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Earthed
“When you think about ADHD . . . do you picture a woman in the bucolic English countryside, raising her children along with an assortment of animals and vegetables? Why not?”—Salon
Moving to a small farm is Rebeca Schiller’s dream come true. But as her young family adjusts to a new life in the countryside, her dream is threatened by something within. I'm aware of everything, all at once, which is too much. As Rebecca’s symptoms mount—frequent falls, rages, and strange lapses in memory—her doctors are baffled and her family unmoored.
Finally comes a diagnosis: severe ADHD. For Rebecca, it is the start, not the end, of a quest for understanding. As she scrambles to support both family and farm, her focus spirals: from our current climate crisis to long-extinct lynx in the shadows of ancient oaks and the forgotten women who tended this land before her, their stories hidden just beneath the surface of history.
In this luminous, heralded memoir of one woman’s newfound neurodivergence, attention is not deficient—but abundant.
Moving to a small farm is Rebeca Schiller’s dream come true. But as her young family adjusts to a new life in the countryside, her dream is threatened by something within. I'm aware of everything, all at once, which is too much. As Rebecca’s symptoms mount—frequent falls, rages, and strange lapses in memory—her doctors are baffled and her family unmoored.
Finally comes a diagnosis: severe ADHD. For Rebecca, it is the start, not the end, of a quest for understanding. As she scrambles to support both family and farm, her focus spirals: from our current climate crisis to long-extinct lynx in the shadows of ancient oaks and the forgotten women who tended this land before her, their stories hidden just beneath the surface of history.
In this luminous, heralded memoir of one woman’s newfound neurodivergence, attention is not deficient—but abundant.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published May 6, 2021
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6430 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
May 6, 2021
When I first picked up this book, I expected a story of her moving to the country, finding it a bit hard and how they overcame it together as a family. And yes this book is about that in a way, but it is also not that at all, because Rebecca has a story (or a multitude of stories) to tell about her move, what she feels is a mental health problem, you could say her unravelling, the stories she found in the land she inhabits and beyond, and the slow unveiling of a diagnosis and hopeful embarking on a way forward.
I have no illusion about the hard work it is to grow your own food and then like Rebecca when you must balance it with a career, a family, livestock and that nagging feeling of "What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I like this?".
An aspect I loved is that Rebecca shared in so much detail how her brain works. How she will focus on something so much it becomes its own story; the brain leads to ever more detail about people and stories and it can be overwhelming but also incredibly calming. I just got her. Got all the stories. Got what she is saying.
I also loved that idea she contemplates a lot: that a smallholding is more than just a place where you grow food and keep a bit of livestock. It is land and that land has always been there, people have lived on it, passed through it, vegetation was there and then was changed, mostly by humans. A house is also a place where - especially in the UK - people have lived before us and that curiosity as to who they are and what they have been like is something I never knew other people thought about as well. In as much detail as I do.
Nature is naturally the biggest theme in this book, it is called Earthed after all. The earth, the garden, the land kept Rebecca tethered when she felt the ground was slipping underneath here and this not just in the proverbial sense. Growing flowers and food. Stepping outside to hug an oak when life inside gets too much. Marvelling at the flowers. Noticing. Observing. But never being quite still, just enough to keep going. I don't think I have ever read a more beautiful metaphor for life.
I have no illusion about the hard work it is to grow your own food and then like Rebecca when you must balance it with a career, a family, livestock and that nagging feeling of "What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I like this?".
An aspect I loved is that Rebecca shared in so much detail how her brain works. How she will focus on something so much it becomes its own story; the brain leads to ever more detail about people and stories and it can be overwhelming but also incredibly calming. I just got her. Got all the stories. Got what she is saying.
I also loved that idea she contemplates a lot: that a smallholding is more than just a place where you grow food and keep a bit of livestock. It is land and that land has always been there, people have lived on it, passed through it, vegetation was there and then was changed, mostly by humans. A house is also a place where - especially in the UK - people have lived before us and that curiosity as to who they are and what they have been like is something I never knew other people thought about as well. In as much detail as I do.
Nature is naturally the biggest theme in this book, it is called Earthed after all. The earth, the garden, the land kept Rebecca tethered when she felt the ground was slipping underneath here and this not just in the proverbial sense. Growing flowers and food. Stepping outside to hug an oak when life inside gets too much. Marvelling at the flowers. Noticing. Observing. But never being quite still, just enough to keep going. I don't think I have ever read a more beautiful metaphor for life.
August 24, 2021
(3.75) The subtitle of the U.S. version is a lot more upfront about the book’s contents. This reminded me most of Katherine May’s books, The Electricity of Every Living Thing and Wintering, for the focus on mental health and a surprise adult diagnosis of neurodivergence. Schiller focuses on the events of the last couple of years on her family’s Kent smallholding, when a breakdown and the discovery (at 3/4 through) that she is in the 99th percentile for ADHD explained why she felt unable to cope with the challenges and distractions of everyday life – freelance employment, working the plot, and being a wife and mother. Before that, her doctors thought she had generalized anxiety or “clinical perfectionism” and prescribed CBT, with her initial referral being denied because she wasn’t ‘ill enough’.
