Book Recommendations and The Stories of Mental Illness

I had hoped to post a blog with BookBloggers International for their Mental Health awareness month series. But, I totally dropped the ball. Ain’t that the way? Anyway, here’s the post I would have posted for them.

I thought it would be easy to write a post about a book or two that I have recommended to my patients to read about depression or anxiety or whatever other things are going on for them. And I think it would be one way to go with a Mental Health-focused post. But, that’s not what I’m going to write about, exactly.

Books are a great way to learn about individuals and their stories as part of a way to increase awareness, understanding, and perspective taking. But this post is really more about how you don’t want to get too caught up in just one story.

Book Review: Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt (#RocTBF2016)

I read Orbiting Jupiter because the author in attending/ presenting at the Rochester Teen Book Festival next month and I am on a mission to have read at least one book by each author who attends by at that date.

Click here to learn about my mission.

Click here for the Rochester TBF web page.

This was my first Gary Schmidt novel and I had no idea what to expect. It was written for those in the 6th grade and older. 

Here's the Goodreads summary:

"Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he’ll have a future, he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice."

Now, for context:

Words mean things: Rant about diagnostic words

This is a rare post for me: one where I talk mostly about the mental health world that occupies most of my time. I tend to prefer to leave my bookish side separate. But this post is a rant about words, that happens to overlap with the other stuff.

I know that it's totally in fashion with The Youth to use extreme language. Everything is "the worst" or "the best" and you "love" everyone and you'd "rather die." Blah blah.

The words that really irk me are those that people use because they think they know what they mean but it's my job to really understand what they actually mean. Then I have to talk to them about why what they are describing is NOT actually what they are calling it... and then convince them to take action to make some sort of change in their lives.Not surprising, then, most of these words are mental health related.

Words I wish would fall out of mainstream usage:

Writers Write: Sticking to my #NaBloPoMo goal

When setting goals it is best to set them in such a way that does not depend on your mood. You see, people think about what they want to accomplish and get all gung-ho about everything and excited. Then, some time later, their mood changes and they just don't feel like doing The Thing any more. Maybe they're tired, or busy, or just feeling unmotivated.

But (effectively) setting a goal means that you give yourself a structure and, hopefully, a reminder about doing The Thing even when you don't feel like doing The Thing. Even if you're tired or busy or unmotivated, if you have set a goal to jog three days per week, then you get up and do it. If you were just going to depend on your mood, your perceived motivation, and your flexibility, you're not really working toward your goal, you're just doing what you feel like doing, when you feel like doing it. Do you see the different? It's an important one and one I have to talk to parents about ALL THE TIME. Your rules and goals should not mood- dependent. This is usually how I fail at 30-day challenges. Once the going gets tough, or inconvenient, I'm out.

I say all this because I don't really feel like blogging today. I'm tired. I'm in the middle of a good book and I want to finish it TODAY. It's The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen, by the way. Don't you hate when someone references a book they like and then don't tell you the stinking name!! TELL ME WHAT BOOK IT IS... 

But I digress.

So, even though I'm tired, I'm posting this blog. Because that's what I said I was going to do for National Blog Posting Month. And Writer's Write.

Book Review: It's kind of a funny story (how I can't NOT be a shrink).

It’s actually pretty hard for me to read books about kids with depression, anxiety, PTSD or whatever. Hard isn’t the right word. It’s not as enjoyable for me as it might be for others. I’m like a painter in a museum. I can’t relax and let the story unfold; I have to critique the interactions the characters are having with their therapists, look for symptoms that are inconsistent with their stated diagnosis, lament therapeutic responses to comments that go unsaid… that kind of thing. Basically, I pick apart details that are so minor they don’t really affect the story that much. Plus, I keep a critical eye open for whether I think it would be a good recommendation for other mental health providers or even my own patients to read.

All that being said. I enjoyed reading about Craig’s fall into some fairly significant depression. He spends a week in an adult inpatient hospital which gives him time to think about what’s important to him and how to make meaningful changes in his life. The relationships that Craig forms and the people that he meets while hospitalized are realistic and true to experiences I’ve seen while working in similar places. This makes sense, since the author himself spent a week in a hospital before writing this book. Craig also gets a new appreciation for some of the things he has going for himself.

As an aside: people don’t really think about how different the culture of mental health care can be depending on what region you’re in. The way things are done in New York City are very different from the way they’re done Upstate, for example. It was interesting to read about the psycho-pharmacologist and their role in referring to a therapist, or many therapists in Craig’s case. That’s not unheard of here, but the book sort of sounds like it’s a matter of course but maybe that’s only the case for the family in the book. It’s certainly not the only way to do things, which is good given the shortage of psychiatric medication providers in my area.

This book’s mental health stuff didn’t irk me too much and it was easy to settle in with the characters and the angst of the teen lead. As I said, many things ring true and are likely related to the author’s own experiences. A book with irritating mental health elements: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. But that’s because there is a special place in my heart for undiagnosed PTSD.

My soapbox bit: Yes, mental illness has biological components. For many illnesses, symptoms are just as well, if not better, managed through behavioral interventions and lifestyle changes. We have an unhealthy reverence for medications in this country and a belief that medication will cure mental illness. This belief can be dangerous. It’s also important to note that “False Shifts” aren’t all bad. Don’t “should” yourself out of appreciating them.

 

Also. I obviously won't be seeing this movie. I don't do that.