Victoria from What Victoria Read for the mental health at on that they all co-hosted this year now more than ever I think we really need a mental health tag and at this point I'm kind of hoping that after all the shit that 2020 has pulled maybe just may be mental health stuff will start getting more attention maybe some at some point we can start looking at more mental health funding in general because this year has put everyone through the wringer so let's go ahead and get started with the questions number one why do you read books about mental health or featuring characters with mental illnesses I don't really have a straight answer for this one I was always the worrier growing up I was the worrywart everyone was like you've got to stop worrying so much about everything and in college studying psychology becoming more educated on the issues.
I'm realizing it's anxiety I have anxiety and that's fine there's nothing wrong with that as long as I am learning how to manage it. so I did started going to therapy off and on and taking medications for it. now I'm currently working at a psychiatric residential treatment center so I work with teams who are dealing with anxiety and depression and suicidal tendencies so through becoming self-aware and through working in the field it's just something that's really really important to me.
And I'm also always trying to learn more and always trying to teach others more and mental health is a big part of that what aspects of mental health or mental illness do you wish were discussed more in books I mean all the aspects really like Oh a lot of the internationalist of it I think is missing so we might have a book on someone with anxiety or a book on someone with depression and kind of how that affects say their schooling or their home life but what about if you're dealing with anxiety and depression.
And you're going to school and you're trying to get through a marriage and you're trying to raise a kid and you're trying to hold a job and you're starting medications that are killing your libido like let's start bringing all those intersections into it and race is another thing.
I lately have read a couple of more books where race is put into the story these are almost exclusively from authors of color which is a good thing because own voices but generally speaking I don't see a ton of mental health and race intersection in books so that's something I'd like to see more of medication management in general it's tough.
I recently changed my own med my initial meds worked for me for awhile they were doing great and then this year hit and things got crazy and my depression spiraled and now I'm having to start with something completely new and see how that goes and baby-step my way through it .
And constantly check in with my doctor about how I'm feeling and that is scary and it's tricky also like I said working on a PRTF psychiatric residential treatment center [facility] places like this aren't really discussed in books rarely have I seen them discussed in books and so far My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward the-memoir is the only book or one of the only books that I can think of reading that really does a good job with discussing it you're discussing different kinds of treatment centers the better ones.
And the worse ones and how the family interacts with the treatment center and just psych wards general name psych wards are rarely portrayed and are rarely portrayed well and are rarely portrayed in the diversity that they have and I think it's really important to also realize that medication and therapy alone doesn't always work and sometimes someone's issues are deeply rooted enough that they have to go someplace else to get taken care of and that they have to immerse themselves into fixing their mental health and just focusing on that because they can't deal with everything else I want to see more of that in books next question do you read any non-YA contemporary books that talk about mental illness for example non-fiction classics etc.
I I have read some way that I have liked I am still reading some YA but most of that I what I read is not young adult the writing style just doesn't really work for me I do find it to be a simpler writing style that isn't very interesting for me so I read almost exclusively not YA like.
I said almost and I read a lot more-contemporary than I ever really thought that I did because I realize in contemporary is a is a huge genre and then there's a bunch of stuff within that but yeah I I read a lot of non-fiction I've read some mental health thrillers mental health classics I don't really see a lot of The Bell Jar is one of the only mental health classics that I'm aware of a Clockwork Orange has never sounded like something I would be interested in reading either in concept or in writing style I believe there's a couple more but most of those kind of classics are modern classics it's just not a huge genre from what I've seen as for non-fiction I'll read stuff on psychology since that was my major I'm always up for a good memoir .
My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is probably my favorite mental health memoir ever there's a lot of love in that book it really explores the relationship whenever someone is dealing with mental health specifically mental health related to psychosis if I remember correctly the wife in that memoir ended up being diagnosed with bipolar um it was a seasonal bipolar with psychosis.
And that's really hard to deal with and seeing their relationship evolve through that book was beautiful um I've been reading I've been reading some YA lately but besides that yeah read a little bit of everything usually come across mental health aspects in a lot of the books that I mentioned both that I have and have not read will discuss mental health which is great because mental health really needs to be talked about when it comes to sexual-assault um have you ever read a mental health book that had a profound impact on you if so which one yes.
I've already mentioned My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward like a million times The Quiet Room was a really great one that is one on schizophrenia which is also a mental health illness or mental illness that is not really talked about all that much and The Quiet Room was a mix of biography and memoir because you have some excerpts from it that are from like her therapist or her parents and then you have a lot of other parts of it and that are from the author herself so that was a really interesting mix schizophrenia has not touched my life personally .
But I think I had a lot to learn from that book and if you want to learn about schizophrenia I would highly recommend that one um I'll see how the one I was just thinking of Know My Name was a big one that one that one's a sexual he a sexual assault memoir and it goes through what happened and the stuff that she doesn't remember it .
It was written by Chanel Miller who was the victim of Brock Turner it goes through everything that happened before during and after the rape or sexual-assault I don't know that it was actually classified as rape and most of the rest of the book is the process of going through the court system and how that affects her and seen her mental health just tanked as she is trying to deal with that really it really hit hard um it's a tough book to read but I would I would really really recommend that one who are your favorite creators who talk openly about mental health a lot of the creators that I followed talked about it of course the co-hosts for mental health on you have Simone from Me.
