The only problem I had about this book is that I wanted it to be longer. :) ( )

Sara Benincasa tells the story of how she struggled with and learned to cope and overcome her mental health issues. Ms. Benincasa suffers from anxiety disorder, including very aggressive panic attacks that immobilized her. At times, she could not even leave her house due to her fears. There are few good messages in this book.

1. The power of humor. Humor helped her cope and grow. Humor also led her to find her true path as a comedian and writer.

2. The power of persistence. Hard as it was for her, she did persevere.

3. The power of supportive family and friends. I don't think this can be said enough.

4. Healing and rehabilitation do take time. You may fall. You get back up again.

Ms. Benincasa writes with humor and gentleness. There are some moments when you will smile and laugh. There may be a moment or two when you will grimace. There may be some awkward moments as well. That is all ok as those moments are all part of the big picture, so to speak. Readers will smile, and they will also be very moved at times. I was moved at times. The chapter on her days of teaching school in Texas, dealing with Billy's "problem" was funny but also very moving when you look at how she did handle it, which, I will say, as a former teacher myself, was probably about the best way to deal with it. Ms. Benincasa may be a better teacher than she thinks.

The book is pretty easy to read. Though I did find a couple of passages a bit too long, overall, the book makes a good reading experience. If you like memoirs, you will probably like this. If you have an interest in mental health issues, especially as they affect women, you probably want to read this book. And even though the book is written for an adult audience, I would venture to say that older, mature teens might benefit from reading as well as she deals with and discusses issues that affect teens as well.

(The note to keep the FTC, a.k.a. "The Man," happy: I got the copy of the book as prize from a book away at the Stiletto Storytime blog).
( )

I won this book as a Good reads first read.

This book, as I expected, was funny but had a seriousness to it at the same time. I wish more people out there had the bravery this author had to tell about her history of mental illness and show people that no matter how low you are or how crazy you feel that it can get better! ( )

This book made me realize that I could probably use some medication. :-) ( )

This book deserves five stars. Maybe I'm biased, but this is the absolute best explanation of Agoraphobia. Because it's not written by a clinician but by someone who knows the whole experience.

In 2001 I was diagnosed with agoraphobia. I was at Wal-Mart looking for shelf liner. I stood in the aisle and felt a feeling similar to vertigo - everything around started to tilt one way, the shelves leaned in toward me and I suddenly couldn't breathe. I had to get out! The crazy thing is I used to work there, so it wasn't even like it was some new place.

On my way home I had to pull the car over because I started to see black dots and couldn't drive straight. I couldn't figure out what was going on, I just knew that something was wrong. Really, really wrong.

Benincasa writes about the voice in her head telling her what a loser she is, if she leaves her apartment she's going to die, she should die! I know that voice. The earliest that I can remember hearing this voice was some time in 5th grade. The voice told me the world was unsafe. Everything was unsafe. And I was going to die. And that feeling stayed with me the rest of my life.

So much of what Benincasa wrote is also true of my own journey. I had very, very specific people who I could trust. They were my safety people. They were the ones I trusted to drive me around. If I got sick these few people were the only ones I trusted to not let me die. Every time I went without a safety person I got "sick". Sick really meant that my anxiety levels were rising and my body was registering that anxiety by giving me stomach aches, dizziness, my body temperature fluctuating from cold to hot almost instantaneously. It's an awful feeling!

By college the voice was very loud. My freshman semester I lost 25 pounds in two months. I just stopped eating. Eating meant I could get food poisoning and if I got food poisoning I would throw up and if I threw up I would die. That was my thinking. I was all alone at school. My safety people were all at other schools. I finished the semester and returned to school at a university an hour away from home where my high school BF was going. She was my roommate, I was safe again.

My husband became the replacement safety person when my parents moved from Alabama to Tucson. But my depression - because you just can't be agoraphobic, you get the joys of depression too! - sunk me.

Fast forward 2001 - my husband has moved to Florida from Pennsylvania, and though I'm surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins I have no safety people. None. I spent three nights going back and forth to the ER for unexplained chest pains, nausea, horrible dizzy spells. Finally someone I knew from community theater who also happened to be the on call psychiatry practitioner actually figured out what was going on. She found a bed for me in the psychiatric ward at the hospital and I spent the following three weeks learning about my illnesses and being treated for them. Three weeks I barely remember because along with agoraphobia and depression there's a fun little side effect of memory loss.

After reading Agorafabulous I'm not embarrassed (at least not right now) about my mental illness. Yes MENTAL ILLNESS! I'm actually certified crazy! I was in a psyche ward for three weeks because I was crazy.

Okay, now that that is out of my system I want to recommend this book to everybody - both the ill and the people who love the ill. Sara gets it. She understands. She explains it so easily. So read it and find comfort that you will, one day with work, be a little less crazy. Like she is. Like I am now. Ask your friends who have loved you through it or who don't know about it to read this book. So they can understand and love you even more. ( )