Coming Undone

by Terri White

A powerful, raw and unflinchingly honest account of a life come undone.

To everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream, named one of Folio's Top Women in US Media and accruing further awards for the magazines she was editing. In reality, she was rapidly skidding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a locked psychiatric ward as her past caught up with her.

As well as growing up in a household in poverty, Terri endured sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a number of her mother's partners. Her success defied all expectations, but the greater the disparity between her outer achievements and inner demons, the more she struggled to hold everything together.

Coming Undone is Terri's documentation of her unraveling, and her precarious navigation back from a life in pieces.

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

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 2, 2020

Reviews

[Mike Gibas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is often an uncomfortable read — deliberately so — and the author has to be praised for her honesty and insight. However, as a memoir, a book, I always felt there was something missing. Clearly, Terri is enormously successful at what she does, but her professional life (with its ups and downs) barely gets a mention — and I really wanted to hear how she overcame the childhood she had to succeed in a business that is typically male-dominated and typically a very high-pressure career. I really wanted the 'whole' picture of life, work, relationships — all those things that added to her mental illness and her alcoholism, somethings helping her and sometimes hindering her. A decision was made to solely focus on her childhood traumas, her descent into alcoholism and her subsequent battles to overcome that illness (but only in the hospital). It is undeniably powerful and uneasy reading, but I never really got the whole picture and I really wanted more.

[Jamie Klingler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming Undone is incredibly poetic, graphic and brutal and beautiful at the same time. I have known Terri for 13 years, so reading about her life takes on another dimension. It is unlike any memoir I've every read and painful to read at times, but also the story being told is so important and urgent. The prose is moving and haunting and I recommend you take your time absorbing the details of her journey.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up after reading a wonderful excerpt article in the Guardian. Glad to see how her writing was just as good in the book. Minor quibbles 1. I think parts of the book glamourised the self harm and were inadvisably graphic 2. Felt like it ended a chapter or two too soon. I imagine the period afterwards might feel too soon or too private but the narrative ended too abruptly

[Cliff M · Rating 4 out of 5]

An horrific tale of how a young girl in the North Midlands of England was raped, beaten and psychologically destroyed first by her father (when she was only five years old), and then by a succession of her mother’s live in boyfriends (apparently, each and every one of them - which begs the question: are there no decent men among the working classes of Chesterfield / Derbyshire?). At one chilling point in the story, Terri (when a child) tells her mother that if she perseveres with her plans to go out that evening “He will do it again to me.” Her mother shrugs and goes out anyway…

Terri’s autobiography then described in graphic detail how these experiences shaped her adult life (no shit, Sherlock) such that she spent all her time out of work trying to finish what they started (using razor blades and alcohol).

The magnitude and severity of the story is hard to comprehend, even by people who have experienced some of what the author went though. In this regard, it reminded me of the stories of concentration camp survivors where try as you might you cannot really imagine what it felt like to be there (not would it be good for you to do so).

The story comes to an unexpected end in that it just stops. As if the author got bored writing it, or she ran out of time. It could have done with a much better denouement that included what happened to her abusers, including her mother. And what, if anything the local social services and schools authority has done to improve safeguarding since this time (it was well known at her primary school that Terri was being raped at home). For this reason I knocked off a star - but how can you judge someone’s lived experience as it it was a novel? You can’t. Terri is to be admired for not only still being alive, but having become a successful award winning magazine editor and newspaper columnist.

[Katie Bryson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really bleak account of the writer’s breakdown in NYC as she fights to reinvent herself after an abusive childhood in the UK. It’s astounding how she keeps her work and personal lives so separate given how totally out of control her drinking was, but eventually it catches up with her and her spell in a psych unit after trying to take her own life is difficult reading. There’s no massive resolution at the end, and I feel like the book ended too soon. However life isn’t neat and tidy so perhaps that’s why. It’s a really uncomfortable book that I had to take a break from with a fluffier novel, but it was worth sticking with. Brutally honest and reminiscent of Kerry Hudson’s Lowborn. It’s brave, blunt and evocative. Proof that women can come through the grittiest of experiences and find the guts to share it.

[Craig Mccann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to be honest and say that I already admired Terri White before I read this book.

That hasn’t changed.

If anything I have gained even more admiration and respect for her.

This book is a incredibly honest and courageous account of the difficulties Terri has suffered in her life and her journey to try and overcome them. It is both inspiring and enlightening.

It is however not for the faint hearted as it contains very graphic descriptions of abuse, self harm and mental illness.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has struggled with mental health issues but also to people who have not but would like to gain some understanding as to the difficulties a person can encounter.

A courageous book. Written with wholehearted honesty by a courageous and inspiring woman.