The book proceeds season by season: I most enjoyed the way Schiller gives a sense of the year passing outdoors through tasks and produce. She learns that she technically fits the UN definition of a peasant, and as she researches the history of her plot she feels a connection with the previous generations who made a living there. (The April chapter, in particular, reminded me of the historical re-enactment in A Ghost in the Throat.) There are unusual interludes, like magic realist short stories, where she imagines herself into earlier time periods and the lives of indigenous peoples. I questioned the relevance of these sections; they only seem to be there to add token diversity, and (as she explicitly acknowledges) these are not her stories to tell. This fanciful style comes to a height in the Epilogue, when she pictures her death and fashions herself into a ghost come back to watch her family arrive at the plot.
While the fictional touches were not to my taste, I found the writing strong throughout, and appreciated Schiller’s self-knowledge (“I’m not good at boring. I’ve never done gently well either. The hard way it is then. Bring it on.”) and -compassion (“The treasure is and was always just myself – a little diffused and refracted perhaps – but me nonetheless”). She’s also quite funny in places, as when she remembers digging for vegetables in hard January dirt and bursts out “Double fuck that fucking leek” or, sorting out flower seeds, says, “Cosmos Rose Bon Bon. They sound like something Jamie Oliver would name a child”. I’ll be really interested to see what she writes next. Although hybrid forms have become more common in nature writing, I suspect her style may end up being best suited to a place-rich novel in the tradition of Jon McGregor or Sarah Moss.
The book proceeds season by season: I most enjoyed the way Schiller gives a sense of the year passing outdoors through tasks and produce. She learns that she technically fits the UN definition of a peasant, and as she researches the history of her plot she feels a connection with the previous generations who made a living there. (The April chapter, in particular, reminded me of the historical re-enactment in A Ghost in the Throat.) There are unusual interludes, like magic realist short stories, where she imagines herself into earlier time periods and the lives of indigenous peoples. I questioned the relevance of these sections; they only seem to be there to add token diversity, and (as she explicitly acknowledges) these are not her stories to tell. This fanciful style comes to a height in the Epilogue, when she pictures her death and fashions herself into a ghost come back to watch her family arrive at the plot.
While the fictional touches were not to my taste, I found the writing strong throughout, and appreciated Schiller’s self-knowledge (“I’m not good at boring. I’ve never done gently well either. The hard way it is then. Bring it on.”) and -compassion (“The treasure is and was always just myself – a little diffused and refracted perhaps – but me nonetheless”). She’s also quite funny in places, as when she remembers digging for vegetables in hard January dirt and bursts out “Double fuck that fucking leek” or, sorting out flower seeds, says, “Cosmos Rose Bon Bon. They sound like something Jamie Oliver would name a child”. I’ll be really interested to see what she writes next. Although hybrid forms have become more common in nature writing, I suspect her style may end up being best suited to a place-rich novel in the tradition of Jon McGregor or Sarah Moss.
January 10, 2021
I think that the publisher should make it more obvious in the blurb that this book focuses almost totally on the author's mental health - I expected a lot more about the actual work of running a Kentish smallholding, so as an avid reader of nature-writing, 'Earthed' wasn't as satisfying a read as I'd hoped it would be. At times it's even exhausting, an endless snowfall of paragraphs about the author's internal crisis - though it is elegantly written, and I'm sure readers with more of an interest in this kind of topic will find much to love about the book (I was reminded quite strikingly of Clover Stroud's writing, and I note that she has provided a quote for the book).
'Earthed' is quite experimental in some ways; a memoir of a breakdown interspersed with fragments on gardening and crop-growing, imaginings of women from the past, and poetry. I wasn't taken with the fictional account of the nameless civil servant, though the historical fiction had more appeal, and I'd love to see Schiller take this further with a historical novel on women in agriculture (following in the footsteps of authors like Melissa Harrison).
So - a book of sharp edges and tender moments, not quite what I was expecting or looking for as it turns out, but no doubt one that will resonate with many readers (particularly, I imagine, women struggling to run families and manage their own mental health).
(With thanks to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)
'Earthed' is quite experimental in some ways; a memoir of a breakdown interspersed with fragments on gardening and crop-growing, imaginings of women from the past, and poetry. I wasn't taken with the fictional account of the nameless civil servant, though the historical fiction had more appeal, and I'd love to see Schiller take this further with a historical novel on women in agriculture (following in the footsteps of authors like Melissa Harrison).
So - a book of sharp edges and tender moments, not quite what I was expecting or looking for as it turns out, but no doubt one that will resonate with many readers (particularly, I imagine, women struggling to run families and manage their own mental health).
(With thanks to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)
August 12, 2022
I loved this book. Some other reviews I've read that were negative discussed not being able to relate to the author's experience.... how can you give a negative review for having a different life experience than the author? Baffling. This book took hold of me when I needed it most. I am so thankful it came to my bookstore as an advance copy exactly when I was beginning my diagnosis journey for ADHD and Autism at the age of 34.
The whirlwind of curiosities and imaginings that go through the author's brain felt like home to me. What other negative reviewers have described as hard to follow turned out to be the most straightforward book I've ever read. The diagnosis process feels a little less lonely because of this book. Thank you for telling your story, Rebecca.
The whirlwind of curiosities and imaginings that go through the author's brain felt like home to me. What other negative reviewers have described as hard to follow turned out to be the most straightforward book I've ever read. The diagnosis process feels a little less lonely because of this book. Thank you for telling your story, Rebecca.
August 28, 2021
Not quite the book for me, and I expected way more 'nature'.