Simone and I Victoria from What Victoria Read and Nicole from a beautiful chaos of books they're all wonderful creators talking about mental health Hilary from Melted Books has also touched on it on her Blog I touch on it a lot on my Blog those are the big ones that come to mind if I think of any others I will link those down in the description along with the links to everyone's Blog but yeah I really are really surrounded myself in the bookish community with people who focus on mental health have you ever read a mental health book that-negatively portrayed mental health if so which one yes what was it.
The Pocket Wife um I can't even remember what that was about but it was horrible I believe the man the main character has bipolar and I want to say she was getting blamed for a murder that she didn't commit or something but the way bipolar is talked about about in that book was was so disgusting like don't read that book please don't read that book um Prozac Nation is a really popular and a really well-known book on mental health I didn't like it I can see how people would relate to it but personally I see it as portraying mental health in a fairly negative light which is largely probably the fault of the author herself because it is a memoir and she just she's very entitled she doesn't really apologize for any of her behaviors and she's dealing with severe depression and that has an effect on you and your relationships with others but I should I didn't connect with her journey.
I didn't connect with her character I didn't like her as a person and because of her personality it felt like it negatively portrayed mental health I don't know how much of that was actually the mental health aspect and how much of it was just her the book just didn't sit well with me Girl, Interrupted was another book that I really hated it's written by and it's about it's it's a memoir on this person's mental health and I don't remember what she was diagnosed with it might have been another bipolar one but the big thing for me was the psych wards with that one because it's supposed to be a book about her living in the psych ward for a couple of months.
And it doesn't really discuss the experience of being in the psych ward it doesn't discuss her treatment it doesn't discuss her mental health experiences all that much it's more gossip about the girl gang living in the psych ward that's kind of it so again it's not that it necessarily negatively portrayed mental health it was that it was supposed to portray mental health and it didn't really portray it at all for me .
I think that's it for the for the big ones that I can think of right off the bat what is your favorite book / series /genre to read when you are struggling with your mental health I need to read according to my mental state a little more than I do generally I classify myself very much as a mood reader so I'll read whatever I'm in the mood for but since joining Book Tube .
I've made a lot more of an effort to read a set TBR I mean I still deviate from that TBR like crazy but I do try to read certain things in certain months but since COVID really started to hit I find what I've been wanting to read not necessarily what I have been reading but what I've been wanting to read is more thriller more horror more fantasy just stuff that I can get lost in I've never been a horror movie person horror movies freak me out but I really just feel like watching horror movies all the time.
I haven't really watched a bunch of them because I only want to watch them whenever I can watch them with my husband so I have someone to cuddle with and hide behind and with my with our current work schedules it doesn't really happen much but I've been wanting to watch horror movies I like I want to scare myself with media so I'm less scared of life if that makes any sense and I did read I have a like not a very good mental health at on blog but I have a mental healthiness blog that I just uploaded where I touched a bit on Elantris I did read Elantris for most of May which is when mental health at on took place because it just seemed something light and easy I mean yes it's a very thick fantasy book but it wasn't necessarily talking about any super heavy issues.
I could just lose myself init and relax for a minute which is also really saying something I don't really read a ton of fantasy either although the genre has started to interest me more lately and I'm wondering if that's because of mental health stuff is there any mental health book that you wish your younger self could have read not really.
I generally find myself connecting more to plot than character like I'm more plot driven than character driven there I think I've been a couple of mental health book characters that I related to but again a lot of my mental health awareness has come from where I am in my life and the experiences that I've had in life books weren't really what taught me all that much about mental health so I don't really have an answer for that one and it's anxiety I think to go back to the question on things that could be represented more anxiety itself .
I think I would like to see more in books like you see characters who are really anxious and then they're diagnosed with depression or they're diagnosed with bipolar and it doesn't I'm not really seeing a focus on anxiety and how much it makes you worry and like my thoughts are always spiraling I have a lot of sleeping issues because my mind keeps going and going and going and I can't get it to stop long enough for me to fall asleep it would be nice to find a book like that I mean if you have any recommendations definitely link them down below for me is there a mental health book that you are yet to get to but you still want to read there are several .
And I have to go into my Good reads and look through that because I have like a whole list of them but I wanted to read last year and I just did not end up getting around to all so I find a lot of the books that I want are just really hard to find like they weren't popular enough to be printed a bunch of times Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Co where is oh it says expected publication I was wondering why there no summary for that one I'm assuming that's a mental health book that I want to read and I must have learned about it somewhere because I put it on the list Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchhausen by Proxy Childhood that one looks really interesting I would love to read more-about Munchhausen's that basically is parent usually mother saying that their child is either physically or mentally ill in some way and they really really believe it and I think sometimes I don't know that the child really comes to believe it.
I want to learn more on that I want to read all of the things and learn more about it because the psychology side of me is like that it's interesting The Skin Game I believe that's about cutting Just Checking:Scenes From the Life of an Obsessive-Compulsive that's a lot of them that I want to read I'm sure there's more on my list.
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