Welcome to Litsy!

The author lays bare the years of struggle she faced without a real and accurate diagnosis of the unrest in her brain that stole her life: schizophrenia. She went through hell…writing and publishing this memoir was an act of courage. Our ills may be a part of us, but they don‘t define who we are.

Excellent collection of essays, in which the author recounts her experience with schizophrenia with a candid honesty, sharing her uncertainties about the future, her fears, describing how she sometimes disconnects with reality, and which coping mechanism she uses.
This must-read offers a lot of useful information. It's impossible not to feel for Esmé, and through her, to feel deep empathy for anyone going through what she's going through.

This is an amazing set of essays, and a very unique perspective of journeys. Rethinking care, how we interact and the way we stigmatize mental care and living with mental illness is brought out in all its dirty linens to sit on the examination table.
Love this. I only wish there were more of these essays to read.

#nonfiction #mentalillness #mentalhealth #healthcare #schizophrenia #shortstories #esmeweijunwang

I have a three week break in between semesters for grad school. I can‘t wait to dive into this one!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ If you‘re looking to better understand schizophrenia and it‘s many iterations, this intimate, honest collection is a good start. As an adult, Wang was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. She describes her spiral, if you will, into mental illness. Some reviewers are put off by Wang‘s self pride. I took those bits as effort to show us to what degree her illness affects her day-to-day life and accomplishments. #coverlove

🎧👟 Today‘s smoking hot #audiowalk took me into an neighbor‘s estate sale where I scored this vintage rose-colored West Bend (50s-60s) cake carrier + a retro tree topper. 🤩

Not exactly a fun read but very interesting. My middle child has a long list of diagnoses (mostly mental health related). He‘s a preteen so we don‘t have definitive answers. Anyhow doctors don‘t really give you lots of answers or advice about young kids with severe mental illness. I read & seek out books to final answers, find some sense of relief. There is no real guide map for what we or our son is going through. Although schizophrenia is not…

On the #tbr!

#integrateyourshelf @ChasingOm @Emilymdxn

I had a list walking into Barnes & Noble today. Normal People & The Nickel Boys weren‘t on it, but they are on @MallenNC ‘s #newyearwhodis list and were buy one get one 50% off... so... 🤷🏼‍♀️

Look what made it back safely! Thank you for reading with me ladies! I can‘t wait to see your notes.

Joining #24B4Monday #OctoberReadathon Will try to log my time with a goal of 10 hours. I hope to finish my 3 current books for various events/clubs and have a whole list of maybes, including the ones pictured, to choose from once they are finished

Hello everybody! I‘m in a bit of a reading slump at the moment so it‘s lovely to have a meaty prompt to think about.

Tagged book by an author with schizophrenia about her life and perceptions of it. More than any other condition, so many people think schizophrenia = dangerously insane and barely human. This book transformed my understanding, made me more empathetic and less prejudiced. This is so essential to read

#integrateyourshelf @ChasingOm

Started the tagged book last night for #lmpbc. Really gorgeously written so far and I‘m learning a lot.

This morning, went blueberry picking with the kiddos. Easy place to social distance and my hubby will make a pie with our efforts for the fourth!

Guys...I am very much someone who likes to keep their books in pristine condition. I don‘t write. I don‘t break spines. I like clean corners. And yet @esmewang has me breaking out a pen to underline within 2 sentences.

Audio cleaning. Stoney loves an empty or nearly empty laundry basket and Polly just loves knowing what Stoney is doing. #catsoflitsy

The majority of this book is a solid, eye-opening look at the author‘s reality of living with schizoaffective disorder. While I can‘t quite relate to her experiences, I do feel closer to understanding them, I think. The final 2 chapters weaken the book by veering a bit far (including the “spiritual arts” and I don‘t mean religion) out of the mainstream, but an otherwise excellent book.

#dogsofLitsy #Bindi

#readingbuddy Figgy is just resting his eyes while I read not sleeping yet.

