The Complications: On Going Insane in America

by Emmett Rensin, James Gloucester (Narrator)

An unflinching, rare account of living with severe mental illness that is also a bold commentary on how we misunderstand this often debilitating disease.

The Complications is an intimate portrait of what it’s like to live with schizoaffective disorder of the bipolar type as well as a biting, revelatory critique of America’s mental health culture. Emmett Rensin has written and edited articles for major national media outlets, and taught writing and literature at prestigious schools. But he has also lost jobs and friends, been hospitalized and institutionalized, and cycled through a daunting combination of medications. With scorching honesty, he reflects on his messy, fragile attempt to live his life, his periods of grace, and his near misses with disaster and death.

Going beyond the usual peans against “stigma” and for “understanding”, Rensin confronts the dysfunction in current mental health narratives, contrasting what he calls mental illness “high culture”—in which we affirm the prevalence of anxiety and encourage regular therapy, insisting that the “mentally ill” aren’t dangerous or even weird—with even progressive society’s inability to contend with people with more severe forms of mental those people we pass on the street talking to themselves, those caught in a loop between hospitals and prisons, or even those who we cannot tolerate in our own schools, offices, and lives, including himself.

With raw honesty, Rensin invites us into every aspect of his life, from what it’s like see four different psychiatrists in one year and the nature of psychotic breaks to a harrowing diary that logs exactly what happens when he stops taking his medication and the unexpected kinship he discovers with an incarcerated spree killer with schizophrenia. Going beyond pure memoir, he reflects on the uncertain “science” of diagnosis, the nature of art about and by the insane, political activism, and the history of madness, from the asylum to the academy.

A compelling, often devastating, blend of memoir, cultural commentary, and history, The Complications elevates the conversation around mental illness and challenges us to reexamine what we think we know about what is to go insane.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Psychology, Mental Health, Biography, Audiobook, Mental Illness

Audible Audio

First published April 23, 2024

Reviews

[Robert Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this excellent book by Emmett Rensin after I heard him on the BaR pod. He really articulates the real lived experience of a person suffering from mental illness in this book like the many mad memoirs of past but with the understanding of both a person suffering from a condition and a journalist diving into the larger research about mental illness in today's society.

I feel his explanation of experiences are both extremely vivid and real. Vivid in the sense the thoughts, sensations, and painful/strained relationships his condition produces are described in upsetting or even stomach turning detail. Him talking about how he was sure there was something very wrong with his neck that he went to excise whatever foreign affliction with a dull knife and dirty unwashed fingers makes me squirm at the details but also feel extreme sorrow for him.

Real in how he doesn't externalize his condition as something happening to him this alleviating culpability. He will tell you about how deranged, frightening, hurtful he can be to others in society even his loved ones and himself in a honest and unflinching way I feel most people can't. He puts on full display behavior that may illicit real visceral emotional responses by the reader, the brutal truth of our worse selves that are usually only heard in 12 step programs.

He is also a person who can talk about how flawed our system for mental health is in our society. He speaks about people unwilling to be medicated being kicked out of the family home, then group home, only to die from freezing to death in an alley. He isn't a person with a clear political solution that he only advocates, he isn't a person with lived experience who claims that he is an expert in dealing with mental illness like some others. He will discuss the absolute hell scape of the post war asylums along with how much closing them harmed those turned out on to the streets.

He will present many stories about truly mad people who fall through the cracks of our mental health system, people where there isn't an easy fix with what they are dealing with but still deserve treatment or at least not to die in so many terrible ways.

