Mental illness can be devastating, both for the person with the disease and for her family, friends, and other loved ones as well. In addition to the sometimes alienating and frightening symptoms and effects of the specific disease, there is a stigma attached to a diagnosis of schizophrenia or depression that those suffering from brain cancer or multiple sclerosis don’t generally face: a misconception that mental illness is a choice or somehow the person’s own “fault,” a result of poor upbringing or lack of character.
The three books reviewed below are personal, intimate portraits of individuals that expose that notion for the fallacy that it is and help shed light on these serious medical conditions.
“It was as if I were trapped behind a thick glass wall”
Down Came the Rain: My Journey through Postpartum Depression
By Brooke Shields
I once read a profound truth: the best way to break a stigma is to out yourself. So here it goes. After the birth of my first son, I suffered from postpartum depression. During what was supposed to be one of the happiest, most fulfilling experiences of my life, I was miserable, apathetic, and felt completely detached from my beautiful baby, my loving and supportive husband, and everything I had found enjoyable in the past.
Every time someone cooed over my baby and said, “Oh, isn’t it so much fun? Don’t you just love being a mom?” I wanted to scream. It was a daily struggle to just get out of bed and accomplish the most basic tasks of childcare or personal hygiene. In our faith and culture, having a family is supposed to be one of the main purposes of our life on this earth as well as our greatest source of joy, so in my mind I was obviously a failure not only as a mother, but also as a faithful Mormon.
Fortunately, after almost a year, I seemed to be mostly back to normal and was relieved to have survived my rocky transition to motherhood. I didn’t fully understand that Life After Baby didn’t have to be like that until the birth of our second child. Braced for a repeat of the same darkness, I was thrilled and amazed when it never came. As I learned more about postpartum depression, I realized how lucky I had been to come out of the fog on my own and how foolish I had been not to seek help.
Reading Shields’s honest and intimate chronicle of her experience dealing with crushing postpartum depression was like watching myself go through that difficult year again. Over and over I thought, that’s exactly how I felt! Shields talks candidly about the other stressors in her life that made her more susceptible to postpartum depression, including several previous unsuccessful infertility treatments and the death of loved ones.
She discusses her earlier misconceptions of depression as an illness, her initial reluctance to use medication or professional therapists, and the enormous difference it made when she finally availed herself of those options. She delves into her thoughts on the nature of parenthood, being a mother and a daughter, and maintaining individuality.
She walks the reader through the difficulty she had as she dipped her toes back into the working world and tried to find the balance between the work she loves and the family she loves. She acknowledges the unhealthy expectations often laid upon new mothers by themselves, their friends and family and society. She talks frankly about the toll her illness took on her marriage and the efforts both she and her husband made to strengthen their relationship and support each other. Shields is remarkably and admirably open and forthcoming about her illness, her treatment, and her recovery.
Although I was lucky enough to come out of my postpartum depression without medical intervention, Shields benefited from both therapy and medication. Her courageous willingness to share her experience is potentially lifesaving for other women like us.
“A hostage to her own broken and shattered mind”
Mother Had a Secret
By Tiffany Fletcher
Vickie, the author’s mother, was the victim of horrible ongoing sexual abuse at the hands of her father. As a coping mechanism, her mind created additional personalities, or alters, to help her survive the abuse. One alter, Linda, cooked incessantly and appeared shortly after the death of Vickie’s mother, who also loved to bake. Sam was a seven-year-old boy who manifested during the periods of abuse. Bill, a very violent male personality, lashed out at any other men, especially Vickie’s husband, the author’s father.
Vickie had a total of fourteen alters, each with his or her own personality and characteristics. Formerly called multiple personality disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is frightening. The idea that our brains are capable of developing new realities and so fully buying into them seems almost like something out of a Science fiction or horror movie, but it is all too real for those who suffer from DID.