June 19, 2022
A book about adhd super hard for a girl with adhd to read
March 23, 2022
A THOUSAND WAYS TO PAY ATTENTION
by Rebecca Schiller
The Experiment
Pub Date: Apr 26
A Thousand Ways To Pay Attention is an important memoir on the impact of severe ADHD on a woman and her family living in the English countryside.
Author Rebecca Schiller's life began to spin out of control after the family moved to a rural area to raise goats and hens, and grow fruits and vegetables. As her symptoms worsened -- including intense anger and memory loss and many falls -- Rebecca's family felt the brunt too. Only after visits to specialist after specialist did she finally get her surprising diagnosis.
What I love about this memoir is Rebecca's brave candor, which will help similarly afflicted readers most. What I struggled with was the slow pace and at times confusing narrative, which leapt crazily from topic to topic. While it gave a real picture of a disordered mind, it was often hard to follow.
Thanks to the author, The Experiment, and NetGalley for the e-ARC. Opinions are mine.
#AThousandWaysToPayAttention #TheExperiment #RebeccaSchiller #NetGalley #neurodiversitymemoir #ADHDmemoirs #bookstagramcommunity
by Rebecca Schiller
The Experiment
Pub Date: Apr 26
A Thousand Ways To Pay Attention is an important memoir on the impact of severe ADHD on a woman and her family living in the English countryside.
Author Rebecca Schiller's life began to spin out of control after the family moved to a rural area to raise goats and hens, and grow fruits and vegetables. As her symptoms worsened -- including intense anger and memory loss and many falls -- Rebecca's family felt the brunt too. Only after visits to specialist after specialist did she finally get her surprising diagnosis.
What I love about this memoir is Rebecca's brave candor, which will help similarly afflicted readers most. What I struggled with was the slow pace and at times confusing narrative, which leapt crazily from topic to topic. While it gave a real picture of a disordered mind, it was often hard to follow.
Thanks to the author, The Experiment, and NetGalley for the e-ARC. Opinions are mine.
#AThousandWaysToPayAttention #TheExperiment #RebeccaSchiller #NetGalley #neurodiversitymemoir #ADHDmemoirs #bookstagramcommunity
June 7, 2021
Lots of people have dreamt of moving away from the city and taking over a smallholding to grow their own food and keep a few chickens and live out their version of the good life. I have occasionally considered it myself too. But it is hard work, plants do not grow with a few minutes of care each day, you need to graft to get the bountiful harvests that you see others producing.
Rebecca Schiller turned her fantasy into a reality back in 2017 when they moved to a smallholding. The stark reality of that dream became evident after a while when the list of things to do each and every day grew to monstrous proportions and with it an overwhelming sense of not being able to cope with any of the challenges that life was throwing at her.
Over breakfast something small finally tips me off that ledge – the one that I have been balancing on for quite some time.
This is the story of her life on that small plot of land and is an open and occasionally a brutally honest account of her suffering from all manner of mental health issues whilst trying to hold together a smallholding, her marriage and her family. Her mental health is something that she struggles with to a greater or lesser extent throughout the book, whether it is dealing with the mini family crisis that crops up with children or just facing the endless daily tasks. There are moments of happiness, small things that raise a smile like the first fruits or fresh eggs and the warmth of a summer day.
I need this smallholding to be a simple, easy, happy family affair with a greenhouse that has all its panes. But it is not and this kind of life has never been like that and never will be. The phrase ‘simple life’ wasn’t coined by anyone who tried to live it.
Even though the subject matter might not be for everyone I thought that this was well written. I am sure we only get a flavour of her suffering and the pain that she was causing to her husband, Jared whilst she was ill. I liked the dash of history of her plot of land that is a part of the book, it helps to earth her and is a reminder that we are merely custodians of this planet. I wasn’t sure about the fictional elements as she imagined the women who once worked the land to feed their families. Even though it could be quite bleak at times, there is a positive message here too, partly that modern medical treatments can and do work when the professionals know what is wrong, but also that a connection to a landscape can keep you rooted.
Rebecca Schiller turned her fantasy into a reality back in 2017 when they moved to a smallholding. The stark reality of that dream became evident after a while when the list of things to do each and every day grew to monstrous proportions and with it an overwhelming sense of not being able to cope with any of the challenges that life was throwing at her.
Over breakfast something small finally tips me off that ledge – the one that I have been balancing on for quite some time.
This is the story of her life on that small plot of land and is an open and occasionally a brutally honest account of her suffering from all manner of mental health issues whilst trying to hold together a smallholding, her marriage and her family. Her mental health is something that she struggles with to a greater or lesser extent throughout the book, whether it is dealing with the mini family crisis that crops up with children or just facing the endless daily tasks. There are moments of happiness, small things that raise a smile like the first fruits or fresh eggs and the warmth of a summer day.
I need this smallholding to be a simple, easy, happy family affair with a greenhouse that has all its panes. But it is not and this kind of life has never been like that and never will be. The phrase ‘simple life’ wasn’t coined by anyone who tried to live it.
Even though the subject matter might not be for everyone I thought that this was well written. I am sure we only get a flavour of her suffering and the pain that she was causing to her husband, Jared whilst she was ill. I liked the dash of history of her plot of land that is a part of the book, it helps to earth her and is a reminder that we are merely custodians of this planet. I wasn’t sure about the fictional elements as she imagined the women who once worked the land to feed their families. Even though it could be quite bleak at times, there is a positive message here too, partly that modern medical treatments can and do work when the professionals know what is wrong, but also that a connection to a landscape can keep you rooted.
