Mark Dean Veca

From age 13, my father heard voices — inner instructions to move a glass across the table or to use this subway turnstile rather than that one. The strain of fighting the voices in secret, I believe, led to the psychotic depression my father suffered in his late 30s. My father responded with rage when he later learned that his own father had also heard voices, ones that advised on discards at gin or (less correctly) on bets at the track. What pain could have been avoided if only it had been clear that such voices are not necessarily signals of mental illness.