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A review by riversnowdrop
What Have I Done?: An honest memoir about surviving post-natal mental illness by Laura Dockrill
3.0
Abridged version of some of my critiques of this book (note: I enjoyed my experience of reading it - all in one sitting - and do think it holds valuable insight into the experience of someone with post-partum psychosis):
-There were some stereotypes/straight up blunders around the topic of mental health in a general sense that stood out in what was otherwise a personal account (for example saying someone “is” bipolar rather than “has”)
-Sometimes I think people say mental illness is invisible because then they don’t have to look at it (or go to the effort of recognising it)
-The blanket praise of the institution she stayed in rubbed me the wrong way; the fact that we “need” places like that is, to me, a disgusting indictment of the lack of understanding of differing brains in a capitalist-driven, hyper-independent, empathy-lacking western society
-“How people live with this illness for long periods of time, I will never know.” - about depression. And that’s the crux of my critique. The author is writing from the perspective of the UK’s Ideal Mental Illness Patient: someone who experiences acute mental suffering and is largely aided by medication and a course of CBT. Someone who never has to reckon with the fact that the way the world and the mental health services in this country are set up just isn’t for you. I don’t think this book would be comforting to those experiencing more long-term mental health or trauma issues.
That’s not to say it isn’t helpful: it is a book for the masses, a book to placate the call for mentally ill voices in media without shaking the table or questioning anything that could dismantle this neat little illusion that nothing needs changing on a structural level. Which is to say, maybe I’m done with mental health books/memoirs that don’t acknowledge the wider connectivity of it all. Maybe I’m just looking for something a bit more radical.
-There were some stereotypes/straight up blunders around the topic of mental health in a general sense that stood out in what was otherwise a personal account (for example saying someone “is” bipolar rather than “has”)
-Sometimes I think people say mental illness is invisible because then they don’t have to look at it (or go to the effort of recognising it)
-The blanket praise of the institution she stayed in rubbed me the wrong way; the fact that we “need” places like that is, to me, a disgusting indictment of the lack of understanding of differing brains in a capitalist-driven, hyper-independent, empathy-lacking western society
-“How people live with this illness for long periods of time, I will never know.” - about depression. And that’s the crux of my critique. The author is writing from the perspective of the UK’s Ideal Mental Illness Patient: someone who experiences acute mental suffering and is largely aided by medication and a course of CBT. Someone who never has to reckon with the fact that the way the world and the mental health services in this country are set up just isn’t for you. I don’t think this book would be comforting to those experiencing more long-term mental health or trauma issues.
That’s not to say it isn’t helpful: it is a book for the masses, a book to placate the call for mentally ill voices in media without shaking the table or questioning anything that could dismantle this neat little illusion that nothing needs changing on a structural level. Which is to say, maybe I’m done with mental health books/memoirs that don’t acknowledge the wider connectivity of it all. Maybe I’m just looking for something a bit more radical.