Show Me All Your Scars

April 4, 2016
Gutkind, himself no stranger to the topic of mental illness (Stuck in Time: The Tragedy of Childhood Mental Illness), has assembled a collection of other authors’ writings that conveys what it is like to experience mental illness and expands the ways in which it can be expressed. The 20 selections are most unified in resisting traditional narrative tropes. Some stories withhold the biographical details about the narrator or protagonist that are obligatory in straightforward accounts, as in the first piece, Ella Wilson’s “Take Care,” which plunges directly into the height of a manic episode. Meanwhile, Ryan Bloom’s “Scuse Me While I Fuck the Sky” experiments with formatting and style to convey what it is like to have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Lesser-known illnesses are also featured: Alison Townsend’s “There’s a Name for That? Living with Trichotillomania” intersperses her own story with research into the compulsion to pull one’s hair. This volume demonstrates that narrative—as opposed to hard, unvarnished facts—can be the most effective way to impart information and promote activism.

June 1, 2016
This fascinating if disturbing collection offers 20 first-person essays about schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, bulimia, self-injury by cutting, uncontrolled hair-pulling, and suicide attempts. An introduction by former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy and the editor's note by science and medicine writer Gutkind set up the stories and explain why they're important. After all, more than 50 million Americans today suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. The essayists understand that they're the lucky ones: They have survived, at least so far. One of them, as a teen getting ready to swallow what she thinks is a fatal number of pills, thinks, Peace at least. Another feels that managing her bipolar disorder may actually give her a higher quality of life. The reason: I have to stay physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically healthy. I must keep to a serious routine. Swimming at least a half a mile a day is as important as taking my medicine. These heartfelt, soul-baring stories provide moving and powerful food for thought.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)