications of paying those dues for certain individuals who are in minority.
I accidentally came upon this book. And I it consider a gift to society. It has validated, clarified and accentuated many of my suspicions and beliefs accordingly. The fact that all the characters in this book have/ had families that were well to do is striking and confirms my suspicion, that people that grow up in well to do families run certain risks of being misunderstood that their economically less fortunate counterparts escape. All the characters described are those that have their lives cut out for them by an over indulgent resourceful and expectant family. They are partially self actualized individuals. One is supported by ones own conscience as well as by the society at large when one stands up against abuse. But when one is suffocated and smothered by love it can be extremely confusing to even think of charting an action plan to exit the maze.
Among the many goals of the novel, one is certainly to bring hope to people who dance to the music in their head or march to the beat of their own drum. And this novel does just that brilliantly and not to mention realistically.
I believe everyone comes to a point in their lives when they need this book. When you lay your hands on it, I strongly recommend you to read it and mull over it. There is much to be learnt and accepted in spite of the simplicity of the presentation.
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marie-christine Reply:
June 8th, 2009 at 6:06 am
m
Like you I am glad that “someone needed to speak for the misunderstood and perhaps the non conformists across the world”
The world can only be a better place for that.
Thank you.
Love
Marie-Christine
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I read Veronika Decides to Die in order to do a ten page term paper about you. I found this book very capturing and I’m wondering, is the character of Eduard you?
If so, is that really how you fell in love? and what advice can you give to a high school junior who wishes she can get away?
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ou est la justice?
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sometimes I think the “asylum” is on the outside world, not in the asylum.
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I am going to share this with my parents. Thank you!
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This reply might be a few months too late, however, I hope it is still ok to comment anyway…
The reason I bought Veronika Decides to Die was not only because I love reading Coelho’s books, or because it was the next book on my “To read list”. In fact, I was reaching up to grab “By the River Piedra I sat and Wept” when the title caught my eye. I think it was the fact that she decided to die that really got to me. It reminded me of thoughts I had a few years back, and the many decisions that when I look back on, I feel caused a part of me to die. I then opened the book to the front page, and found that she decided to die on my birthday. I took that to be a sign, I did not even realize that the book was actually about an asylum and the many psychological problems we humans face on a daily basis- whether we were in an asylum or roaming freely among each other. As I read the book, I realized that Veronika, and all the other characters could be me on any given time of any day. I have had my own share of seeing psychiatrists and trying to cope on my own, but nothing opened my eyes to the fact that those psychological imbalances are exactly what makes us human. They give us an edge, they give us our own characters, and they give us the freedom that we always complain about not having when in fact, we are too scared to achieve.
That book perhaps saved my soul. I will not say life because I do not believe that our journey ends when our body dies. It ends when we decide to murder our souls.
Also, I am very glad to see that you quoted an excerpt from Gibran Khalil Gibran’s “The prophet”. His writing may be a century and a few decades old (125 years if I am not mistaken), yet his wisdom lives on.
I am very thankful for your work and I thank you for it.
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I really was moved by Veronica Decides to Die. It was personally very difficult and at the same time cathartic for me to read. I was also in an institution related deeply with Veronica.
On another note you above blog and the quote writing from Gibran, is extremely important. My mother had an extremely hard time accepting my hospilization. My sisters admitted me for my safety. It was the greatest simple act that a person(s) has ever done for me, yet my mother to this day faults herself. My life and my journeys are not hers. She does not understand that a parent can bring a child into the world and give them all they need. Yet they are still their own person, with indepedent minds, thoughts, joys, pain. I know I can never understand my mother’s position, as she can’t mine. However I have blamed myself for her pain and have felt years of guilt. Thank you, Paulo, for posting this blog. It has helped my soul find peace.
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