I don't normally write reviews for books because I don't think I really have the skills for it but I didn't see any besides one review that seemed to be extremely unfairly critical about the author and his book. I think the review claimed he was in the mold of an useless leftist male but also was critical of him not fully discussing black and Latino people enough in the book and using euphemism for the discussion of race. I really didn't view that review as accurate or fair.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd appreciated the way Rensin totally dropped offline after his cancelation or whatever you want to call it, without offering any defense, attempting a comeback, etc. Now here is his book, mostly a memoir with excursions into policy, reportage, and social criticism (there is also some unspoken theology in the interstices).
As prose, it is too dependent on lyric-essayisms to stitch thoughts together (he is always "trying to tell you" something) but also contains many striking descriptions that give the illusion you are seeing as the madman does. The larger structure is sensible but the organization of the third section, where he attempts to speak more generally about insanity/mental illness in law and culture, comes across as arbitrary or scattered—better to have gone full Montaignian discursive mode. The voice can be ponderous, and his (pretty damning) criticisms of toothless or hypocritical liberal attitudes are sometimes too raw, taking over the argument and threatening to become a rant—but if they set his critique back they also make the writing more vivid, they are the spots where the presence of an actual mind on the other side of the page is felt the strongest.
I have no psych or policy knowledge to properly critique the book on those grounds; I assume one could. But it is valuable for me to read an illness memoir that takes original sin as a given, that has so little hope and so much unvarnished failure, uncertainty, and diminishing returns; I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Puts the insidious onset of a psychotic episode on display really well. It’s a really difficult concept to convey, and there is a lot of damage being done to the brain during this period, and unfortunately, it’s very difficult to intervene because it’s very difficult to detect the onset of psychosis in this prodromal period.

The book also explores the horrible minefield of ethical implications of treating mental health conditions when patients do not want to be treated, and how that has lead to all manner of abuses, and similarly, the tragedies and horrors that result from failing to treat individuals who ‘slip through the cracks’ by refusing treatment and being savaged by other systems as a result. I think the book is rather aptly called the ‘complications’ and not the ‘solutions’ for a reason. I don’t think there has really been an ideal balance reached in this regard, I think we’ve done better than some countries, but there is so much needless suffering out there it is necessary to do more.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made it 40% through the book, took a break, and then found myself not wanting to come back to it. It became pretty tedious.

[Kassandra Gancedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emmett Rensin has the most beautiful ability to illustrate and put into words topics that are so often ignored or filled with ignorance. Seriously worth the read.

[Andy Tuite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, complicated, sad, true. Not preachy but honest depiction on one person’s struggle with insanity - even the description of what constitutes insanity is complicated. The chapter on Mullin seems a little out of place but otherwise a good read.

[Mags Magsmagsmags · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction written by someone else had me very nervous for the rest of the book, but actually Emmett's writing itself is much more engaging than the person who provided the into (sorry). Having said that, I still found the writing a bit tough at times -but that is more because I don't personally quite get on well with the American journalistic oped/ longread reflective style.

This book is musings from Emmett about his condition, his life as someone with schizophrenia living in the American system.

I think he does a great job of providing some insight into his condition - whilst at the same time acknowledging the relative impossibility of being able to provide true insight. Or even the relative difficulty of him even having insight into his own condition. He also does a good job of contextualizing the American popular cultural response to this area, including the very often overly glib mantras of the Very Online; an example of which is currently a review on this very book.

If you want something else like a discussion about how race or poverty interacts with the social situation as a whole, then- I would go elsewhere.

There are no simple or neat answers in this book. Because there are no simple or neat answers in this area. It is a very grounded and realistic description of his own circumstances, the state of treatment in this area, and some of the circumstances and pure dumb luck involved which mean that Emmett is generally on a good trajectory when so many others aren't.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very well-written essay collection/memoir. Rensin doesn’t sugarcoat his behavior, in a way that gives me the feeling that being him or being close to him could be quite terrifying at times.

[dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up

This book is like kale. Not easily digestible for many, some people will in fact hate it, but a necessary contribution to one's diet if you can stomach it.

This book is raw, gritty, unflinchingly honest, messy, and - as the name suggests - complicated. Rensin really lays himself bare. He tells us almost every horrible thing he has done that his schizoaffective disorder has contributed to: stealing things from friends, almost killing someone on the highway, screaming at loved ones for no apparent reason, smashing cars. Being arrested, being hospitalised, being institutionalised, on many occasions.

