ing progressed . Content had to be sacrificed . And as I said , I didn ’ t do it alone , I was accompanied by people with whom I shared activist groups and collectives and who are also great readers .
There were two constants in the decision process : 1 ) what was told had to be always radically honest ; 2 ) despite the fact that in all stories related to psychic suffering there is a degree of pain , of darkness , the overall message of the comic is optimistic . I have faith in human solidarity . It has saved my life .
What kind of obstacles did you face while creating the book ? I faced many obstacles … To begin with , it was the first time I wrote a script , I had always been an essay writer . On the other hand , Mario Pellejer , the illustrator , is not a professional one , so the creation process had a lot of adventure and learning by doing . On the other hand , many of the contents of the comic itself cause me pain . Writing them has not been easy ( in fact I heard quite a few unpleasant and very aggressive voices during the process ). So much so that I have never read the book in its entirety once it was finished . The final editing processes were incorporated in parts , and other people did readings from beginning to end to make sure everything was right . Once my partner read it to me . And during the process of translation into Italian and English , I had to carefully reread many fragments , which I can assure you was not easy .
The book makes me uncomfortable . Deeply uncomfortable . If I wrote it , it was not to get any kind of recognition ( although I receive it , and I welcome it ), but because I thought it was something I had to do , that it had a meaning for the group of people who have suffered and suffer with harmful voices , with an inoperative psychiatric care , with overmedication , bleak prognoses , and so on .
On the other hand , another important obstacle was to synthesize . I wanted to tell many things , share resources , learnings ... but it is not an essay book , it is a comic book and it also aims to reach as many people as possible .
What would you say is the most rewarding part of the process ?
During the creation process I ’ m left with the work with the illustrator to make some graphic decisions , such as the creature ... how to represent the voices in drawings . The writing itself I ’ ve already pointed out was complicated in emotional terms , so it ’ s not something that stands out .
But the best part of the process has been the final result : being able to share it . That is , starting from something personal and giving it a collective dimension . That there are so many people who have read the comic in Spain and Italy and have made it their own . To feel that this story is not mine , that it has passed through to a better place , where people take from it what comforts them , what allows them to broaden their knowledge , to be less afraid , to accompany a loved one , etc .
In terms of audience , who is Traces of Madness for ? As a writer , I want to think of it as intended for a general audience .
For anyone who is interested not just in mental health issues , but in all those experiences that don ’ t fit into the world , that are often not just left out , but stigmatized . It ’ s certainly not just for people who are challenged by hearing voices or by diagnoses of schizophrenia or psychosis ( where there are no doubt many readers ). Although I have to say that one of the groups where it has been best received has been among young students and health and socialcare professionals . I don ’ t think it is a cultural product with a unique audience ... last year I did workshops with teenagers in high schools , I would never have thought that Traces of Madness could have been of interest to 14-15 year olds , but it was .
What are you hoping readers take away from this book ? I hope that readers will understand that mental health problems have a collective dimension , despite being systematically approached as individual problems . That what is called madness always has to do with the lives we live . That it can be terrible , but that it is also possible to share knowledge and build relationships so that it does less harm , so that we can all be less afraid . That , as Ursula K . Leguin said , we can live a different way .
ABOUT THE CREATOR : Fernando Balius is a philosopher and a contingent worker . He has taken part in various social movements over the last two decades , about the same amount of time that he has been considering the relationship between madness and society . His favorite place to think is on a bike . diamondbookshelf . org 45