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A review by lifeinpoetry
Who Gets Believed by Dina Nayeri
1.0
Holy shit, this was the most sanist book I've read to completion in many years. Compassion is extended to the oppression and systemic lack of belief in the stories and pain of refugees, torture survivors, women (especially mothers) of color, pain medication seeking by people with sickle cell or cancer (the only illnesses seen as credible), people who are sent home by medical professionals and die as a result, the parents and family of the mentally ill, etc., etc. There is a dearth of compassion for the (severely) mentally ill and to a much lesser extent people with sick cell or cancer seeking pain medication. There is a lot of talk of performing your pain, illness, suicide attempts, etc. without a shred of insight into the fact that most mentally ill do perform but not what she imagines, not their illness, they sometimes perform being neurotypical in situations where they do not feel comfortable/safe or as it's commonly known, masking.
There is the hideous idea that tough love, work, and applying how mental illness is treated in her country of origin, the country she fled from, will turn her brother-in-law into a neurotypical person, a worthy member of society who doesn't 'perform' mental illness. She later says the reference to her home country meant multiple squats by ordered by a stern uncle which only further exposes her ignorance regarding mental illness. At one point she gets to the point she changes her brother-in-law's name in her husband's phone in hopes he won't pick up his brother's calls requesting support. She instantly changes it back, realizing she's going too far, but it shows her complete lack of empathy regarding her brother-in-law.
She realizes by the end, after her brother-in-law's tragic suicide, she should have believed bur there is still the undergirding idea it's all a performance. Even in the last chapter she tells the story of a woman with Munchausen's who kills herself after she is not believed without a reference to the fact that Munchausen's is itself an illness. This seems to tie into her pet theory that her severely mentally brother-in-law was acting his pain and killed himself when it was not believed. Even when she first hears of his suicide, she imagines that he's alive with a few tiny cuts on his wrist, another gesture which is not to be taken seriously.
This was honestly such a difficult book to read. I wasn't triggered in the colloquial or clinical sense of the word, just sighed at the fact that three master's degrees do not guarantee care for and insight into (severe) mental illness, that they do not guard against ignorance. I honestly expected better from an author I knew had deep compassion for refugees which was the entire reason I had read some of her previous books and decided to read this one.
P.S. Also, lose me with that bullshit idea about becoming 'free' via suicide. I know many neurotypical people and even some of those with mental health issues view the lives of the severely mentally ill like the brother-in-law (and me) as sad and pathetic but come on. The brother-in-law in the memoir made multiple attempts to go inpatient before his suicide and was denied by a shitty healthcare system, there was obviously a huge part of him that wanted to live.
There is the hideous idea that tough love, work, and applying how mental illness is treated in her country of origin, the country she fled from, will turn her brother-in-law into a neurotypical person, a worthy member of society who doesn't 'perform' mental illness. She later says the reference to her home country meant multiple squats by ordered by a stern uncle which only further exposes her ignorance regarding mental illness. At one point she gets to the point she changes her brother-in-law's name in her husband's phone in hopes he won't pick up his brother's calls requesting support. She instantly changes it back, realizing she's going too far, but it shows her complete lack of empathy regarding her brother-in-law.
She realizes by the end, after her brother-in-law's tragic suicide, she should have believed bur there is still the undergirding idea it's all a performance. Even in the last chapter she tells the story of a woman with Munchausen's who kills herself after she is not believed without a reference to the fact that Munchausen's is itself an illness. This seems to tie into her pet theory that her severely mentally brother-in-law was acting his pain and killed himself when it was not believed. Even when she first hears of his suicide, she imagines that he's alive with a few tiny cuts on his wrist, another gesture which is not to be taken seriously.
This was honestly such a difficult book to read. I wasn't triggered in the colloquial or clinical sense of the word, just sighed at the fact that three master's degrees do not guarantee care for and insight into (severe) mental illness, that they do not guard against ignorance. I honestly expected better from an author I knew had deep compassion for refugees which was the entire reason I had read some of her previous books and decided to read this one.
P.S. Also, lose me with that bullshit idea about becoming 'free' via suicide. I know many neurotypical people and even some of those with mental health issues view the lives of the severely mentally ill like the brother-in-law (and me) as sad and pathetic but come on. The brother-in-law in the memoir made multiple attempts to go inpatient before his suicide and was denied by a shitty healthcare system, there was obviously a huge part of him that wanted to live.