The book switches, quite seamlessly I think, between these personal accounts and a more general critique on American society's handling of what he terms 'madness'. This name is important to point out; he prefers to describe what he experiences as madness, distinguishing it from mental illness partly due to the different treatments they receive in the U.S. He forms several crucial conclusions:

1. That the police are utterly inept in handling mad people because the police force actively seeks out brutish, chauvinistic types who will not submit to 'diffusion training'. Far more mad people are victims of violence rather than perpetuaters, and police officers murder more people per annum than mad people do.
2. Too little authority has been given to historical accounts written by actually mad people (as opposed to the professionals who have examined them), and that, despite millenia of mad people existing, we still have largely ineffective methods of either re-integration or safekeeping.
3. Psychiatry is, by and large, a failure.
4. Modern mental health culture is exhausting. All this talk of stigma and awareness and all these other buzzwords that have been co-opted by corporate America in order to keep mentally ill people in the workplace by convincing them that they care, but only willing to have conversations. I empathise with Rensin's frustrations here. It's maddening. LinkedIn posts saying 'it's ok to not be ok', corporate art infographics about self-care, words like 'gaslight' and 'overstimulated' and 'hyperfixation' thrown around (lord help me). But once someone's mental health becomes actually visible, suddenly it's crickets. If someone misses work unannounced, if they cause a scene, if they are rude or unreliable or erratic, no one knows what to do then. Mental health is at once a constant point of discussion and never talked about. Therapy is mainstream, but only certain types. And not being hospitalised for your madness. Never that. And, the solution to this crisis is not to medicate people enough into mindness, complicit productivity.

Rensin's frustration at the culture at large goes a little too far for me, though, in that he blames the individuals themselves struggling with anxiety, depression, and other more acceptable mental health issues. He distances himself from them, penning their issues as 'mental illness' and his own as 'madness'. I understand the distinction; saying 'I'm anxious' is far more common than 'I'm schizoaffective'. Indeed, he calls attention to how hard it is to stay truly sane in a world that's in such turmoil, asking us 'the possibility that while many people may find themselves mentall ill, it is the world that's gone crazy' (172). Still, it's a slippery slope. How does he know that these 'mentally ill' people he looks down upon experience internally? How does he distinguish, aside from actions, between the mad and the mentally ill? If actions are all that do it, when does one's madness begin? His writing gives no defined boundary explicitly, just vaguely refers to these silly anxious people he finds so contemptible, and expects us to fill in the gaps.

This callousness proves more of a problem as the book goes on. He declares, 'trauma is the pain of ordinary life declared extraordinary, with a doctor's note to prove it' (174). Brother, no. Your pain is not the ultimate expression of pain. No one's is. Someone who's experienced trauma, and gone through the equally painful experience of having it be confirmed by a doctor, deserves to be taken seriously just as much as you. Here he undermines the very centre of some of his arguments. He at once acknowledges the immense difficulties in having one's psychological pain be made legitimate by doctors, then blames individuals who do no meet his standards of 'madness' for seeking out professional care.

Of course, this book is the work of someone intimately familiar with psychiatry, and the state of psychiatric treatment. It's worth its weight in gold just for that. But it's a hard one to review. This is less of a memoir than a compilation of moments, past and present, that don't culminate in a pretty future. Rensin is still clearly in a precarious place psychologically, so this cannot be a 'here's what my life has been like up to this point, but now things are better'. The conclusion we get is 'i'm not better, i'm just more subdued, and sometimes i wish i could return back to my full manic self unmedicated, but i remember what will happen to me if i did so i don't'. The final chapter is called 'Ghost Stories', and it's just that; Rensin keeps a folder on his laptop filled with stories of people struggling with his diagnoses, who have had their lives destroyed brutally in some way, including by themselves.