August 23, 2021
An alternate title for this piece could be Earthed: Rebecca Schiller Googles things.
This wasn't a bad book. Parts of it were great, perfectly related descriptions of mental illness. Others just felt irrelevant. Lots of pages were skipped and honestly, by the end I was kind of over it.
This wasn't a bad book. Parts of it were great, perfectly related descriptions of mental illness. Others just felt irrelevant. Lots of pages were skipped and honestly, by the end I was kind of over it.
May 10, 2022
I started reading this book on a Wednesday, at the tail end of several weeks without giving myself a day off. I read the first few pages at least seven times, wandering around my basement apartment with my mind bouncing from what to capture for this review, to how I make book notes in general, to the question of where I might find resources on improving the quality of a non-fiction book review. It took me an hour of noticing the disjointed state of my own thoughts, at approximately five-minute intervals, to actually make it to the pill case, and once the meds kicked in I found myself focusing not on the book in my hand but rather on a text conversation. And thus I felt right at home when I finally settled into these pages, a beautiful ADHD memoir speaking to such internal experiences in a way that feels not polished and sanitized for an outside perspective but rather reflective of our own chaotic and beautiful brains. As a lover of dichotomy, this book was exactly what I needed.
Rebecca Schiller drops us into her memoir with a jarring opening set just after the year that the bulk of the book chronicles (2019). In recounting her experience of a diagnostic test Schiller captures the feeling of being inside an ADHD brain but also the meta-layer of impostor syndrome, the observational tendency to notice how others are noticing you. "There’s no one to hide behind here, no last-minute miracle I can pull out of the bag, no way to fake it, no brilliant distraction, no covering humor, no meticulous preparation, no costume, no series of reminders and lists, no lie or excuse, no way to cancel at the last minute, no opt- out, no get-out, no convincing apology, no way to go back in time.”
Oof. I’m pulled back into a similar feeling, sitting in a kind psychiatric nurse’s armchair where I’m both tempted to answer his questions in the manner that would be most reflective of the DSM-V criteria for ADHD and at the same time trying not to do so, for fear that despite my honest I might somehow be subconsciously lying. And I’m also relieved in retrospect that my own country doesn’t use the test Schiller describes, as it was her very description meant to invoke the maddening monotony of it that sent my mind wandering: red circle, blue circle, click.
Schiller’s prose has a beautiful immediacy to it. Though we can gather from the test and the book’s title that she’s writing about ADHD, this memoir comes at the diagnosis from a different angle, the term not actually appearing until we reach December in her yearlong narrative. Though the final quarter of the book does return to the diagnosis, considering Schiller’s experience in the greater context of adult women who experience these symptoms, throughout her month-by-month account of the prior year we’re fully immersed in her perspective—that terrifying experience of knowing that something is wrong, but not exactly what.
This immersion takes place on a smallholding (homestead) in southern England, where Schiller learns to tend to the land and balances work with mothering two small children in the midst of an unraveling that threatens to undo her. The looming spectre of climate change and an uncertainty around what right she has to steward the land parallel her experience of cognitive overwhelm, but amidst the intense vulnerability of her internal experience we also get to know a natural world that can be in turns whimsical, brutal, and soothing.
I personally appreciate that nature and beauty and even mindfulness are presented here as possible to access without a stereotypically calm approach. I’m sure I’m not the only intuitive with ADHD who struggles to embody the calm, soothing tones of a typical person in my field! Schiller’s intimacy with the land helps the reader to appreciate how viewing ADHD as “disordered” is really a product of modern culture. Gardening and other tasks become daunting when planning ahead, but when Schiller is fully immersed some of the pressure slips away and she begins to develop relationship as part of a rich ecosystem.
Dichotomy—holding two contradicting things to be simultaneously true—winds through Schiller’s storytelling. There is even a dichotomy formed by how the meandering, specific prose somehow generates clear themes without an obvious destination. Schiller is honest about the simultaneous beauty and torment of the ADHD brain. On the one hand, we can weave things together in creative ways, but that ability also makes it very challenging to stay within a single context when novel associations beckon. Good for innovation, bad for focus.
That weaving is illustrated through a layering of levels of reality, time, and context in the narrative. I found this quite natural and intriguing, but neurotypical readers may struggle! Schiller demonstrates how her mind can hold large and small scope, past and present context, as she jumps between research about 17th century English tenants, for example, and the minutae of a gardening task, interspersed with sort-of dream sequences that are never quite defined—delusion? Intuitive journey? Just a storyteller’s embellishment? The reader is left to decide.
One fascinating perspective treats ADHD as an open third eye that doesn’t help much in the “real world,” but has its own magic. Coping mechanisms like notifications and planners can allow you to manage well enough to safely keep this third eye open, but unfamiliar environments without these tools available can result in a rush.
I expect many readers will relate, like me, to Schiller’s experience of ADHD being a kind of strength as a student but a burden as an adult. I found myself inside her narrative again as I remembered my delight when junior-year courses all neatly lined up so that I was studying U.S. history, civics, and literature simultaneously—meaning that my ability to connect each layer was an asset rather than a distraction. I tired of linear, shallow stories and wanted to dig deep in an interdisciplinary fashion. Even in her adult experience we find a contrast between Schiller’s research achievements (available when she follows the safe route of pursuing curiosity towards sprawling high-level subjects) and the mistake-filled emotional roller coaster of her day-to-day life.
