TRACES OF MADNESS
TRACES OF MADNESS
AN INTERVIEW WITH FERNANDO BALIUS
Fernando Balius was a perfectly ordinary , if misunderstood , young adult — until he started hearing voices . Various psychiatric diagnoses and prescribed medications do more harm than good , prompting Fernando to question whether stifling his voices is truly the right path for him . Throughout his experiences , he finds that his connections with others lend him the strength to survive . This powerful , honest , personal look at the creator ’ s experience with mental illness is framed by haunting illustrations allows readers to have a real sense of being inside his own head as he experiences breaks with what the “ normal ” world understands as reality .
In this interview , Fernando discusses his work on Traces of Madness .
DIAMOND : For those who aren ’ t familiar , can you tell us what readers can expect from Traces of Madness BALIUS FERNANDO : This is a non-sequential comic , where text and images compose a narrative about hearing voices in my head , and the different consequences that this experience has had in my life : contact with psychiatry , diagnosis ( the first of them : schizophrenia ), medication , family taboo , crisis , solidarity , recovery ... The narrative has no chronological order , and alternates looking back in time and current reflections . The stories are sincere and the information provided is rigorous . Mario Pellejer , the illustrator , has managed to find a type of stroke that is beyond any fashion or trend . All his work is analogical , painted with brushes . The text is accompanied with a lot of care and I think it manages to build a kind of refuge for all those human experiences that have to do with not fitting into certain social norms ( whether they are issues related to mental health or other thousand ways that society has to exclude certain people ). I have tried to make an ode to diversity and interdependence . Two beautiful things about this life that can sometimes be so hard .
How did this project come about ? It arose from the need to offer an honest account of the experience of hearing voices , breaking with the grotesque stereotypes that are common in series , movies and novels . In these cultural products , people who hear voices are often linked to acts of violence and instability . This is a very harmful reductionism that ridicules an experience which is much more common than is often believed . John Berger said that stories are a rescue operation , a refuge from the absurd . I like to think that this project belongs to that tradition , that on the one hand its writing gives meaning to one ’ s own experience , and on the other , it is a statement of what has been lived in a deaf world .
Unfortunately , people with mental health problems have been expelled from the “ legitimized ” spaces of knowledge production and from the very debates that take place about what is going on in our heads . We have been socially stigmatized , and thus it is considered that as crazy people , we have nothing to say . This , if one thinks about it carefully , does not make much sense if what we are trying to do is to understand experiences that are foreign .
Writing in the first person has to do with restoring that place , that dignity of speaking legitimately about one ’ s own pain and experiences . When I train professionals I usually tell them : “ Do you really want to know about hearing voices ? Then have a coffee with someone who hears voices , listen to what they have to tell you about it ...”. Now we can also say to them , read this comic .
Can you tell us more about your process for deciding what stories and information went in the book ? It was a complex process , in which I had the help of several people . The materials which compose the book are autobiographical , they are all real , but obviously a selection had to be made to allow narrative coherence . In addition , I left out certain issues that could either generate problems of understanding ( very specific cultural references , aspects of the cities where I have lived , linked to my age , etc .), or could compromise my privacy more than necessary ( or that of third parties ).
I made several content drafts . I had a few essential aspects that made up the essence of the comic , and then a set of stories and information that changed as the writ-
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