A review by silver_lining_in_a_book
The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and The Glory of Growing Up by Evanna Lynch

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

 
'It will get easier’ is probably the most offensive thing you can say to someone in the grip of pain. You are borrowing from a future that isn’t promised, a future that depends entirely on their endurance of the pain. You are taking for granted a well of strength within them that they may not possess, fast-forwarding through the ugly bits that you don’t want to watch but they must live through, nonetheless. ‘It will get easier’ is not a helpful thing to say to someone for whom only the present moment can exist, so vivid, so intense that it’s not possible to imagine a moment beyond it. The future doesn’t matter to someone enduring an unimaginable pain, so let’s not entertain that childish fantasy. All that matters is the pain that is consuming you in this moment, that you grit your teeth and try to survive it. You invalidate the pain and the damage it inflicts when you hasten to skip past it to a brighter tomorrow. Sometimes things are just unremittingly shit and the only respectful thing to do is to stand next to the person going through it and scream along with them.

Words cannot express how seen Evanna managed to make me feel through the retelling of her own hardships, but I know that had I read this book even a year earlier, it would not have been beneficial for my mental health at the time. Although, Evanna takes great care to be sensitive in regards to the topics she discusses, this is to its core an honest and raw depiction of mental health disorders and the process of growing up. Evanna can at times be painfully cruel to herself and she appears to feel little shame in portraying the way she acted during the toughest times in her life, which - while making this book very valuable and unique - at times makes this book very difficult to read.

Overall, I love the courage the author has shown in writing this book and, at least for me, this is a very very valuable memoir.
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