In 2020 I wrote in my journal “ADHD is the constant desire to escape.” Schiller’s experience echoes this reflection, as she both becomes more rooted to the land and wonders if she should flee it. There’s even an interesting connection between ADHD and nomadic life, and to spiral time. I’ll let you read the book for the details, but I particularly appreciate how rather than framing ADHD as a “modern illness,” Schiller concludes that these traits of ours have existed for a long time—it is only the way capitalism forces us into a neurotypical prison that makes ADHD a weakness rather than a strength.
Readers should be aware that the theme of escape does include some intense descriptions of self-harm and desire to self-harm, including intrusive thoughts of suicide. Despite that, Schiller goes through the familiar experience of not being unwell enough at the specific moment she’s screened to get support, figuring into her critique of the health care system. Her persistence in arriving at the right diagnosis is inspiring, but it’s not an easy path. She beautifully captures the frustration of having so much to say about your context that would help a professional understand your internal experience, but then needing to get it across quickly in “bullet point” format to fit in the time allotted.
I think I was most struck by the relational pieces of the book. The stereotype of the spacey, “head in the clouds” ADHD person doesn’t really capture our hyperawareness at different levels, including of people’s reactions (which may manifest as Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.) The contrast between rigid personal rules that keep things together and having to lie multiple times about why you forgot a meeting was deeply familiar. Professional female and non-binary readers may especially relate to the way Schiller talks about those learned behaviors as what can keep us from being “the kind of person” who forgets things.
Ultimately, between a space of magical possibility and a site of insanity, Schiller locates the ADHD brain closer to the experience of intuition. From the viewpoint of this book the intuitive path is the hard one, but its beauty is in how it uncovers the layers of modern life to guide you to what you already know. For a story surrounded by so-called apocalypse, from the Greek “uncover” or “reveal,” this seems highly à propos.
I would highly recommend to anyone, especially, who is both neurodivergent and passionate about the intersection of healing and justice, including practitioners of earth-based spirituality and those with metaphysical interests. While I can’t know what the experience of reading it would be like for a neurotypical person, I can also see it being a great way to get a sense of the internal experience of someone with ADHD.
(ARC provided by Edelweiss.)
Rebecca Schiller drops us into her memoir with a jarring opening set just after the year that the bulk of the book chronicles (2019). In recounting her experience of a diagnostic test Schiller captures the feeling of being inside an ADHD brain but also the meta-layer of impostor syndrome, the observational tendency to notice how others are noticing you. "There’s no one to hide behind here, no last-minute miracle I can pull out of the bag, no way to fake it, no brilliant distraction, no covering humor, no meticulous preparation, no costume, no series of reminders and lists, no lie or excuse, no way to cancel at the last minute, no opt- out, no get-out, no convincing apology, no way to go back in time.”
Oof. I’m pulled back into a similar feeling, sitting in a kind psychiatric nurse’s armchair where I’m both tempted to answer his questions in the manner that would be most reflective of the DSM-V criteria for ADHD and at the same time trying not to do so, for fear that despite my honest I might somehow be subconsciously lying. And I’m also relieved in retrospect that my own country doesn’t use the test Schiller describes, as it was her very description meant to invoke the maddening monotony of it that sent my mind wandering: red circle, blue circle, click.
Schiller’s prose has a beautiful immediacy to it. Though we can gather from the test and the book’s title that she’s writing about ADHD, this memoir comes at the diagnosis from a different angle, the term not actually appearing until we reach December in her yearlong narrative. Though the final quarter of the book does return to the diagnosis, considering Schiller’s experience in the greater context of adult women who experience these symptoms, throughout her month-by-month account of the prior year we’re fully immersed in her perspective—that terrifying experience of knowing that something is wrong, but not exactly what.
This immersion takes place on a smallholding (homestead) in southern England, where Schiller learns to tend to the land and balances work with mothering two small children in the midst of an unraveling that threatens to undo her. The looming spectre of climate change and an uncertainty around what right she has to steward the land parallel her experience of cognitive overwhelm, but amidst the intense vulnerability of her internal experience we also get to know a natural world that can be in turns whimsical, brutal, and soothing.
I personally appreciate that nature and beauty and even mindfulness are presented here as possible to access without a stereotypically calm approach. I’m sure I’m not the only intuitive with ADHD who struggles to embody the calm, soothing tones of a typical person in my field! Schiller’s intimacy with the land helps the reader to appreciate how viewing ADHD as “disordered” is really a product of modern culture. Gardening and other tasks become daunting when planning ahead, but when Schiller is fully immersed some of the pressure slips away and she begins to develop relationship as part of a rich ecosystem.
Dichotomy—holding two contradicting things to be simultaneously true—winds through Schiller’s storytelling. There is even a dichotomy formed by how the meandering, specific prose somehow generates clear themes without an obvious destination. Schiller is honest about the simultaneous beauty and torment of the ADHD brain. On the one hand, we can weave things together in creative ways, but that ability also makes it very challenging to stay within a single context when novel associations beckon. Good for innovation, bad for focus.
That weaving is illustrated through a layering of levels of reality, time, and context in the narrative. I found this quite natural and intriguing, but neurotypical readers may struggle! Schiller demonstrates how her mind can hold large and small scope, past and present context, as she jumps between research about 17th century English tenants, for example, and the minutae of a gardening task, interspersed with sort-of dream sequences that are never quite defined—delusion? Intuitive journey? Just a storyteller’s embellishment? The reader is left to decide.
