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carduelia_carduelis 's review for:
Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir
by Mark Vonnegut
“Why is there so much meaning when a mind breaks? Why isn't it all just static and nonsense?”
This is a short memoir by a pediatrician who happened to have a dad who made the big-time after his formative years. It's about trying to build something of your life and have schizoaffective disorder blow it open - to your own confusion and bemusement.
This is a great book for all the things that are described above but mostly because you get the sense that Mark is just a real, genuinely, warm guy and it's a pleasure to spend time with him. So much of his approach to life: his ailing marriage, breakdowns, his challenging relationships with parents and relatives is handled with grace. Which brings me to another quote:
Vonnegut is not speaking here about himself, but someone he aspires to be like and that's another thing I loved about this book: how open he is about where he wants to be versus where he is and how he shares what he's learnt along the way.
I recognized a lot of my own struggles in his words and methods. Especially towards the start of his fourth breakdown.
This isn't as bleak nor perhaps as memorable as [b:The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays|40121993|The Collected Schizophrenias Essays|Esmé Weijun Wang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1527408064l/40121993._SX50_.jpg|56276422] but it's just as a fascinating insight into the mind of someone with a psychosis-inducing mental illness. His observations about being a doctor in the US over the last 30 or so years and how the pharmaceutical industry has shaped medical are also timely. One wonders how much of the shift he describes was youthful naïveté vs the industry.
I mostly gave this 5 stars because I felt I'd found a kindred spirit, and isn't it wonderful when someone you've never met, from an entirely different gender/generation/nationality finds you across the page like that?
One more thought, something hopeful, to end on:
This is a short memoir by a pediatrician who happened to have a dad who made the big-time after his formative years. It's about trying to build something of your life and have schizoaffective disorder blow it open - to your own confusion and bemusement.
This is a great book for all the things that are described above but mostly because you get the sense that Mark is just a real, genuinely, warm guy and it's a pleasure to spend time with him. So much of his approach to life: his ailing marriage, breakdowns, his challenging relationships with parents and relatives is handled with grace. Which brings me to another quote:
His romance and charm lay in how well he did with what might have been and how gracefully he accepted what was.
Vonnegut is not speaking here about himself, but someone he aspires to be like and that's another thing I loved about this book: how open he is about where he wants to be versus where he is and how he shares what he's learnt along the way.
I recognized a lot of my own struggles in his words and methods. Especially towards the start of his fourth breakdown.
With mental illness the trick is to not take your feelings so seriously; you’re zooming in and zooming away from things that go from being too important to being not important at all.
This isn't as bleak nor perhaps as memorable as [b:The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays|40121993|The Collected Schizophrenias Essays|Esmé Weijun Wang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1527408064l/40121993._SX50_.jpg|56276422] but it's just as a fascinating insight into the mind of someone with a psychosis-inducing mental illness. His observations about being a doctor in the US over the last 30 or so years and how the pharmaceutical industry has shaped medical are also timely. One wonders how much of the shift he describes was youthful naïveté vs the industry.
I mostly gave this 5 stars because I felt I'd found a kindred spirit, and isn't it wonderful when someone you've never met, from an entirely different gender/generation/nationality finds you across the page like that?
One more thought, something hopeful, to end on:
My father gave me the gifts of being able to pay attention to my inner narration no matter how tedious the damn thing could be at times and the knowledge that creating something, be it music or a painting or a poem or a short story, was a way out of wherever you were and a way to find out what the hell happens next and not have it be the same old thing.
[..]
All the arts are a way to start a dialogue with yourself about what you've done, what you could have done differently, and whether or not you might try again.