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sblake26's review against another edition
2.0
If this book had been longer I probably wouldn’t have finished it. The writing style seemed oddly detached even though it was the author’s personal story.
charkinzie's review against another edition
4.0
Simon Winchester awakens one morning while at Oxford and suddenly everything around him seems threatening ... nothing has changed ... but everything is different. Everything from his housecoat, to painting and books, was terrifying. All of this happens about two weeks before he's to set off on an expedition to the Arctic.
After 9 days of suffering in a world of his own... the "fog" lifted. The expedition began without a hitch. He was suffering from strange compulsions - dangerous ones int he arctic, and retreated within himself. He speculates that it was the intense physical labor of the expedition that kept him from focussing too much on his own state. The pattern continued and Winchester began the process of understanding what was going on.
There are pills, doctors, things that don't work, side effects, and no progress for four years. When he found himself attempting suicide and leaving his job the healing began. He met a doctor on a house call to see his Aunt... and he suspected he knew what was wrong. This meeting leads to Winchester getting electroconvulsive therapy. After six weeks of therapy... Winchester's life was returned to him. He was cured.
He didn't write about his mental health challenges and the subsequent treatment for many years. In part, he says, due to the thoughts/ concerns of his parents. It wasn't until he was researching years later for a book he was writing that he picked up a copy of the DSM-IV and discovered that a diagnosis of dissociative disorder matched his symptoms perfectly.
There's some discussion in this book about the validity of the DSM-IV and the like as tools for diagnosis, the stigma of living with mental illness, fear of relapse and both sides of the argument regarding ECT.
After 9 days of suffering in a world of his own... the "fog" lifted. The expedition began without a hitch. He was suffering from strange compulsions - dangerous ones int he arctic, and retreated within himself. He speculates that it was the intense physical labor of the expedition that kept him from focussing too much on his own state. The pattern continued and Winchester began the process of understanding what was going on.
There are pills, doctors, things that don't work, side effects, and no progress for four years. When he found himself attempting suicide and leaving his job the healing began. He met a doctor on a house call to see his Aunt... and he suspected he knew what was wrong. This meeting leads to Winchester getting electroconvulsive therapy. After six weeks of therapy... Winchester's life was returned to him. He was cured.
He didn't write about his mental health challenges and the subsequent treatment for many years. In part, he says, due to the thoughts/ concerns of his parents. It wasn't until he was researching years later for a book he was writing that he picked up a copy of the DSM-IV and discovered that a diagnosis of dissociative disorder matched his symptoms perfectly.
There's some discussion in this book about the validity of the DSM-IV and the like as tools for diagnosis, the stigma of living with mental illness, fear of relapse and both sides of the argument regarding ECT.
charkinzie's review
4.0
Simon Winchester awakens one morning while at Oxford and suddenly everything around him seems threatening ... nothing has changed ... but everything is different. Everything from his housecoat, to painting and books, was terrifying. All of this happens about two weeks before he's to set off on an expedition to the Arctic.
After 9 days of suffering in a world of his own... the "fog" lifted. The expedition began without a hitch. He was suffering from strange compulsions - dangerous ones int he arctic, and retreated within himself. He speculates that it was the intense physical labor of the expedition that kept him from focussing too much on his own state. The pattern continued and Winchester began the process of understanding what was going on.
There are pills, doctors, things that don't work, side effects, and no progress for four years. When he found himself attempting suicide and leaving his job the healing began. He met a doctor on a house call to see his Aunt... and he suspected he knew what was wrong. This meeting leads to Winchester getting electroconvulsive therapy. After six weeks of therapy... Winchester's life was returned to him. He was cured.
He didn't write about his mental health challenges and the subsequent treatment for many years. In part, he says, due to the thoughts/ concerns of his parents. It wasn't until he was researching years later for a book he was writing that he picked up a copy of the DSM-IV and discovered that a diagnosis of dissociative disorder matched his symptoms perfectly.
There's some discussion in this book about the validity of the DSM-IV and the like as tools for diagnosis, the stigma of living with mental illness, fear of relapse and both sides of the argument regarding ECT.
After 9 days of suffering in a world of his own... the "fog" lifted. The expedition began without a hitch. He was suffering from strange compulsions - dangerous ones int he arctic, and retreated within himself. He speculates that it was the intense physical labor of the expedition that kept him from focussing too much on his own state. The pattern continued and Winchester began the process of understanding what was going on.
There are pills, doctors, things that don't work, side effects, and no progress for four years. When he found himself attempting suicide and leaving his job the healing began. He met a doctor on a house call to see his Aunt... and he suspected he knew what was wrong. This meeting leads to Winchester getting electroconvulsive therapy. After six weeks of therapy... Winchester's life was returned to him. He was cured.
He didn't write about his mental health challenges and the subsequent treatment for many years. In part, he says, due to the thoughts/ concerns of his parents. It wasn't until he was researching years later for a book he was writing that he picked up a copy of the DSM-IV and discovered that a diagnosis of dissociative disorder matched his symptoms perfectly.
There's some discussion in this book about the validity of the DSM-IV and the like as tools for diagnosis, the stigma of living with mental illness, fear of relapse and both sides of the argument regarding ECT.
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