One fascinating perspective treats ADHD as an open third eye that doesn’t help much in the “real world,” but has its own magic. Coping mechanisms like notifications and planners can allow you to manage well enough to safely keep this third eye open, but unfamiliar environments without these tools available can result in a rush.
I expect many readers will relate, like me, to Schiller’s experience of ADHD being a kind of strength as a student but a burden as an adult. I found myself inside her narrative again as I remembered my delight when junior-year courses all neatly lined up so that I was studying U.S. history, civics, and literature simultaneously—meaning that my ability to connect each layer was an asset rather than a distraction. I tired of linear, shallow stories and wanted to dig deep in an interdisciplinary fashion. Even in her adult experience we find a contrast between Schiller’s research achievements (available when she follows the safe route of pursuing curiosity towards sprawling high-level subjects) and the mistake-filled emotional roller coaster of her day-to-day life.
In 2020 I wrote in my journal “ADHD is the constant desire to escape.” Schiller’s experience echoes this reflection, as she both becomes more rooted to the land and wonders if she should flee it. There’s even an interesting connection between ADHD and nomadic life, and to spiral time. I’ll let you read the book for the details, but I particularly appreciate how rather than framing ADHD as a “modern illness,” Schiller concludes that these traits of ours have existed for a long time—it is only the way capitalism forces us into a neurotypical prison that makes ADHD a weakness rather than a strength.
Readers should be aware that the theme of escape does include some intense descriptions of self-harm and desire to self-harm, including intrusive thoughts of suicide. Despite that, Schiller goes through the familiar experience of not being unwell enough at the specific moment she’s screened to get support, figuring into her critique of the health care system. Her persistence in arriving at the right diagnosis is inspiring, but it’s not an easy path. She beautifully captures the frustration of having so much to say about your context that would help a professional understand your internal experience, but then needing to get it across quickly in “bullet point” format to fit in the time allotted.
I think I was most struck by the relational pieces of the book. The stereotype of the spacey, “head in the clouds” ADHD person doesn’t really capture our hyperawareness at different levels, including of people’s reactions (which may manifest as Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.) The contrast between rigid personal rules that keep things together and having to lie multiple times about why you forgot a meeting was deeply familiar. Professional female and non-binary readers may especially relate to the way Schiller talks about those learned behaviors as what can keep us from being “the kind of person” who forgets things.
Ultimately, between a space of magical possibility and a site of insanity, Schiller locates the ADHD brain closer to the experience of intuition. From the viewpoint of this book the intuitive path is the hard one, but its beauty is in how it uncovers the layers of modern life to guide you to what you already know. For a story surrounded by so-called apocalypse, from the Greek “uncover” or “reveal,” this seems highly à propos.
I would highly recommend to anyone, especially, who is both neurodivergent and passionate about the intersection of healing and justice, including practitioners of earth-based spirituality and those with metaphysical interests. While I can’t know what the experience of reading it would be like for a neurotypical person, I can also see it being a great way to get a sense of the internal experience of someone with ADHD.
(ARC provided by Edelweiss.)
August 29, 2021
This book appealed to me primarily for the small holding aspect and when Rebecca Schiller was focusing on the plants and animals on her land, the trials and tribulations of growing and the history of the plot she is a steward of I was engrossed. The writing is lovely and there was lots I could relate to with having a small holding myself. However, the mental health aspect was harder going and perhaps that’s because that is less relatable to me, for those who have the same or similar struggles this is probably far more successful. Glad I picked it up though.
May 20, 2022
Completely mis-described on the blurb. Ok if you want a book completely of the thoughts of mental illness, but not of a tale of a new life in the country.
May 6, 2021
I found this to be an utterly absorbing and eye opening memoir that looks at the mental health struggles of the author, Rebecca Schiller, as she shares the highs, and many lows!, of dealing with life and how pinning your hopes on a move to the countryside to solve your problems isn't always the miracle cure that you may hope it will be!
I think we've all seen many mental health insights over the past year or so, where someone has changed their way of life and it was a fix for so much in their lives, whereas Rebecca shows the reality with her brutal honesty of while living in the countryside with your own smallholding has many benefits - check out her instagram page for the cutest goat content!! - the reality of family life and the hard work involved takes its' toll, especially if you are struggling with your mental health in the first place.
When she and her family moved to Kent in 2017 they were full of high hopes and plans for their new lives, and the author shares her experiences of while she was hoping for a slightly slower pace of life in the country, that didn't work out as planned and the negatives in life continued to outweigh the positives.
This book goes into detail about the strain her struggles put on her marriage, and while she tried to remain positive for her children, it was they who were the ones to point out the positives in the little things in life that would help her to see the good in each day, even when the world to her seemed very black.
She also throws herself into researching the house they moved in to and the people who have lived there before and that was a great distraction for her, and fascinating to learn about, and also made her look more into herself and try and find out what was causing these dips in her mood and outlook and why she kept struggling. It really does open your eyes to the variety of mental health struggles we all face.
This is a book that deals in reality and the honesty in her writing and experiences really does shine through. It was enlightening to read a book where her life didn't change overnight because she moved to the country, but it made her realise that she couldn't paper over the cracks anymore and needed to be more pro-active in her search to be happier and find a way to keep living with a more balanced outlook.