[Nina (ninjasbooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the authors way of writing and she’s brave to share her journey, but I do think she shouldn’t go into detail about how she harmed herself or tried to end her life, because it isn’t recommended to do so. I also found her a bit negative when it came to therapy and that might discourage others to seek help.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick-paced memoir describing struggles with self-harm and alcoholism

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terri White’s Coming Undone starts from where she has just been sectioned. Desperate to leave, to get back to her version of normality and work, it is clear this isn’t going to happen for her immediately. Charting her family history of domestic violence, sexual abuse by her mother’s partners and her dependency on alcohol this all helps to build a picture of White’s poor mental health as the traumas of the past remains unresolved.

Written as if the nightmare is still ongoing, Coming Undone is an uncomfortable read with its uncompromising look at how the abuse has affected her. This was a book where when I did pick this up I would have to put it down again a few chapters later. White shows you how fear and instability did effect her as a child that even when she makes a conscious decision to leave and break free from the past how even being alone in New York amplifies the loneliness and self-hatred she feels to the point she feels suicidal. New York itself also features prominently and what originally seems like a welcoming city full of promise and potential reinvention is a hostile place built on fake promises.

White does not seek your sympathy but instead shows the naked truth of how unstable her mind was and the effects of alcoholic dependency as it did help to make her feel good but on the flip side that she’d drunk so much there were stretches of behaviour even she can’t remember. She presents her behaviour as it was and in doing so allows them reader to form their own opinion.

There are no neat endings here as the reader finishes knowing that she did seek help and attempt to recover but don’t know how she dealt with her trauma. Netflix are looking to adapt this book so it will be interesting to see how this comes across with Billie Piper in the lead role.

[Fabulous Book Fiend · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book comes with care warnings for addiction, self harm, suicide, abuse and sexual assault.



Those care warnings do mean that this book is a challenging read at times but challenging in the best possible way. This is not a book you will pick up and breeze through in one sitting. You have to take this book in decent doses and sit with it a while before moving onto a new chapter. And sit with you this book will, I am still thinking about all of the things that this writer has overcome and gone through in her life. This is a very transparent account of being a recovering addict and battling with mental health issues.



Not only did it strike me how honest this book was, something i greatly appreciated, but this book is written so well it is almost poetic at times. It is tough to get your head round how something so horrific could be written in such a beautiful way and how things which might seem normal and even nice to some people can be so incredibly painful to others.



I loved that this memoir is not necessarily linear but more of a reflection and so therefore events and experiences link back to others. I liked that we got a full account of what it is like to be hospitalized on a psychiatric hold and how childhood trauma can have a whole host of effects in later life. This book was an eye opener for me and I really recommend listening to the audio as it is read by the author. Take the care warnings into consideration when picking this up but I do recommend this audiobook to you.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terri is someone I have admired for many years, and this unflinching, well-written and intensely brutal memoir details the horrific trauma, violence and addiction she has endured and battled against whilst rising to the top of the magazine world, in New York and London from northern working class beginnings. I found some sections incredibly hard to read, particularly the descriptions of self-harm. Terri’s writing is both layered and descriptive and also incredibly to the point. A fascinating look at addictions of all kinds.

[Fauntel Deshayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quickly read memoir about the author's struggle with childhood trauma and chemical dependency. I will always appreciate an author's honest depiction of hardships they have endured and tried to overcome. However, I'm not clear on the author's message here? It's like one brag session after another about how drunk she would get without any clear conclusion in the end. Did she choose sobriety? What happened here? I left this audio book feeling rather confused.

[Lauren Stothard · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly poetic and beautiful, yet uncomfortable book to read. Terri's raw and honest account of her struggles was so emotional to read at times.

A must read to understand the extent that trauma can have on a person's life. I admire Terri so much for how honest and open she was in this book.

[Amy Hutchinson]

Not for me. Fans of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation will enjoy this. It was exhausting, repetitive and I didn’t engage with the author. Abrupt ending which I welcomed because I’d absolutely had enough by the end

[Sarah Faichney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terri White's honest and brave memoir "Coming Undone" is a tough read in places but compelling nonetheless. 

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A honest memoir of the impact of childhood trauma which at times was difficult to read. So much honesty.

[Han · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook version.
Very very VERY tough listen

[Roadshow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Billed as a memoir, this is something slightly to the left of that. It's a howl of pain, a discomforting diary of the horror and turmoil heaped upon writer Terri White by others and, later, by herself. It's compelling, near unbelievable in it's relentlessness, and compulsive.

I first became aware of White as the editor of Empire magazine, and one of the hosts of Empire's Pilot TV podcast. She was fiery and forthright, erudite and frank. She could speak Scorsese or Sorkin with the best of them but she did so through a northern, working class, female lens which made her a distinctive voice (literally and metaphorically). To read her memoir now and to realise the hell she endured to come through her experiences to such casual-seeming success is breath-taking - I don't understand how she keeps that smile and that focus on her work up. She is clearly an extraordinary woman.

