My mom started me reading when I was very young. I was in second grade and she had already enrolled in a book club for me. By the time I was eight I had read many of the old classics like Robin Hood, Robinson Caruso, Treasure Island, Gullivers Travels, Aesops Fables.etc. I read voraciously and when I was in fourth grade my reading skills were so advanced that my teacher put me in a fifth grade reading class.
It’s kind of funny because I was a smart kid and I was reading everything and I was one of the smartest kids in my class but all my friends were the coolest kids in class.In fact, in sixth grade I was getting mostly A’s on my report card but I was also drinking hard liquor reguarlly and smoking cigarettes in school at recess. And after school we hunted birds with my friends BB gun, broke into a couple of houses, stole stuff, and vandalized.
I did all that but I never got caught. I was always able to slip my way out of trouble or get out before the authorities came. In fact my teacher told my parents, " I know Nick is involved in a lot of trouble but we can never quite pin anything on him or catch him in the act". But I guess I was a well rounded kid when I was young, I had my hand in several different status groups.
I went through a period of eight months where I read every waking moment. First thing I would do when I woke up was grab a book and read until I went to bed at night. I read Shakespeare, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Balzac, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others. At the time I was enthralled by all this reading. It felt great. I’ve tried to duplicate that experience, and all that reading bored me. I sure wish I could recapture that feeling.
i used to love reading. read a lot of philosophy and political science books but now i can barely read 10 pages, and i dont retain anything of what i read
Street drugs interfered with my reading ability before my schizophrenia developed.
Now I’m an avid reader and my schizophrenia and medications do not interfere much with my reading – except i prefer short stories or at least books with chapters.