It just seemed appropriate for the story. I thought it was strange how the words could change, like a conversation between two people, and the meaning can change immediately based on how somebody else comments on it. The two lines were written by two different people and you could tell because the handwriting was different. So, I used that as a conversation starter. “Then there was the part in the movie where they panned over the words on the bathroom walls and it said, “Jesus loves you, but don’t be a homo.” That’s actually a line that I saw on a bathroom wall growing up. While their entire relationship doesn’t come from Walton’s own life, she did insert little things like the way Adam and Maya interact and how they are in their individual lives.Īs for the title of the story, she had some other options in mind, but she eventually came around the words on bathroom walls.

On a personal level, she created Adam in her own image, while for Maya, she looked towards her husband. To make sure that she was getting the emotion of the story right and to make it realistic, she also had a beta reader who was schizophrenic and could give her insights about Adam’s life. She also relied on the experiences of the people around the ones affected by mental illness and how the situation dictates their understanding and behavior. Having personally dealt with anxiety, she could relate to the desire of her protagonist to function normally and keep his mental health a secret from those around him.įor the research, she went through medical journals and read articles and watched videos by people living with schizophrenia. It kind of was born out of my own frustration,” she explained. “I was stuck in a cubicle, checking policies for an insurance brokerage, and the first chapter of Words on Bathroom Walls was actually written at my desk out of pure frustration. The story came to her when she was stuck in a job that she didn’t want.

Making her protagonist a schizophrenic teenager fit with “the backdrop of celebrated saints and angelic figures in the Catholic Church.” By focusing on his story, she wanted to send out a message of solidarity to people struggling with similar problems. Walton always knew she wanted to write the kind of story she would have liked to read when she went to Catholic school. It is based on the book of the same name by Julia Walton. No, ‘Words on Bathroom Walls’ is not based on a true story. Is Words on Bathroom Walls based on a true story?

Words on a bathroom wall book