Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain by Abby Norman

7 reviews

sellnow_hannah's review against another edition

funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

This was a personal account of a woman living with chronic illness and she weaves elements of memoir, science, and history. I would say it’s mainly a memoir and an emotional glimpse into what it’s like to live with an unexplained illness highlighting the challenges in interacting with the medical system as a chronically ill person. While this was an emotional and heavy topic, I did enjoy the author’s frequent snarky comments and humor.
The downsides of this book were the timeline and the meandering nature of her writing. She seemed to jump back and forth in time in her personal story often and some of the science and history elements (while insightful) didn’t tie in as well with her personal story. Overall an enlightening read and one I’d recommend for people in healthcare. 

(I don’t rate memoirs below a 4 star because I think it takes a lot of courage to be this vulnerable and share your life story. So for me 4-4.25 is good, 4.5-4.75 is great, 5.0 is fantastic.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Suicide attempt, Medical trauma, Blood, and Vomit

mccalab's review against another edition

emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Vomit

abbystapleton's review against another edition

challenging sad slow-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Eating disorder, and Vomit

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, and Child abuse

Minor: Suicide attempt, Infertility, and Transphobia

laureljeanreads's review

challenging emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

I always feel weird rating memoirs but I feel like this is such an important topic explored and done so with a really good mix of some medical research facts as well as personal experience that shines through. The fact that this is not just this authors story, but is the story of so many other people dealing with chronic pain, uterine issues and not being believed by medical professionals is both sad and enraging.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Medical trauma, and Eating disorder

Minor: Infertility, Transphobia, Miscarriage, and Suicide attempt

sammantha's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This book is phenomenally written and so much more than I ever could have imagined. I’ve never dog-eared so many pages in my life. Highly recommend, especially to doctors and nurses. “I had never wanted to be right; I had only wanted to be well.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Vomit, Blood, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Animal cruelty, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Excrement and Miscarriage

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

 - Part memoir and part history of doctors dismissing "female problems," ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS is gripping and enraging. I'd wager that even if you don't have endometriosis in particular, you'll see your own experiences with the medical system reflected here (me. I did, it's me).
- Norman doesn't shy away from describing exactly what her pain - physical and emotional - feels like. This book is a tough read but I think many will find it cathartic to be seen on the page.
- Norman is careful to point out that not only women deal with uterine pain and illness, and also that not all women have uteruses, and the extra layer of fear and frustration this can add to trying to get diagnosis and treatment. She's also up front about how being straight, white, and cisgender framed her whole situation and afforded her more privilege throughout this process than others (and the flip side of that, of how being a traditionally feminine woman led to instances of dismissal).
- It's in the content warnings listed below, but I want to point it out here as well since it's not obvious from the summary - major content warnings for child neglect, eating disorders and suicide particularly in the chapters discussing Norman's childhood. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Vomit

hollandvk's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Medical content, Sexism, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Vomit, Terminal illness, Sexual content, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Infertility, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Cancer