A review by kaylarose_
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

wow. this was a great and very sad book. this book offers a stark, dark, and necessary view of how psychiatry has dealt poorly with mental disorders over several decades. there is a question of how we provide those with mental disorders a quality life, one that doesn’t alienate and isolate the person, without completely over-medicating and numbing the person out. the book ends without hope, but throughout, rachel makes small notes of where psychiatry could do better… perhaps the hope lies in the listener, who- among the right gifts- may be able to change the narrative of serious mental disorders… I’ll never have the credentials to do that, but i will not reject an opportunity to hear people’s stories and know they have dignity and worth. what we certainly cannot do with this story is shrug.

p.s.
i found the telling of this story similar to how “how the other half eats”, where the book follows multiple individuals with a diversity of experiences with some sociological/psychological issue that unites them. i’ll read those kinds of books anytime :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Mental illness

Moderate: Eating disorder, Death, and Medical trauma