I think we've all seen many mental health insights over the past year or so, where someone has changed their way of life and it was a fix for so much in their lives, whereas Rebecca shows the reality with her brutal honesty of while living in the countryside with your own smallholding has many benefits - check out her instagram page for the cutest goat content!! - the reality of family life and the hard work involved takes its' toll, especially if you are struggling with your mental health in the first place.
When she and her family moved to Kent in 2017 they were full of high hopes and plans for their new lives, and the author shares her experiences of while she was hoping for a slightly slower pace of life in the country, that didn't work out as planned and the negatives in life continued to outweigh the positives.
This book goes into detail about the strain her struggles put on her marriage, and while she tried to remain positive for her children, it was they who were the ones to point out the positives in the little things in life that would help her to see the good in each day, even when the world to her seemed very black.
She also throws herself into researching the house they moved in to and the people who have lived there before and that was a great distraction for her, and fascinating to learn about, and also made her look more into herself and try and find out what was causing these dips in her mood and outlook and why she kept struggling. It really does open your eyes to the variety of mental health struggles we all face.
This is a book that deals in reality and the honesty in her writing and experiences really does shine through. It was enlightening to read a book where her life didn't change overnight because she moved to the country, but it made her realise that she couldn't paper over the cracks anymore and needed to be more pro-active in her search to be happier and find a way to keep living with a more balanced outlook.
May 10, 2021
Gosh, this book wasn't what I was expecting. It was therapeutic, a whirlwind, chaos, and calm all at the same time.
January 23, 2022
I didn't realise what this was when I picked it up, but I feel a little bit wide-eyed and naked, honestly. I knew what was going on early doors. I'm a lot like the author. She's ahead of me in a couple of ways (I gave up my allotment, I haven't pursued official recognition of my brain stuff) but I feel like it would almost be a cliché if we met and compared experiences. I truly loved this. I found some passages and pathways unwieldy and hard to follow (but I say this wryly as I know why they came out the way they did, and I'm just the same when I tell stories) but I'm very, very glad I read it. And weirdly, feel proud of Rebecca Schiller despite never having met her. Hopeful, too, that maybe I'll grow more than some green topped carrots and write more than snatched scribbles when I get the chance. I feel like I have a new friend.
September 3, 2022
Bit of weird one this, isn’t it? Part of me loved this book, and part of me hated it. The first few chapters, I really enjoyed, but then the writing seemed to spiral off on tangents that didn’t really fit the story. Having read on and found out that the author received a diagnosis of ADHD, those tangents do make sense, and they make you feel like you’re in her frantic mind, but while reading it just pulls you out of the reading experience completely. Parts of the writing were lyrical and beautiful, parts needed a really good edit as they weren’t needed and ended up making me disengage. Yeah, not great but not also not a totally unenjoyable read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2022
Not exactly sure why but I hated this book. Had a really visceral response to it (I listened to it rather than reading it). Could not help criticising it throughout. Strangely kept listening to it though hoping that she’d give up on that bloody plot - was never sure if it was her saving Grace or the thing driving her to distraction 🤷🏻♀️
Was pulled on by title and book cover (foolish mistake).
Was pulled on by title and book cover (foolish mistake).
October 19, 2021
Earthed
This book is not what I expected. I was disappointed. I often felt irritated by the main character, sometimes angry although I often found resemblances to myself and my life. It may be a perfect read for some people but sadly not for me.
This book is not what I expected. I was disappointed. I often felt irritated by the main character, sometimes angry although I often found resemblances to myself and my life. It may be a perfect read for some people but sadly not for me.
February 16, 2022
Great story. I really got her & what she was saying. Very interesting perspective on mental health. Definitely recommend.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.
December 1, 2022
One of the most important and enjoyable books I've ever read. I've told several friends that it's a must read. The combination of neurodivergent experience, history, UK countryside, including a bitvof research into Indigenous ideas... was everything. I definitely want to reread.
July 10, 2022
The author has a talent for beautiful and lyrical writing. Nevertheless, her story did not engage me (minutiae, rambling, back and forth story telling, etc).
April 11, 2021
3.5 rounded up. I did not realise before starting the book that mental health would be such a big part of it, but I think that made it more interesting and enjoyable. The author, Rebecca Schiller, had moved with her husband and two children to the countryside and is making big plans of planting vegetables and flowers, keeping hens, and living more sustainably - essentially my dream life - but is crippled by anxiety and something else which she is desperate to get a diagnosis for. The memoir is sometimes poorly structured - in theory it is organised by season, but there are many digressions about farming communities, women farmers from past centuries, and at times it can be hard to follow. After finishing the book I wondered if this jumping around with different ideas was maybe a deliberate illustration of the mental health diagnosis she receives at the end of the memoir. Regardless, some of these passages where she imagines the thoughts and lives of women whose names she found in local history books and archives felt unnecessary; but overall this is a well-written book, with interesting comments on privilege, mental health, meaning and nature.
Free ARC received from Netgalley.
Free ARC received from Netgalley.
