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After Her Brain Broke: Helping My Daughter Recover Her Sanity

by Susan Inman

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Susan Inman's memoir describes her family's nine year journey to help her younger daughter recover from a catastrophic schizoaffective disorder. "Highly recommended" by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey author of Surviving Schizophrenia and described by him as "...one of the best accounts I have read of serious mental illness as told by a mother." From the introduction, Michael Kirby, Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada and Ella Amir, the chair of the Caregiver's Advisory Committee state "Susan's heart wrenching account is an important reminder of the work we still have to do to ensure that people with mental illness and their families get the same treatment and respect that individuals with physical illnesses receive. It is also testimony to the devotion and dedication of families, which sadly often comes at the expense of their own well-being" Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. Stephanie Engel said "Susan Inman has written a much needed book about her experience as a mother coming to grips with her daughter's devastating mental illness. Other parents will recognize and take comfort from her courageous and persistent efforts to learn what is known about psychotic illnesses and their treatment, while holding tenaciously to her own personal knowledge of what it means to be a loving, humane and thoughtful parent. Believing in one's own instincts as a parent in the face of expertise, myths and prejudices is a monumental task, and Ms Inman does it with grace and conviction." Emergency room physician and international best selling author, Dr. Daniel Kalla said "After Her Brain Broke is a harrowing, heart wrenching, and ultimately triumphant story of one family's struggle with a child's mental illness. It's impossible not to be moved by Susan Inman's honest and touching account of her daughter's sudden descent into mental health turmoil and the family's long hard battle to overcome it. A must read for families coping with a mental illness, and a wonderful eye-opener for those of us lucky enough not to have been affected."… (more)
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Meh. This book had a good story -- Molly is truly the sickest person I have EVER read about, and her parents' attempts to get help for her were truly epic. I also learned a lot about Canada's medicine system for the mentally ill vs. the American system, and I was horrified to learn just how poorly trained psychotherapists and even psychiatrists are for dealing with schizophrenia.

So, in an informational sense, the book was good, and I think the parents of severely mentally ill children would get a lot out of it. And the fact that Molly is actually doing reasonably well now, when many of the doctors she saw thought her case was hopeless, would give hope.

But it's just badly written. It is very short, only 165 pages long, and felt rushed and not detailed enough. For instance, in the middle of things, Molly's father was diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer. Then several chapters later the author was like, "Yeah, so Molly's dad hadn't died yet. His cancer mysteriously disappeared. The doctors said sometimes that happens." I would have liked to have known more about that, especially how it impacted Molly.

I don't think the average person is going to enjoy this book much, though as I said it would be good for the families of mentally ill people. ( )
  meggyweg | Apr 22, 2010 |
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Susan Inman's memoir describes her family's nine year journey to help her younger daughter recover from a catastrophic schizoaffective disorder. "Highly recommended" by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey author of Surviving Schizophrenia and described by him as "...one of the best accounts I have read of serious mental illness as told by a mother." From the introduction, Michael Kirby, Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada and Ella Amir, the chair of the Caregiver's Advisory Committee state "Susan's heart wrenching account is an important reminder of the work we still have to do to ensure that people with mental illness and their families get the same treatment and respect that individuals with physical illnesses receive. It is also testimony to the devotion and dedication of families, which sadly often comes at the expense of their own well-being" Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. Stephanie Engel said "Susan Inman has written a much needed book about her experience as a mother coming to grips with her daughter's devastating mental illness. Other parents will recognize and take comfort from her courageous and persistent efforts to learn what is known about psychotic illnesses and their treatment, while holding tenaciously to her own personal knowledge of what it means to be a loving, humane and thoughtful parent. Believing in one's own instincts as a parent in the face of expertise, myths and prejudices is a monumental task, and Ms Inman does it with grace and conviction." Emergency room physician and international best selling author, Dr. Daniel Kalla said "After Her Brain Broke is a harrowing, heart wrenching, and ultimately triumphant story of one family's struggle with a child's mental illness. It's impossible not to be moved by Susan Inman's honest and touching account of her daughter's sudden descent into mental health turmoil and the family's long hard battle to overcome it. A must read for families coping with a mental illness, and a wonderful eye-opener for those of us lucky enough not to have been affected."

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