A review by megatsunami
Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir by Sarah Fawn Montgomery

4.0

3.5 stars. This book gives a very raw and real portrayal of the internal experience of severe anxiety. I found it most compelling when she describes the disconnect between her internal state and how others perceive her, and talks about the nature of pain as something that can't be verified by others. Her story is also an indictment of our mental health systems of "care" (among other things, the fact that her doctors were not recommending therapy for her during the many years when she was prescribed multiple mental health medications is seriously malpractice!). I felt the book was sometimes less strong in the parts where it extrapolated from the author's experience to generalize about mental health treatment in general (e.g. when she describes her experience on Zoloft and then goes right into claims that Zoloft caused people to commit murders).

I appreciated this review's perspective.