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Surfacing - A Memoir: Sequel to Surviving Schizophrenia
The story begins as the author takes her young daughters on a day trip with a difference - to the mental hospital where she spent the most unhappy years of her life. The girls have no idea that their mother has a diagnosis of schizophrenia but now she has written a book about her experiences and she needs to tell them about it before anybody else does. This memoir is the sequel to 'Surviving Schizophrenia' and describes what happened in the life of the author after that first book was published. It is a gripping read, told with subtlety and the light touch of humour that characterised 'Surviving'. There is an additional section at the end of the memoir which reads as a recovery manual, offering insights and advice in the hope that others may benefit from the writer's personal experience of building a new and better life after the wreckage of a total emotional breakdown. Surfacing will be read and enjoyed by anyone who enjoys a well told and uplifting story, but could prove invaluable to those who have suffered emotional distress of any kind.
159 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 18, 2015
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26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2015
Imagine that you are a new author. You've written a book in which you bared your soul. You've "gone public" with events in your life that you would forget if you could. You've revealed closely guarded family secrets. You exposed yourself to reach out to others who are going through the hell that you went through. You want to let them know that there is hope. That there can be life - a joyous life - after mental illness.
And the response is overwhelmingly positive. Mental illness has been in the closet too long. People are tired of being ashamed and intimidated. They want answers for themselves and their families. They want the mentally ill to be treated with the same dignity and compassion that is a given with any other kind of illness. Telling your story was worth the pain of remembering, but was it worth the risk of harm to those close to you? Because you don't live in a vacuum. You are a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. And you don't know how the people you love will react.
A year ago I read this author's first book THERE'S NO SUCH WORD AS CAN'T. (It's now available as SURVIVING SCHIZOPHRENIA - A MEMOIR.) I thought it was an incredible book and found it even more engaging when I reread it a few weeks ago. Now Ms. Gillett has written a follow-up book that tells "the rest of the story." She opens with taking her two young daughters to the day hospital where she was a voluntary patient for several years. She explains to them that she was mentally ill, but gradually got better and that she's written a book about it. She knows that people will talk and she wants them to be prepared with the truth. She hesitantly shows the manuscript to her mother, a recovering alcoholic whose emotional distance during her daughter's childhood was a possible factor in her breakdown. Her mother seems fascinated to read the details of her daughter's life and glad to have everything out in the open. It's a testimony to the value of shining a light into the dark corners of life.
Of equal interest are her stories of involvement in the growing movement to "empower" the mentally ill and to allow them to be decision-making partners in their own treatment. The term "expert by experience" is a new one to me, but I love the concept. In every area of health care, patients and their families have so much to contribute and (sadly) their wisdom is seldom heard.
I agree with Ms. Gillett that doctors have been far too quick to slap the damaging label "schizophrenia" on too many young people who are then doomed to a lifetime of failure and dependence. I suspect that this is done for the benefit of the doctor and the medical facility. A "diagnosis" (even one based solely on observation) of a catastrophic illness such as schizophrenia is the fastest, simplest way to get funding for treatment. But that label can never be removed and it determines that young person's life forever.
Was Louise Gillett "misdiagnosed?" Was she ever really schizophrenic or was her breakdown caused by stresses in her life? Is schizophrenia one clear-cut disease or a spectrum? No one knows the answer to these questions, but every person who suffers a mental breakdown should be evaluated as an individual and be given treatment which is most appropriate for him/her. "First, do no harm" is an accepted standard for medical treatment and patients with mental illnesses deserve no less than others. They won't get it unless patients and their families speak out. Ms. Gillett's books are as thought-provoking as they are fascinating.
And the response is overwhelmingly positive. Mental illness has been in the closet too long. People are tired of being ashamed and intimidated. They want answers for themselves and their families. They want the mentally ill to be treated with the same dignity and compassion that is a given with any other kind of illness. Telling your story was worth the pain of remembering, but was it worth the risk of harm to those close to you? Because you don't live in a vacuum. You are a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. And you don't know how the people you love will react.
A year ago I read this author's first book THERE'S NO SUCH WORD AS CAN'T. (It's now available as SURVIVING SCHIZOPHRENIA - A MEMOIR.) I thought it was an incredible book and found it even more engaging when I reread it a few weeks ago. Now Ms. Gillett has written a follow-up book that tells "the rest of the story." She opens with taking her two young daughters to the day hospital where she was a voluntary patient for several years. She explains to them that she was mentally ill, but gradually got better and that she's written a book about it. She knows that people will talk and she wants them to be prepared with the truth. She hesitantly shows the manuscript to her mother, a recovering alcoholic whose emotional distance during her daughter's childhood was a possible factor in her breakdown. Her mother seems fascinated to read the details of her daughter's life and glad to have everything out in the open. It's a testimony to the value of shining a light into the dark corners of life.