There is a strange choice to open the book with a near double-flashback. She starts as she is released from a psych ward in New York city before quickly flashing back to her incarceration in that ward - the second part of her extended stay with the good medical authorities of the state of New York - before flashing back again; going right back to her early childhood.
This is where the book took hold of me. It suggests such stylistic trickery was extraneous to the story being told.

White was the second child born to a teenage mother. She documents how badly her father beat her mother, her brother and herself and the ongoing emotional torture of wanting him to be in her life but never being able to get him to commit. I was shocked at what I read, but in White's life and the chapters to come, things have a way of showing they can always get worse.

The book is structured in short chapters. Each one details an episode or paints a general picture of an element of White's life in broadly chronological order. One will be about her relationship with her Dad after he and her Mum broke up. Another will be about the poverty they lived in. Another will be about a particular boyfriend of her mothers and what he did to White. And on and on.

It has the effect of building up layer after layer of horror and trauma to the point where it becomes nigh impossible to believe how she kept functioning but it also has the effect of separating each part of White's life out from the rest so it is for the reader to try and put together how many of these things were happening simultaneously, and how they all interacted on her mind and body. I can see the appeal of writing this way; each day the job being to write about a certain aspect but the overall effect is to take something away from our total picture of the day-by-day nature of how a life is lived.

The second half of the book becomes about her adult self, chiefly living in New York while working at various magazines. Again each chapter takes us through what was going on with her mentally and physically. She had become a committed alcoholic getting blackout drunk every night of the week. Her descriptions of how disconnected she felt from the world seem ripped out of her heart. Her ability to write about her pain in novel and poetic ways make clear her talent and keep the horror slightly more bearable. She shows no fear in exposing every dark thought and embarrassing situation she had or found herself in. This is a true accounting of what she was going through, and the pain and isolation become nearly tangible.

She alludes a few times to her continued professional success, despite her wanting to die and her out-of-control drinking, and many of those reading will know she went on to become editor of some pretty high-profile magazines (I mean it's in the author description on the inside cover). What's missing from the book is any sense of how she was holding it all together by day. How did this woman who, by her own account, was in the grips of a dark depression, and getting wasted each night, often waking up unsure how she'd gotten home or who she may have offended, not only hold down a job but make a great success out of it? How did she maintain friendships in the face of her determination to drink and drink and drink?

I missed that sense of a fuller portrait of her life (one which any future adaptation will surely need to include) but I realised at a certain point that this isn't purporting to be a full autobiography but is rather a portrait of how damage done to a child by their parents, by those who are meant to look after them, by their community and its institutions can reverberate down the years. Twenty/thirty years after some of the most traumatic events in her life had transpired, White was not only living with the aftereffects but was suffering mightily under them. This book is a clearly made explication of the line between the vulnerable girl she was and the broken woman she became and though White makes no reference to what needs to be done to prevent this from happening to anyone else, it's hard not to think about the last decade of austerity and the swingeing cuts to frontline services and to to council budgets and to community services and worry about the next generation of at-risk children.

The ending is far too sudden - in the midst of a relapse which seems to be spiralling ever darker, she gets an offer to move to London and, from the book's point-of-view, that's that. No doubt the darkness that had followed her from Derbyshire to New York would be waiting there too but White doesn't advise how she made the transition. Perhaps that time is too recent, or the struggle is still ongoing but that final reel is missed.

White emerges from the book as a woman who was damaged as a child, and later, because of that, did great damage to herself but who, through her own steel and determination fought back and claimed the life she should have always had from an uncaring world. Despite the many humiliations she endured and brought on herself, the picture that emerges is one not of a simple victim (though there is that in there) but of some combination between ballerina and heavyweight - a woman small, delicate, fragile who nevertheless refused to be broken and who found the courage and self-belief to keep fighting.

Not easy reading but pretty extraordinary.

[Jenna Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have followed Terri for a number of years and am a huge fan of her work so was aware of some parts of her past. Seeing it laid out in detail has only made me respect her more.

Terri describes some of her darkest moments in detail, and knowing what a lovely, funny and accomplished person she is, seeing her make it out the other side and flourish is an inspiration to us all.

[Corey Terrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a brilliant memoir that's beautifully written. I've been looking forward to this book for a long time and as soon as my copy arrived, I couldn't put it down. It's a hard read at times but beautifully crafted. Just completely breathtaking and hope there will be more in the future as Terri White is a fantastic writer.

[Laura K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best memoir I've ever read. Finished it in one day and barely put it down. A story about the dire consequences of untreated childhood trauma. The level of self-sabotage and self-loathing is almost unbelievable. But understandable in light of what the author had been through at the hands of her abhorrent mother and guardians.

There's also a subtext of the way society treats those who are essentially suffering from lack of love. Our world has a trauma problem that it seems to refuse to come to grips with.