Wang describes her struggles living with schizoaffective disorder, late-stage Lyme disease. I know many love this but I did not feel connected to her or engaged through these essays. I appreciate her sharing of her experiences with psychosis, but the essays felt impersonal. I learnt a lot, though, great perspective, & important that it‘s written by #ownvoices .Valuable read for anyone who wants to better understand or affected by mental illness.

One of the best books I‘ve ever read #aboutmentalillness: a book by an author who has schizoaffective disorder, the same illness I have. Her experience was different than my own but I often found myself saying, “yes! exactly!” as I read this book. It‘s important for people to share their stories to help reduce stigma & clear up misconceptions. And it helps those of us struggling with mental health issues know we aren‘t alone. #MagnificentMarch

I have this book #AboutMentalIllness as an audiobook. I have listened to some of it already and appreciate the author‘s openness with her story. It‘s important to me to read books like this from an own voices perspective. #MagnificentMarch

This collection explores both the lived experience and the larger understandings (and misunderstandings) of what Wang calls "the collected schizophrenias". She makes the sobering point that those living with mental illness are more likely to be written about than to write about their own experiences; reading Wang's firsthand perspective is important and illuminating. #magnificentmarch #aboutmentalillness
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620

I had my last day at work yesterday, and decided to treat myself to some new books, that I can‘t wait to get 📚

I haven‘t read a print book in over two weeks and I haven‘t listened to an audiobook in over a week. I can‘t remember the last time that happened, but I‘m trying to embrace my lack of reading time and energy, and just focus on getting ready for my new job. I‘m busybusy at the moment, but I‘m happy about it! 🙌

⭐️⭐️⭐️
This could be partially due to my current headspace (I‘m still in a reading “funk”), but I thought this was just okay. It felt pretty disjointed in places and while I really enjoyed when Wang got more personal in her essays, a lot of the time I felt held at a distance which isn‘t what I‘d hoped for in reading this.

#catsoflitsy #Ember

I know small presses and indie publishers do not get the recognition they deserve, so we built a category for that. The first ever Small/Indie Press #LitsyAward goes to the tagged book.

It was such a runaway success from our voters it only needed one round to be crowned.

#LitsyAwards #Winner

The essays, overall, show how deep and desperate her search for answers and understanding of her condition affected her life. Maybe more so than the actual diagnosis. 4🌟
Full review goodreads.com/overtheedge

Great memoir and essays and an excellent resource for those who work with the mentally ill. Recommended.

Recommended by #bookriot Best Books of 2019.

I couldn‘t quite narrow it down to 10: these are my top dozen nonfiction favourites of the past decade. #top10ofthedecade #nonfictionedition

I can dress and daub when psychotic. I do it with zeal when manic. If I‘m depressed, I skip everything but the lipstick. If I skip the lipstick that means I haven‘t even made it to the bathroom mirror.
After all, it is easy to forget that psychiatric diagnoses are human constructs, not handed down from an all-knowing God on stone tablets; to “have schizophrenia” is to fit an assemblage of symptoms, which are listed in a purple book made by humans.

I so appreciate the first person perspective of this widely-explored, but not often understood, illness. I felt for the author as she described the deep despair she feels in her chronic suffering with no end in sight. My eyes were opened to the factors that go into the diagnosis process and the ways the this effects those who suffer. An excellent work of nonfiction that enlightened and fascinated me in equal measure. #nfnov #nonfiction

Snatched a few moments here and there between taking care of the kids at my cousin's house to read. With WINE 🍷🙃#nvnov

Reading in the waiting room while my husband has a small, outpatient procedure. Really savoring this essay collection from Esme Wang.
#nonfictionnovember #nfnov

“Place me in a high #stress environment with no ability to control my surroundings or schedule, and I will rapidly begin to decompensate.” #QuotsyNov19

I‘ve never come across ‘decompensate‘ till now. Dictionary.com definition: “to lose the ability to maintain normal or appropriate psychological defenses, sometimes resulting in depression, anxiety, or delusions.”
The part that really got me is where she talks about being high-funcioning ⬇️

The incredible collection of essays pulled me out of a reading slump in such an unexpected way. This book blows the stereotypes around schizophrenia out of the water and I hope it destroys some of the stigma along with it. Every now and again you come across a book everyone should read. This is one of them. Now to read everything else Wang has written!