Of equal interest are her stories of involvement in the growing movement to "empower" the mentally ill and to allow them to be decision-making partners in their own treatment. The term "expert by experience" is a new one to me, but I love the concept. In every area of health care, patients and their families have so much to contribute and (sadly) their wisdom is seldom heard.
I agree with Ms. Gillett that doctors have been far too quick to slap the damaging label "schizophrenia" on too many young people who are then doomed to a lifetime of failure and dependence. I suspect that this is done for the benefit of the doctor and the medical facility. A "diagnosis" (even one based solely on observation) of a catastrophic illness such as schizophrenia is the fastest, simplest way to get funding for treatment. But that label can never be removed and it determines that young person's life forever.
Was Louise Gillett "misdiagnosed?" Was she ever really schizophrenic or was her breakdown caused by stresses in her life? Is schizophrenia one clear-cut disease or a spectrum? No one knows the answer to these questions, but every person who suffers a mental breakdown should be evaluated as an individual and be given treatment which is most appropriate for him/her. "First, do no harm" is an accepted standard for medical treatment and patients with mental illnesses deserve no less than others. They won't get it unless patients and their families speak out. Ms. Gillett's books are as thought-provoking as they are fascinating.
February 8, 2015
What does it mean to be diagnosed as schizophrenic? Louise Gillett’s first memoir, Surviving Schizophrenia, describes how she was sectioned and treated – and indeed mistreated – after her initial diagnosis. In view of all the alarming and upsetting events in her childhood and youth, it is scarcely surprising that she slipped into a state of emotional distress and confusion, possibly made worse, as she believes, by marijuana. But schizophrenic? This is a label that carries a heavy stigma and implies that there is no cure. Once a schizophrenic, always a schizophrenic: some mental health specialists still firmly believe this.
The author may be shy and sensitive, she may be a worrier, but clearly she is no more mad than any of us and saner than some, with much good advice at the end of the book for anyone struggling with depression and mental health problems. She reviews all the things that would have helped her when she herself was struggling in the depths, and those that have in fact helped her over the years to attain, without medication, a happy, stable and creative life. Writing has itself been one such aid to surfacing. Having first tried her hand at romantic fiction (I liked the admission, “I promptly wrote reams of rubbish”), she has now forged ahead with these two books, a collection of poetry and many blog posts, including a blog for the Huffington Post. In a straightforward, honest style, this book describes her journey of discovery and her battles with entrenched medical orthodoxy to prove the specialists wrong.
The definition of schizophrenia is itself nebulous, and the label is damaging in the way it colours other people’s attitudes towards the suffering person, who thus becomes a “case”. (R.D. Laing is out of fashion nowadays, but I challenge anyone to read his The Divided Self and not find something of relevance to their own being in the world.) We are all on a continuous spectrum between madness and sanity, all trying to make sense of our lives and ourselves. To define someone in terms of a transitory state is both inaccurate and unfair, as this book repeatedly shows. Congratulations to Louise Gillett on her achievement
The author may be shy and sensitive, she may be a worrier, but clearly she is no more mad than any of us and saner than some, with much good advice at the end of the book for anyone struggling with depression and mental health problems. She reviews all the things that would have helped her when she herself was struggling in the depths, and those that have in fact helped her over the years to attain, without medication, a happy, stable and creative life. Writing has itself been one such aid to surfacing. Having first tried her hand at romantic fiction (I liked the admission, “I promptly wrote reams of rubbish”), she has now forged ahead with these two books, a collection of poetry and many blog posts, including a blog for the Huffington Post. In a straightforward, honest style, this book describes her journey of discovery and her battles with entrenched medical orthodoxy to prove the specialists wrong.
The definition of schizophrenia is itself nebulous, and the label is damaging in the way it colours other people’s attitudes towards the suffering person, who thus becomes a “case”. (R.D. Laing is out of fashion nowadays, but I challenge anyone to read his The Divided Self and not find something of relevance to their own being in the world.) We are all on a continuous spectrum between madness and sanity, all trying to make sense of our lives and ourselves. To define someone in terms of a transitory state is both inaccurate and unfair, as this book repeatedly shows. Congratulations to Louise Gillett on her achievement
Displaying 1 - 2 of 3 reviews