So this is what we are left with. Rensin's guilt and shame reeks through the page, corrupting his ability to give a truly balanced account. It's clear from his writing that if Rensin's life had been different, if he didn't have kind and understanding parents or private health insurance, he could have become one of those ghost stories. The conclusion is not happy, nor does it need to be. I enjoyed my time with this book, it felt cathartic to read at points and frustrating at others. I expected to be challenged going into this, and I was.

[Erik Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emmett Rensin's The Complications, On Going Insane in America reads like a harrowing personal account interwoven with profound meditations on the nature of madness. His reflections are vivid, often raw, and entirely unflinching. Rensin's descriptions of mental illness draw the reader into the unsettling, quiet chaos of the experience—what it feels like when madness seeps in unnoticed, like "a cat burglar" moving through your psyche in the night, gradually altering reality itself. His voice is compelling, notably in his vivid accounts, such as the moment he recalls driving toward a freeway median because God had instructed him to die, or when he finds himself standing over a stranger's bed, having broken into their home. These scenes are unforgettable, capturing the frailty and unpredictability of the mind unraveling. Rensin’s writing is poetic and unapologetic, forcing the reader to confront the uncomfortable, often surreal aspects of losing touch with reality.

Possible Spoilers
He writes "We are talking here about what you'd expect might happen if some 1/100th of the population, already varied and limited, variously flawed, woke up one day and found out that they were coming apart at the seams. What would happen if they became frightened by sudden, new impulses, and more frightened by their sudden inability to control that. What would happen if they realized that their memories had gone shaky, that's something had gone slow inside their brain, that people around them didn't act the same, didn't look the same, might be imposters, that they were suddenly sad or paranoid, angry or confused."

His experiences challenge the conventional ways we think about mental illness, exposing the tension between the person in crisis and the limited tools society has to help them.

Rensin’s brilliance as a writer shines through in his sharp critiques of "well-intentioned liberals" and the mental health systems he encounters. His reflections on a wilderness retreat in Georgia at age 17, where he was left to fend for himself in nature for up to six months and writes "the program is very bullish on the notion that emotional states are a consequence of belief structures, something they have cribbed without context from cognitive behavioral therapy. There is less guidance than whether we ought to adjust our responses, or are underlying beliefs, or both, or neither, or how much adjustments might be made." and later writes "I have spoken to many people who attended this program and programs like it in the decade and a half since I have left. You wonder while you are there, who in the group has bought in and who is just cooperating as a means of hiding in plain sight. What you discover, after a while, is that there is little difference between these two states. Many of the people I've spoken to cannot say which they were doing. I'm not sure what I did. The program is aware of this ambivalence. They know that if you want to believe in god, you start by kneeling." His philosophical reflections on this experience reveal the ways in which belief structures can be manipulated, especially in environments of vulnerability, and can create reality.

There are moments in The Complications where Rensin's perspective becomes unsettling, particularly in his views on justice and activism for the mentally ill. He expresses a disillusionment with traditional forms of advocacy, marches or legislation with statements that can be jarring. His critique of de-escalation tactics, particularly his jabs at the liberal activists working to fight stigma and ableism, adds another layer of complexity to the book. He seems skeptical of their efforts, questioning whether they truly understand the needs of the mentally ill or if they are simply projecting their own desire for recognition and representation. His sarcastic remark about setting up a "recurring donation" for advocacy suggests a deep frustration with performative allyship. However, this skepticism leaves readers in a difficult position—while he effectively highlights the shortcomings of current efforts, he doesn’t seem offer a clear alternative - that is not his aim "I am just a writer". The ambiguity leaves the reader questioning whether Rensin believes any real progress can be made at all or if society is doomed to keep spinning its wheels. His critical eye forces a reassessment of what truly helps those with severe mental illnesses, but his lack of concrete solutions leaves us with more ??? For example, he doesn't seem particularly supportive of de-escalation teaching for police officers (again promoted by "well intentioned liberals") dealing with the mentally ill but then later writes "I still feel safer… with an unmedicated lunatic than I do with an armed American cop." That is both sad and hard to believe.

