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870 reviews for:
While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence
Meg Kissinger
4.28 AVERAGE
870 reviews for:
While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence
Meg Kissinger
4.28 AVERAGE
3.5 stars for me. Incredibly brave, personal telling of her family's tragic experiences. Some was relatable having several family members struggle with mental health, including myself. I appreciate her normalizing the subject and sharing all the research of our country's failings. We have to talk about it just like any other disease. Take away the shame. And do better as a community.
3.5
Story of a large Catholic family growing up in the north shore about the same time as me and my family. Honest, sad, funny and also tragic. I enjoyed the first part of the book the best. The second half became less the story of the family and more the history of mental illness treatment. Well written, fascinating topic and tough problems to solve.
Story of a large Catholic family growing up in the north shore about the same time as me and my family. Honest, sad, funny and also tragic. I enjoyed the first part of the book the best. The second half became less the story of the family and more the history of mental illness treatment. Well written, fascinating topic and tough problems to solve.
So much to relate to and so much more to learn. A really intimate book
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Don’t get me wrong, this was a powerful story and read. Definitely need to check the trigger warnings before you pick it up! Very heavy topics are discussed in this book.
For me, there was some parts of this memoir I had to skim through to get to the end. I was more interested in reading about the intimate family portrait as the book is described. I didn’t much care for the extra excerpts on other outside people’s journeys or other people’s careers. They didn’t add to the story for me. It almost seemed the book was in two parts - the intimate story of this family, and then an overall look at mental health in this country.
For me, there was some parts of this memoir I had to skim through to get to the end. I was more interested in reading about the intimate family portrait as the book is described. I didn’t much care for the extra excerpts on other outside people’s journeys or other people’s careers. They didn’t add to the story for me. It almost seemed the book was in two parts - the intimate story of this family, and then an overall look at mental health in this country.
ok i know i don’t rate memoirs but 10000/10 so well written and researched please please read it but note it has a lot of trigger warnings as the memoir is about the authors family & their experience dealing with mental illness (alc abuse, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, suicide (a heavily discussed topic) self harm, substance abuse, and more sadly).
i really appreciated the language used when discussing mental illness and recognizing how painfully it can affect loved ones. the extreme, unseen, silent battles that are faced for those with mental illnesses is often so easily ignored. i’m so grateful that in this generation, mental illness continues to be destigmatized as we continue talking about it and being vulnerable with one another. the author’s research and experience as a journalist in uncovering harsh truths of the mental health space is so needed and the entire memoir was so thoughtfully laid out. i grieve for their family but am also so proud of how far they’ve come as siblings and the way they’ve learned to cope individually and together.
i really appreciated the language used when discussing mental illness and recognizing how painfully it can affect loved ones. the extreme, unseen, silent battles that are faced for those with mental illnesses is often so easily ignored. i’m so grateful that in this generation, mental illness continues to be destigmatized as we continue talking about it and being vulnerable with one another. the author’s research and experience as a journalist in uncovering harsh truths of the mental health space is so needed and the entire memoir was so thoughtfully laid out. i grieve for their family but am also so proud of how far they’ve come as siblings and the way they’ve learned to cope individually and together.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced