She's Not Herself

This was a poignant memoir of Linda, her family and the affects of a mentally ill parent. Linda was a young girl growing up in Brooklyn with a mentally ill mom in the 1940’s and 1950’s. This was a time when mental illness was not understood, talked about  and usually not even treated.  Linda has done an amazing  job of describing her upbringing and the anguish she experienced.  She has written a story that both honors her Mom and shows great compassion. This was a story of loyalty to family, the secrets we keep and forgiveness. Thank you, Netgalley.

I really enjoyed this memoir of a woman whose mother suffered from mental illness.  She captured her younger years very well and I felt the fear and confusion she must have felt as well. The book also has some very touching moments, which showed me that Shapiro's mother really was doing the best she could, given her illness. I left with strong feelings of connections to Linda and her family.

In addition to dealing with the topic of mental illness, this book also does a nice job of sharing some of the experiences of Russian immigrants in the 1920-1940s.  I enjoyed this aspect of the book and only wish there had been even more of this -- mostly because I find it is difficult to find accounts of this time period that are written as well as this memoir.

It was a quick read, and despite what could be a very heavy, depressing topic, I am left with feelings of hope. I would consider adopting this book if I am ever assigned to teach an Abnormal Psychology course -- I may even consider it for Fall 2015 in my Lifespan Psychology course.

As someone who has suffered through depression and has a family history of it, I really liked this book a lot. It's very much a memoir and not a self-help book. It's about the author's experiences in dealing with mental illness, rather than an advice book on getting others through it, but you can learn a lot from reading about other peoples' experiences and that's what I thought was particularly good about this book.

Read more: http://www.apeekatkarensworld.com/2015/02/recent-reads.html#ixzz3QobCxHTg

Loved this book and loved the memoir, one of my favourite reads. About a mothers mental illness and human tragedy, empathy love and a journey of infinite pain healing and knowledge. Its a poignant reminder about how people encounter and deal with mental illness in families and is a poignant heart wrenching story.

Every so often I go through the Nonfiction titles at NetGalley and discover a book or two which catch my eye. What I read in the description that made me download the book was the author's honesty about the good and bad she experienced as a child. The author didn't use this as an opportunity to besmirch her mother's memory or present the situation in biased light. I felt that she tried to give as much insight into the internal war that her mother was fighting while living through decades in which depression and mental illnesses weren't openly discussed or treated as they are now.

The book was told through Linda's experiences and recollections of her childhood, but other family members and friends added more information and possible reasons behind more than a few of the events that took place throughout the years. Her father and brother had a system in place to deal with Miriam's "episodes" before Linda was born. During this particular decade there wasn't much advancement in the area of mental illness and treatments. It was suggested by her own doctor that Miriam having another baby would help fill her days with enough tasks to keep her from not feeling well, their particular familial code for those times when the depression overwhelmed her. When seeking to alleviate the worst of the episodes, Linda would be sent to her friend's house until her father returned to tell her that Miriam was in the hospital. There the protocol for such illnesses included different medications and electroshock therapy. For awhile these things would work, but ultimately the cycle of good days giving away to bad would begin anew. 

As Linda graduated high school and enrolled in college, she enacted strict rules for herself to keep from becoming like her mother. Much of her college years eased the heavy weight she'd felt as a child while living at home until her last year of college when she fell in love with someone who brought out the fears she'd buried. With encouragement from her brother and his wife, Linda sought treatment from several therapists until she found one that helped her to understand what she had been through in her life as well as the various episodes her mother endured. Understanding people was the driving force in Linda going back to school and making a positive mark on the world as well as being open about the stigma that mental illness left on people who endured them or the caretakers who attempted to ease the bad times. 

Overall, this memoir was very eye-opening about how the author and her family cared for her mother during some of the worst episodes she remembered from her childhood. With both love and honesty, the author recounted both wonderful memories of her mother and the safe, loving environment that shaped her life and the uneasiness that seeped into their home when the restless nights and mumblings would signal another episode of her mother not feeling well. For a family dealing with these issues in decades and a part of society where talking about depression or mental illness wasn't well received, Linda, her brother and her father did as well as they could to keep their family unit together. It was interesting to see how Linda chose to fight her own depression after coming to terms with the help of therapists and newer, more effective types of treatments. It was easy to feel close to the author and her family while reading the highs and lows of their life, cheering them on during the good times and wanting to comfort them during the rougher moments. If you're an adult child of a parent with mental illness or simply want to know more about the topic, this is definitely a book to be on your need-to-read list.

This will be published on my blog on 3/27/15.

A brave and penetrating look at how a parent's mental illness affects a family. Told with great love and compassion, the author illuminates her mother's traumatic childhood, how that trauma set the course of her life, and how it cascaded into the next generation. The author shares with us her hopes, fears, triumphs, trials, friendships, and a glance inside the history and stigma associated with mental illness.