When the author reveals, "the National Alliance on Mental Illness says on their website that the association of schizophrenia and violence is a dangerous myth... they say, the majority of violent crimes aren't committed by schizophrenics," he follows up with biting sarcasm: "And that's true. Schizophrenics make up less than 2% of the population. They are not committing 51% of the violent crimes." By pointing this out, Rensin seems to be drawing attention to how this is misleading. But the question still lingers—what exactly is he getting at? Of course, with such a small population size, it would be absurd to suggest they commit the majority of violent crimes!!! Well does he mean that it is more likely this 2% of "the mad" is responsible for say 10-20% of violent crimes? Is he making fun of allies? Yes, sure, this no-profit group is misleading us, we get it, but it is the kind of thing that helps this community, right? Who's side is he on? Or is there a side? Is that the point of his comment? It seems naïve to assume that organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness would always present the full truth, after all, they have a side. I know he is just writing and not for a purpose (of changing the world, in his words), but it is the writing I am talking about.

Rensin’s frustration is evident, particularly in how he contrasts the challenges faced by those with severe conditions like schizoaffective disorder with the more common struggles of those "Adderall-addled millennial strivers." (so are we going to make fun of them now?) It seems like he's is belittling these Gen X political activists who are trying to march against mental health stigma. These allies according to the author "are just trying to project that there is another group with needs", and this group needs representation, the mad need help "so why not set up a recurring donation?" I'm not sure I understand this since these are the people who are trying to help. Rensin seems to acknowledge that, regardless of the approach taken, the cost will be substantial and the mentally ill will inevitably place a strain on the system—and it will be obvious to readers that Rensin himself is weighed down by this reality.

The other reality is he knows that madman are often dangerously mad. "Some lunatics are richer than others. Some lunatics are luckier than others. Some lunatics have sat for a long time with a knife and weighed their options. Some used it. Some didn't. That’s' all." He is one of these.

But the "well-meaning liberals" only want to hear from those "respectable lunatics" or "the right kind of madman", the kind that provides an opportunity for understanding and sympathy by not being too dangerously mad. He is a realist, it is all very real after all, how he threatened those friends whom he suspected of stealing his scarf, and other stories, all real.

He then asks readers "do you still like me enough to offer your understanding?" Yes and no. I wanted to give it 4 stars since it is so exhausting, an absolutely exhausting read, but so well written and a worthy/necessary addition to our literature on mental health. So I am now a big fan. It is also very very complicated, so a great name!

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was inclined to judge the author for wearing a wrinkled shirt in the jacket photo, until I read the book and realized he literally may not have the wherewithal to dress well.

This is a portrayal of a person with schizoaffective disorder who compares his experience of his disorder with society's discourse on mental illness. What I think sets the book apart is its portrayal of the "negative symptoms" of mental illness—not only telling us what it's like to be psychotic, but what it's like to struggle through an ordinary day dealing with the illness and trying to remember to take medication and then struggling with the effects of the medication. It's often hard to understand things, or to remember what you're supposed to be doing. You need your girlfriend to remind you to shower and change your clothes, and you're annoyed when she does. You have a delusion in the back of your mind that you may or may not believe and that you may forget the next day. You cry and you're embarrassed and you know there's a good chance things will only get worse.

"The most intense symptom of psychosis that you feel on the inside is the absence of anything at all. The falsity of the world, the hollow half-reality of other people, the sea fog enveloping your thoughts. The heavy nothing of a blank mind, occasionally pierced by a terrible, intense fear."

Rensin argues for taking serious mental illness very seriously, but he's a skeptic of the "everybody has a mental illness" school of thought and the crowd of rich neurotics, which he calls 'strivers,' flooding to therapy and taking SSRIs and benzos.

"In the early twenty-first century, at precisely the same moment that madness was in the process of being abolished by university professors, mental illness began to afflict every member of Western society, or at least those with access to health insurance."

The book refuses an optimistic narrative. Most mental illness memoirs have the narrative "this is how I figured out what was going on and started getting better." Sometimes there is the narrative "here's how things got worse and worse until the person died/killed someone." Rensin doesn't commit any serious crimes because of his mental illness, he's not unusually highly functioning, he's not particularly interested in working with others who are mentally ill. The mental illness isn't something that happened to him, he writes, it *is* happening. And not getting better. "I can still write, but it's becoming harder and harder to speak."

[Allison Rohan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This isn't it, y'all. It's a memoir about what sounds like legitimately devastating mental illness, but it's written by someone who seems to epitomize useless leftist man. (You know it's not great when the author's Wikipedia page only has three paragraphs, and one of them is the time he got canceled on Twitter for attempting to incite political riots.)

It's not an inclusive book. The author kept trying to make a point about how race and privilege are important vectors for health outcomes in mental illness. But the author was (I uncharitably assumed for useless leftist man reasons) seemingly unable to actually use the word "race," so instead the book euphemistically referred to someone from "south Chicago" and made a few tepid points about privilege, without actually talking about white privilege or the way police violence disproportionately effects people of color, especially Black people, with mental illnesses.

It reminds me of the quote asking leftist men who's doing the dishes after the revolution. It's not an inclusive book-- it can't talk about race, it *won't* talk about gender (the book seldom references women, except for one chapter, where it aggressively cites women, presumably to 'even things out.') The forward compares the author to Anne Sexton, and I couldn't shake the memory that Anne Sexton was famously very, very abusive to the people in her life, including her children.

Anyway, I obviously do not recommend this book. If you want to read more effect takes on similar themes, I would recommend the podcast "The Monsters We Create" (also about schizoaffective disorder), "I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki" (Baek Sehee), and heck, even "Girl, Interrupted," by Susanna Kaysen, which this memoir references.

[David Glenn Dixon]

2:21:40
It is difficult to know which events and dreams and memories occurring prior to the onset of insanity are significant precursors and which are only noise. We do know that madness comes on slowly. Most patients pass years between the first cracks and a full break. On their own, many of the cracks would not register as marks of a coming illness at all. And in most cases they do not indicate anything at all. Manic depressives and schizophrenics often report years of feeling cloudy, of difficulty concentrating, of slipping grades or job performance, of difficulty speaking clearly and diminished spatial reasoning. A failing sense of smell is common too. Cracks can include mild depression, anxiety, anger issues, agitation, irritation, sleep abnormalities, hypochondria, suspiciousness, grandiosity, recklessness, hypersexuality, compulsive gamblinng, stealing, lying, spending, drug abuse, waning empathy, repetitive behavior, the flattening of emotions or social withdrawal or inappropriate laughter or crying, a deterioration in personal hygiene, for years. It can be difficult to distinguish an incipient lunatic from a slob or an asshole. The prodomal period is filled with strange feelings, but so is ordinary life.

[David Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is mostly a fascinating memoir about severe mental illness and an interesting pushback against the idea that severely insane people merely suffer from stigma and are not so different from the neurotypical. He posits that society needs to grapple with the fact that “the insane” often refuse help and are extremely difficult to be around. Unfortunately, the author (by his own admission) does not have a clear purpose for writing this book, which is especially frustrating during the sections where he offers harsh critiques on the current state of discourse and advocacy surrounding mental illness. He has many sharp words for sympathetic do-gooder liberal types who are misled into thinking about insanity in a suboptimal way, but no vision of a better path. This is unhelpful because I assume many reading this book are open to new ways of thinking. Although it is just a really thorny issue.

[Cozmo John · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are things I could take or leave about this book. It’s deeply personal, of course, which is reasonable given what the author has experienced - it is, after all, a memoir. But at times the personal cynicism can become overbearing righteous, and while I tend to agree broadly with the author’s views of cultural vapidity with respect to “mental health discourse”, 15 pages of ranting and raving can be grating even to the most generous reader.