It seems non-fiction is the solution to my current reading drought. I can‘t follow a complex storyline and I don‘t really cate about characters. But fact, real life experience and something I can pick up and put down is working for me.

“...employment remains the primary marker of someone who is high-functioning, as having a job is the most reliable sign that you can pass in the world as normal. Most critically, a capitalist society values productivity in its citizens above all else, and those with severe mental illness are much less likely to be productive in ways considered valuable...” #highfunctioning #mentalillness

I was sure this would be an interesting read but didn‘t expect to tear through it in less than a day! I‘m grateful that such a book exists. It‘s rare to find books about sza-bp & even rarer to read one written by a person who‘s experienced it firsthand. Although her experience may be different than my own, there are similarities which made it difficult to read at times. Still, I anticipate reading it many times before it‘s due for return. #szabp

One of the most valuable books I‘ve read in ages. It‘s so easy to forget about people with schizophrenia having voices and understanding to share about themselves rather than just be discussed by others, and I was astonished by how much there was to consider that I‘d never interacted with before. Such a rare, insightful voice sharing her life with psychosis.

Who is this alleged “person” who is a “person living with psychosis,” once the psychosis has set in to the point that there is nothing on the table save acceptance? When the self has been swallowed by illness, isn‘t it cruel to insist on a self that is not illness? Is this why so many people insist on believing in souls?

I've tagged my favourite book of September. I also decided to retitle my “By a woman author“ category because two of the books this month are by genderqueer folks. #SeptemberWrapUp

So good that I just bought a copy to give as a gift.
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The two books I ordered from Thriftbooks arrived and then I went and had some retail therapy on Friday night after work at Dymocks.

With Death Grip, I‘m collecting a childhood favourite series. I needed a new edition of Gone With the Wind because my previous copy was falling apart and I had loaned To Kill a Mockingbird out and never got it back.

The others are just books I‘ve had my eye on for awhile. Have you read any in this stack?
#bookhaul

As Bly‘s anecdotes, and my own, indicate, a primary feature of the experience of staying in a psychiatric hospital is that you will not be believed about anything. A corollary to this feature: things will be believed about you that are not at all true.

As I grew older and my symptoms worsened, my mother at times expressed deep remorse and guilt at the fact that she had passed this “suffering” on to me, and presently tells me that I would be better off not having children. There are two issues here: one being the act of passing on a genetic burden, and the other being my ability, as a woman living with severe mental illness, to be a good mother.

“I went to Yale” is shorthand for “I have schizoaffective disorder, but I‘m not worthless.”

(author photo from internet)

Even going into this having seen absolute rave reviews from people whose opinions I value highly, I‘m still amazed and profoundly moved by this book. Brave, honest, searing, poignant, informative, singular, and like 500 other things. I learned a lot, and while my chronic illnesses are different from the author‘s, I still also felt a kinship. I think this is a phenomenal work, and should be required reading for everyone, sick or not. 5/5 ⭐️

However my life unfolds, goes my thinking, is how I am meant to live it; however my life unspools itself, I was created to bear it.

“Let‘s go and look around. We can see how we feel,” she said, which was a common refrain during that trip, and is a common attitude among the chronically ill.

[And one healthy people don‘t/refuse to understand, unfortunately.]

Would it have been better if I‘d never been born? Even though I‘ve made my parents proud, I can‘t help but wonder if that outweighs watching me break down over the years. Perhaps if my mother had been able to choose my genetics, she would‘ve rearranged some things. I would be someone else entirely.

[Something I‘ve wondered myself many times in recent years 😞]