Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang

16 reviews

creativerunnings's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Ableism, Bullying, Confinement, Medical content, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Chronic illness, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

sjbshannon's review

dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Medical trauma

literarylion's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Pros:

• a good and necessary perspective on serious mental illness and its perception in society
• definitely a story that hasn't been told before

Cons:

• It got progressively more trite 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide attempt, and Chronic illness

upperjackpain's review

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Suicide and Forced institutionalization

machinations's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Child death, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Sexual violence and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Blood

eshdho's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Sexual assault

ellaschalski's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Chronic illness, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide

demo's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

This is a tough one to try and rate. I thoroughly enjoyed this book but did recoil at the pseudoscience and mysticism in last 20% or so. I was raised in a family that attempted to treat my childhood and adolescent illness with a wide range of expensive pseudoscientific remedies, and while I don't deny that Wang seems to gain grounding and comfort from the experience, I struggle to ascribe good faith motives to the practitioners treating her chronic health issues with similar costly means. I take issue with the author on many a point, but still found her perspective fascinating and her writing compelling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Chronic illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Medical content, Murder, Suicide attempt, Confinement, Ableism, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, and Suicide

Minor: Pedophilia

ellipticalorbit's review

I think that Wang has a lot to contribute towards discussions of mental health stigma. However, I found this collection to be too lacking in nuance to contribute deeply to this discussion outside of the realm of personal experience. 

At the same time as Wang describes her harmful experiences with hospitalization in detail- something that a society with a "lock up the people we don't like" norm must discuss!- she speaks about other neurodivergent people- particularly those with developmental disabilities- in a way that makes me question the depth of her research and the intentions of her writing. (I truly find the quote "People write about the so-called comfort of being insane in the same way they cavalierly refer to the happy ease of being developmentally disabled," disturbing and believe that adequate research could have prevented her from presenting false or misleading ideas about disability (p. 127). There is no anaylsis of this idea, so while she may have intended to offer it critically, it's just too ambiguous.

I consider this book a cautionary tale on writing memoirs, or really anything, about mental illness/disability/neurodivergence. This is not an individualistic task- the author must consider the ripple effect of what they write and do their best to mitigate such harmful effects. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma and Ableism

sidneyreads_'s review

emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Chronic illness, Mental illness, and Medical trauma

Minor: Rape and Suicide