That said, there are some beautiful poignant pieces of autobiography in here, and some painfully vivid portraits of the trajectory of a psychotic break which I think are necessary reading if you want to understand how it must feel to be in the throes of severe mental illness.

[Dan Golant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skilled writer, riveting when he talks about his own experiences. The third quarter of the book kind of drags. His history of public policy in the second quarter and literary history of insanity is really interesting, but the third quarter extends that critique to the post-Clinton era, which just feels like the standard younger millennial tirade against neoliberalism and the identitarian liberal activist wing. It’s not necessarily wrong, but in 2025 it just feels boring.

The last quarter is a return to form, I look forward to reading more from Rensin. Also, sadly Elizabeth Bruenig’s intro is pretentious and overwrought.

[Mary Astrid · Rating 5 out of 5]

really interesting perspective on big complicated questions like how society should treat those with severe mental illness, those who do not want to be treated, etc that I have been thinking about a lot lately. I appreciated his critique of the woke de-stigmatize approach and acknowledged the difficulty that comes with enduring the reality of these illnesses. also enjoyed how he wove his personal narrative into the larger discussion of mental illness. a book I will be thinking about for a while.

[Breanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF’d at 74%

This started off fascinating, then lead to a very interesting point about how the “mentally ill” has diluted the seriousness for the “lunatics”, of which one could tell the author was extremely angry about. I think justifiably so, but the angry tone in general, that starts around 30% and hasn’t let up from where I’m deciding to DNF it (74% in), has me burnt out, and continuously gives me a headache.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the author's life with schizoaffective disorder, mental illness in general and the problems with how we treat/talk about mental illness as a society. It doesn't draw any neat conclusions or provide any answers but it felt very real and honest. It was not fun or easy to read, but I'm glad I did.

[Kath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastically well written and filled with unusual facts and perspectives. Completely transparent and insightful. I don’t know what thesis you’d say this book has other than a thorough exploration of severe mental illness.

I suppose I read this book because I’ve had close relationships with mentally ill people and reading this type of account provides some sense of relief.

[...]

this could have been edited more but it was good

[Justine B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting and reflective, a deep meditative journey into the positionality of the mad in society. Recommended to me from "The Bruenigs" podcast

[Jan Bloxham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have yet to find a book that doesn’t portray the lived experience of mind medication as a nightmare.

One would think books extolling the upsides of them to be popular, and thus worth writing.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to try to understand severe mental illness the author opens his soul to explain the unexplainable. It is a profound book. I am so appreciative and thankful that Emmett wrote it.

[Tazkira Amin · Rating 5 out of 5]

heartbreaking

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This author has en enormous axe to grind. I enjoyed the first section of this book where he describes his own experiences. He's thoughtful and a good writer. By the middle of the book I started to get tired of his preaching, and of his derisive attitude toward almost anyone who has different opinions about mental illness.

A big theme of the book is contrasting the conditions and needs of actual "insane" people (who experience psychosis) with what he calls the "newly recognized mentally ill" (who have depression, anxiety, or other more common disorders).

You will enjoy this book if you're eager to read about how the "self-identified mentally ill" aka the "terminally insecure professional class" are being self-involved when they go to "indulgent doctors" who diagnose them with depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, or PTSD. You'll hear how the millennials all think they have trauma when it's really just "bad feelings." I could get past this part of the book, since he's trying to make a point about how the most seriously mentally ill people don't get enough resources, but he goes on for a long time and it got really tedious.

He claims to be engaging with the field of disability studies but doesn't seem familiar with much other than a simplified understanding of a few concepts. I'm sure he has more interesting insights in the last third of the book but I'm not willing to sit through more of his anti-"social justice warrior" polemic.

[Dee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good writing but rambling and sometimes incoherent. Going back to the book felt like a chore. DNF halfway through.