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mayelaam 's review for:
Funny, warm, relatable, and unflinchingly honest are a few words to describe Maggy van Eijk's writing.
Despite the topic matter, mental health (or lack thereof), not being itself particularly cheerful, this book never made me feel overwhelmed and it did not trigger my own anxiety like other books on mental health have done (that said, check yourself, always, and stop whenever you need to. We're all different.)
The chapters are about what to do in different situations: when you're alone, when someone hurts you, when you're in love, when you're feeling better, and come with anecdotes that never failed to elicit an emotion in me, and with helpful tips. Sometimes the lists of tips were very specific to what Maggy had gone through but they still prompted me to think of similar things that would help me.
I particularly commend Maggy for how she is not defined by her mental health, a difficult thing to do when many times the world wants to put us into boxes. "Oh, okay, she's depressive. Oh, he's bipolar." It's part of her, and she doesn't hide it, another thing I loved about this book, but it's not her defining quality. It's just one of the many things she is.
In the end, the best part about reading How Not To Fall Apart, was feeling understood. Many times when trying to talk to people about mental health, you come against prejudices, biases, or plain misinformation. Many times, people say "I'm so depressed" when they just mean they're sad or "I've got anxiety" when they just had some apprehension about, say, a presentation. That can leave you feeling like you can't talk to them, like you're alone, like no one gets you because if your friend's bar for "anxiety" is some occasional palm sweating when asking a guy out, well, how can you tell them about that time when you thought you were actually going to die because your anxiety was giving you chest pains, making it difficult to breathe? Maggy gets it. Her writing made me feel less alone and it was great to see someone keep trying to connect with herself and with others, no matter how many times she stumbled.
Despite the topic matter, mental health (or lack thereof), not being itself particularly cheerful, this book never made me feel overwhelmed and it did not trigger my own anxiety like other books on mental health have done (that said, check yourself, always, and stop whenever you need to. We're all different.)
The chapters are about what to do in different situations: when you're alone, when someone hurts you, when you're in love, when you're feeling better, and come with anecdotes that never failed to elicit an emotion in me, and with helpful tips. Sometimes the lists of tips were very specific to what Maggy had gone through but they still prompted me to think of similar things that would help me.
I particularly commend Maggy for how she is not defined by her mental health, a difficult thing to do when many times the world wants to put us into boxes. "Oh, okay, she's depressive. Oh, he's bipolar." It's part of her, and she doesn't hide it, another thing I loved about this book, but it's not her defining quality. It's just one of the many things she is.
In the end, the best part about reading How Not To Fall Apart, was feeling understood. Many times when trying to talk to people about mental health, you come against prejudices, biases, or plain misinformation. Many times, people say "I'm so depressed" when they just mean they're sad or "I've got anxiety" when they just had some apprehension about, say, a presentation. That can leave you feeling like you can't talk to them, like you're alone, like no one gets you because if your friend's bar for "anxiety" is some occasional palm sweating when asking a guy out, well, how can you tell them about that time when you thought you were actually going to die because your anxiety was giving you chest pains, making it difficult to breathe? Maggy gets it. Her writing made me feel less alone and it was great to see someone keep trying to connect with herself and with others, no matter how many times she stumbled.