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A review by dafni
The Heartland: Finding and Losing Schizophrenia by Nathan Filer
5.0
People with no mental health background should read this book, understand various aspects of the so-called schizophrenia and change the conversation around it. I loved the non-judgmental writing style he adopts, while providing pros/cons around diagnosis, medication and other controversy topics.
Quoting the experience he had from a Hearing Voices support group, thinking we all could have a similar experience when disclosing a mental health difficulty to like-minded people.
“Imagine, once more, that you’re walking down that dark alley we’ve been talking about. You hear the sudden noise. It’s footsteps. Only this time, it doesn’t resolve itself to be rustling leaves by virtue of you listening more attentively. It remains footsteps. It’s always footsteps. Something is always following you. Always wanting to harm you. And it’s caught you before, whatever this thing is, and when it did, when that happened, it was too terrifying to contemplate. Now imagine you look to your left, and there’s a friend walking beside you. Your friend can hear the footsteps behind you, too. And to your right is another friend, and another, and another. You’re not alone at all. There’s a whole gang of you. You’re all walking this dark alley together. It’s longer than you thought. It’s darker than you feared. But you’re doing it, and come to think of it, when you’re all together like this – your own footsteps sound the loudest.”
Quoting the experience he had from a Hearing Voices support group, thinking we all could have a similar experience when disclosing a mental health difficulty to like-minded people.
“Imagine, once more, that you’re walking down that dark alley we’ve been talking about. You hear the sudden noise. It’s footsteps. Only this time, it doesn’t resolve itself to be rustling leaves by virtue of you listening more attentively. It remains footsteps. It’s always footsteps. Something is always following you. Always wanting to harm you. And it’s caught you before, whatever this thing is, and when it did, when that happened, it was too terrifying to contemplate. Now imagine you look to your left, and there’s a friend walking beside you. Your friend can hear the footsteps behind you, too. And to your right is another friend, and another, and another. You’re not alone at all. There’s a whole gang of you. You’re all walking this dark alley together. It’s longer than you thought. It’s darker than you feared. But you’re doing it, and come to think of it, when you’re all together like this – your own footsteps sound the loudest.”