I am often curious how people with different health conditions live their lives, day to day, and what it’s like to see the world through their eyes.
A classmate of mine had schizophrenia and I found the book A Beautiful Mind quite helpful in understanding her. Some people don’t like that book because it’s about the life of a mentally ill genius, not an average person. But my classmate was also quite bright. She had to be, obviously, to go to college and take courses despite such a serious illness. She was also very open to talking about her illness and her challenges. I am still in awe of her.
Since that time, I’ve been fascinated with understanding how people with different conditions experience life. I find a lot of these stories both deeply sad but also deeply optimistic. It makes me think my problems are so small and that the human will is much stronger than I had imagined.
Do any of you who have or had a health condition (or have been close to someone who has) find that particular books really capture what it’s like to live with the condition?
by davecopperfield
11 Comments
Challenger Deep, for schizophrenia.
Generally I don’t like books like that. Very often it’s inspiration porn, misinformation galore, and even if it’s well intended and researched it’s often not the right research (eg picking outdated and/or harmful sources).
But own voice books with disabled heroes? Sign me up, even if it’s not good representation of everyone, it’s written by a certified expert on the experiences of at least one person with the same disability. When the goal is gaining a better understanding, I prefer to listen to a range of people (we have so many awesome disabled advocates and content creators), but books are books and I love them.
**Failure to Communicate** by Kaia Sønderby is my pick for Autism Acceptance Month this year (Light it up Red with your tbr). It’s crazy good with the details, and the plot is an actual good plot not objectification.
Edit: I had to come back when I remembered this book. Hannah Setzer **I’ll pray for you: and other outrageous things said to disabled people**, the author is funny and a bit of an oversharer, she’s really cool
“Drifts” by Natasha Burge. (Being diagnosed with autism late in life. How this diagnosis helped her better understand/ make sense of her life up to that point).
Giving Up The Ghosts, late Dame Hilary Mantel’s memoir discussing her lifelong experience with a chronic health condition, was a very moving read for me.
Sylvia Plath’s *The Bell Jar* and J.D. Salinger’s *Catcher in the Rye* capture the essence of depression really well.
*The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn’t hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for all the good it did me.*
– Sylvia Plath
*New York’s terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night. You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed.*
– J.D. Salinger
My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte, Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin
Everything by Carrie Fisher, movies and books.
Stranger Than Fiction, Emma Thompson’s character.
The Hours
All regarding depression and creativity.
I really liked “Sitting pretty” by Rebekah Taussing. It’s a memoir of a wheelchair user, talks about ableism quite a bit.
Also “Year of the tiger” by Alice Wong and an absolute favorite: “Being Heumann” by Judith Heumann, she was a disability advocate in US.
All of them are own voices which I find quite important
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, on OCD and anxiety. A fun YA novel but also deeply illuminating.
In the land of pain by Alphonse Daudet
I read Elena Vanishing in high school, and listened to the audiobook last year. Revisiting it helped me to confront how serious my own eating disorder had become. Don’t be ashamed to reach out if you need help