August 8, 2022
I bought this book as a side-read for my PhD project, I did not think that it would describe what I've been going through in the past few years. (And no, I can't really use it for my PhD project, but nevermind.) "Earthed" is the very autobiographical story of a woman slowly losing her mind before the pandemic, how each diagnosis is not enough, cannot describe her reality. She has sold her house and now lives on a plot with her husband and children, but her mental health gets worse, she suffers from terrible depression and anxiety, feels like she is a failure. When she, by chance, reads an article on ADHD in grown woman, she feels seen and pursues this (against all odds) until she receives a diagnosis, help, support, medication. I bought the book for the nature writing, but I found myself in the story as I too was recently diagnosed with ADHD. It explains so much and the more personal accounts of the novel were deeply touching. I enjoyed the nature writing of course, but seeing how a person that is somehow a bit like me thinks like me was surprising. Funnily enough, I thought that the symptoms described early on in the narrative sounded a lot like ADHD but then I thought that it was just me overinterpreting, lol.
I wish Rebecca all the best, hang in there. 4 Stars
I wish Rebecca all the best, hang in there. 4 Stars
October 13, 2021
I enjoyed the disjointedness of this book as it seemed to mirror the movement of a busy mind, leaping around all over the place. My favourite sections were those set in the past - they showed a vivid imagination, bringing characters to life - particularly women - who were just a name on a censor or deed. It’s a clever and important premise. I also enjoyed the magic realist sections as Rebecca leaped into the tree for example, to find herself amongst a rainforest tribe. The main part of the story is about Rebecca and her family’s move to a small holding, her breakdown and subsequent ADHD diagnosis. To me, it seemed obvious that it would be impossible to juggle a busy job, a small holding and a young family, without adding in a compulsion to write. This aspect of Rebecca’s life in the modern world seemed in sharp contrast to the women she imagined in the past. Sometimes we have to accept that we can’t have it all.
June 22, 2024
This book was hard to follow. It would jump from medical testing to gardening, then into the historical account of her home and the people who tended the land before her, then into something random yet again. Often I would stop and reread the page, thinking I must of missed the transition, then confused at how this tied into the on going story line. I understand it had a lot to do with how she was capturing the minds take on ADHD but to read the scattered recall of facts and the rambling of a mind set free to wonder was exhausting and confusing to take in. The style of writing didn’t pull me in and the fact that I love to garden didn’t hold my attention.
May 19, 2022
somewhere between a 3 and 4 for me. i think if you are both interested in mental health AND gardening/smallholdings (which i was), then this is an excellent book. if you are only interested in one of the two i could see you getting bored in certain sections, as it often veered off the course of one to the other. however i’m also SO grateful for this book and it’s representation of neurodivergence and ADHD in women from a firsthand account.
May 30, 2021
Stunning. Poetically written and beautifully blending the landscape and the mind. Loved every minute and will definitely recommend
Want to read
August 15, 2023DNF at 40%
I hate to admit that there are parts of this book where I relate so hard to Schiller, especially in her descriptions of how her brain works, the million things that zoom in and out of her head, and, most unfortunately, how she treats her husband during times of stress. However, having ADHD doesn't give you free reign to be a chaotic butthole, and I felt like there were so many parts of this where I wanted to shake the author and be like, "Lady, you are a major butthole with or without the diagnosis."
I don't know if it's the way this is written, but I felt there was a lack of accountability. Maybe she gets to the accountability part after 40%, who knows, but listening to this on audiobook gave me the same frenetic energy that living inside my own head gives me. I had it on in the car one time with my partner, and he asked if we could turn it off because it was stressing him out.
I hate to admit that there are parts of this book where I relate so hard to Schiller, especially in her descriptions of how her brain works, the million things that zoom in and out of her head, and, most unfortunately, how she treats her husband during times of stress. However, having ADHD doesn't give you free reign to be a chaotic butthole, and I felt like there were so many parts of this where I wanted to shake the author and be like, "Lady, you are a major butthole with or without the diagnosis."
I don't know if it's the way this is written, but I felt there was a lack of accountability. Maybe she gets to the accountability part after 40%, who knows, but listening to this on audiobook gave me the same frenetic energy that living inside my own head gives me. I had it on in the car one time with my partner, and he asked if we could turn it off because it was stressing him out.
August 25, 2022
Superb. Cried at the end. The author was able to articulate a woman’s adhd mind so well. Wow.
January 23, 2021
"while most people are made of sixty per cent water, I am composed of smoke and mirrors largely held together with shame."
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in memoirs, mental health, and the outdoors.
Rebecca Schiller bought a smallholding with her husband in 2017. This novel is a raw insight into her mental health and her struggles to cope with her ever-increasing list of projects around their land. I found her struggles gripping and her crisis eloquently explained.
One of my favourite aspects of the books is the imagined snippets of the women who lived on the land throughout history.
Rebecca also expresses the beauty of the outdoors; with details of their flowers, goats and chickens, and growing vegetables. There are also some beautiful poems throughout the book that I enjoyed.
"I have earned this taste of summer and am going to enjoy it, alone, because I deserve this moment"
[Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review]
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in memoirs, mental health, and the outdoors.
Rebecca Schiller bought a smallholding with her husband in 2017. This novel is a raw insight into her mental health and her struggles to cope with her ever-increasing list of projects around their land. I found her struggles gripping and her crisis eloquently explained.
One of my favourite aspects of the books is the imagined snippets of the women who lived on the land throughout history.
Rebecca also expresses the beauty of the outdoors; with details of their flowers, goats and chickens, and growing vegetables. There are also some beautiful poems throughout the book that I enjoyed.
"I have earned this taste of summer and am going to enjoy it, alone, because I deserve this moment"
[Thank you to NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review]
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