Mother Had a Secret begins as the family gathers shortly after Vickie’s death and the narrative then alternates between various scenes from Fletcher’s childhood and the family’s preparations for Vickie’s funeral. While growing up, Fletcher’s family lived by the motto “What happens in this house stays in this house.”
Even before Vickie was diagnosed with DID, Fletcher and her older sisters took on many of the responsibilities for running the household including caring for the younger children, housecleaning, and paying bills as well as supervising their mother while one of her other alters was out. Their modest income and lack of adequate insurance meant that Vickie received very little treatment after her initial hospitalization. Fletcher grew up loving her mother, but resenting her, too, for the lack of “normalcy” they were able to maintain at home.
This book is more the story of a daughter’s journey of understanding and forgiving her mother than a clinical investigation of DID. Fletcher, an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, describes her realization that though her childhood was difficult and different from those of her friends, she was spared the continuation of the cycle of abuse that had damaged her mother and previous generations. She is finally able to recognize her mother as “a good woman who loved God and life despite the hardships she was presented,” let go of her resentment and feel at peace.
“You have literally changed his chemistry by being his friend”
The Soloist: A Lost Dream,an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
By Steve Lopez
Early in his book, Lopez shares “a golden rule of journalism” that has broad application whether you’re a journalist or not: “Everyone has a story, so get out … and talk to people.” For Lopez, a chance meeting with Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a gifted street musician, was more than a serendipitous run-in that provided fodder for his weekly column at the LA Times. It changed both of their lives in ways neither could have predicted.
Ayers is a Juilliard alum, a naturally talented bass player who also picks up the violin, cello, piano, flute and trumpet at occasional intervals. Shortly after the beginning of his third year at the prestigious school, after increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior, he suffered a breakdown and dropped out of the intense program.
Finally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he was forcibly institutionalized and medicated for a while, eventually rejecting the lack of control over his own life.
For years he lived on the streets, lost contact with friends and family, and his illness went completely untreated.
His friendship with Lopez and the trust that develops between them slowly moves Ayers closer to treatment and more conventional living arrangements, including an apartment of his own. He receives dozens of donated instruments from caring readers of Lopez’s column, reconnects with his sister, attends a rehearsal of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, receives cello lessons from one of the Philharmonic’s cellists and meets Yo-Yo Ma.
Lopez’s strict “standards of journalistic distance and objectivity,” which he usually maintains scrupulously, fly out the window as he opens his life, home and heart to Ayers. He becomes “more attuned to [his] own feelings” and examines his own life and career. He picks up the guitar again after twenty years of not playing, inspired by Ayers’s love of music.
Lopez shares how he learned a greater capacity for patience, commitment, and loyalty; how he admires Ayers for his sincerity and lack of guile. “I’ve never had a friend” he says, “who lives in so spiritual a realm as Mr. Ayers, and I know that through his courage and humility and faith in the power of art — through his very ability to find happiness and purpose— he has awakened something in me.”
The Soloist creates a sympathetic, but realistic portrait of a unique individual who happens to have a mental illness. Lopez certainly doesn’t sugar-coat or downplay the severity of Ayers’s schizophrenia, but he allows Mr. Ayers’s personality to shine through so that his illness doesn’t completely define him.
The Soloist brushes on controversial topics such as what constitutes appropriate treatment, the ethics of forcible hospitalization or medication, the inadequacy of services and support available to “the people in greatest need of help.” Most powerful is the heartbreak he describes that comes from watching someone you love deteriorate into a completely different person and having no substantial way to help. Ultimately, this is a beautiful story of friendship and the difference that simply loving and accepting someone can make.
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On My Bedside Table…
Just finished: Chocolate Never Faileth by Annette Lyon
Now reading: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
On deck: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
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Next column we’ll continue the topic of mental illness with a more clinical look at treatment options and approaches. Have you had a close encounter with mental illness through a friend, family member or even yourself? Come find me on goodreads.com or email suggestions, comments, and feedback to egeddesbooks (at) gmail (dot) com.