[Elise Mckeever · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, gripping, sad & page turning but didn't feel it left me with any new found wisdom or insight. Didn't really explain her internal process of change/healing/recovery. Just a description of all her bad behaviour and misery, including that of her treatment by medical professionals (which seemed more traumatising, not healing) but then somehow she's better at the end? I'm not sure I really got what this book was trying to do, but it was interesting nonetheless.

[Karena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is confronting, honest, tough to read and utterly heartbreaking. I encourage everybody to read this book, either you will identify with part or parts of Terri’s story or you will gain insight into mental health, abuse, poverty and so much more.

[Heather Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

- Incredibly moving, incredibly honest
- So easy to read, despite the awful things she describes
- What a tough, brave, remarkable woman

4/5, read July '20

[Heeather Sccott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, however it really touched me.

I’ve struggled for the past few years on and off with my mental health. The past year was really when it came to a head. I could identify so much with what Terri was writing, in terms of self-loathing, self-medicating and suicidal thoughts. It can be a very lonely place when you are depressed and I know I often felt that I was the only person that had ever felt this way or knew exactly what I was going through. In my mind people simply couldn’t feel as bad as I did and live to tell the tale.

I really struggled when I drank as I felt I suppressed my feelings and pushed them down all week until the weekend when it would all come spiralling out. Like Terri, I struggled to have people understand that it was self-medicating and this was my escapism of not feeling horrific for a few hours. Depression and alcohol do not mix well. I found it comforting knowing that I wasn’t alone in these feelings and those of desperation, shame, sadness, hopelessness and sickness the next day. The worry of not knowing what you’ve done plagued me and it’s something I still worry about now even though I do feel better and haven’t had a manic episode while drinking for some months now.

This book has really had a massive impact on me. I would say not to read this until you are feeling on the road to recovery or healed as I do believe it could be very triggering and uncomfortable. It has made me realise how far I have come and that I am much better now than the version of myself I was living with for so long. An incredibly brave book and story to share. I cannot thank Terri White enough for writing this. I hope she has found peace and is living the beautiful life she deserves.

[Kelly Reitmeier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an intensely difficult read, written by an extremely strong, and courageous woman.

This memoir is an open and detailed account of Terri’s life. One which is harrowed with sexual and physical abuse, addiction, self harm, and attempted suicide. Terri battled all these demons while maintaining a dream career that masked the turmoil she was facing in her personal life.

Her suicide attempt led her to a psychiatric ward where readers are brought into the depths of the serious disappointment and lack of resources, empathy and compassion in the mental health systems in the UK and USA.

This read is not for everyone. There are incredibly graphic details of real life experiences. There are many trigger warnings. That being said, for those who can read this, it is a very important read.

[SarahK · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the way through the book, I wanted to reach out and hug Terri - she has been through so much and survived and I believe she is now healing and loving motherhood (you find out so much on Twitter). I so wish she could have been spared not only the childhood abuse but the self-loathing and shame through adulthood. I wish she had been able to find an empathic therapist in her early 20s and been able to work through her pain rather than enduring the self-harm and addictions and loneliness. This was a hard book to read - visceral (too visceral at times) - I would have liked to hear more about her more recent years and how she has put herself back together as that would have felt more hopeful. Bravo to her for her bravery in telling this story.

[Kate McIlwain · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tough read and well written. Graphic in some parts (but not nearly as much as American Psycho, for example) and elegant in others - when describing what she suffered at the hands of others.

I’ve read the other reviews and although I agree it would have been interesting to know about her career, the title of the book says it all. It’s about her undoing - and it’s causes.

My overwhelming feeling was that I, as an adult, wanted to take Terri, as a child, and hug her tight and to protect her from what was to come.

I’ve met Terri a couple of times and it makes me incredibly sad that she had to go through this. Hopefully there is a lesson to be learnt from her memoir and I’d like to know if she finally had the chance to prosecute the men who abused her.

[Cyblogs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Be careful when you're reading this... there are lots of graphic and detailed descriptions of self-harm and suicide attempts, so it might be very triggering for some people- and the trigger warnings at the front don't fully warn how explicit some of the book is.

Also, I don't feel like there's a lot of healing in the book (which is fine- recovery from mental illness and abuse is not a linear process)... I originally picked this book up because it was advertised as providing "hope to the half-broken soul", but I would say it's quite a bleak memoir, just in case people are looking for something that focuses more on healing.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brutally honest book about dealing with childhood trauma. Will strike a chord with anyone who has abused substances to block out the past. Fascinating insight into the US's mental health system too, from a Brit's perspective. My only gripe was that it didn't seem to have much of an ending. I wanted to know what happened next. Did she give up alcohol for good or seek therapy to deal with her past? I didn't feel just moving back to England would make the deep-seated issues go away. But maybe that's for the next book...