5 Memoirs on Mental Health
5 Memoirs on Mental Health
This Mental Health Awareness Month we invite you to explore a few memoirs that offer direct insight into the human experience. Memoirs can be particularly powerful, providing personal perspectives on mental health challenges and triumphs.
COMMITTED
by Suzanne Scanlon
A raw and masterful memoir about becoming a woman and going mad—and doing both at once. Transporting, honest, and graceful, Committed is a story of discovery and recovery, reclaiming the idea of the madwoman as a template for insight and transcendence through the works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Janet Frame, Audre Lorde, Shulamith Firestone, and others.
GIRL, INTERRUPTED
by Susanna Kaysen
Girl, Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen’s memoir about her time in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s. The book offers a candid look at mental illness and the treatment of women in psychiatric care during that era. Kaysen’s narrative is both compelling and thought-provoking, shedding light on the challenges of living with mental illness and the journey toward recovery.
THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
by Nancy Bachrach
Nancy Bachrach’s memoir, The Center of the Universe, tells the improbable yet true story of her mother’s miraculous recovery from mental illness following accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. This darkly humorous memoir explores the multigenerational dynamics of a family dealing with mental health issues. Bachrach’s narrative is both aching and tender, offering a splendid, funny, and lyrical account of family, truth, and the resilience of love.
QUIETLY HOSTILE
by Samantha Irby
Samantha Irby’s Quietly Hostile is a hilarious collection of essays that engage readers with laugh-out-loud moments, heartfelt passages, and awkward experiences. Irby takes readers on a tour of the gory details that make up the true portrait of a life behind the screenshotted depression memes. Her essays are relatable, poignant, and uproarious, making Quietly Hostile a tonic for anyone navigating the complexities of mental health.
AN UNQUIET MIND
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. Here Jamison examines bipolar illness from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and the cruel allure that at times prompted her to resist taking medication. This a deeply powerful memoir about bipolar illness that has both transformed and saved lives.
