Review of Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

Well folks I'm going to try something new, and do a book review. Specifically, I'm going to review Mark Vonnegut's Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So.

I have to say I loved this book. It is a memoir about his life with mental illness, and how he has overcome his illness and go on to become a medical doctor.

Two things drew me to this book. The first was the title. Lets face it, it is a cool name. Not to mention the fact that, in sort of a backhanded way, says “hey I'm just like everyone else, even if my brain does play tricks on me once in awhile.” The second thing that drew me to the book was the authors name. Kurt Vonnegut, Mark's father is one of my favourite authors. So I had to read the book to see if he was as entertaining a writer as his father. I have to say I was not disappointed.

It is far to easy in a book on the subject of mental illness, especially when writing about yourself, to fall into describing episodes in your life that become very depressing for the reader, not to mention for the person writing it. This book never falls into that trap. Even when discussing issues that are can easily bring a person to tears, he writes in a way that can make you laugh out loud.

The first chapter goes into his ancestry, and shows the progression of mental illness, on both sides of his family. From his great grandfather, to his father and mother, then himself. It would seem that at least from his great grandfather on his fathers side, pretty much everybody suffered at least from depression, although there seemed to be other things going on as well for some of them.

The next two chapters are basically what it is like to be brought up in a household with a mother who suffers from depression, and a father with PTSD. If you want to find out where his fathers PTSD came from I suggest reading slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

After that the book goes into his time in a hippy commune and his descent into mental illness, when he was first diagnosed with schizophrenia. After recovery from his first episode he decided that he wanted to be a doctor. He applied to most of the medical schools in the US and was only accepted by Harvard. He obviously graduated, and became a paediatrician.

Much of the rest of the rest of the book discusses his career in medicine. He talks quite a bit about how screwed up the American health care system is. However, he also discusses in detail about how he had a relapse and how he became an alcoholic while trying to self medicate. Not to mention how his first marriage broke up as a result, not of his illness, but his drinking. He did recover from both eventually.

All of this was done with great humour and insight. I think that this is a book that most people who read this blog will enjoy. The only issue's I have with the book is that he tends to use the word “crazy” a little too much. Although he does say that this is only in reference to himself, and not about people with mental illness in general. The second issue I have with the book is the last chapter. Its a chapter on picking mushrooms, and I really do not see what it has to do with the rest of the book, but it is kind of interesting anyway.

Arazona shooting

Ok I will admit that this particular posting is really badly written. However, this is my fifth attempt at writing it, and I said that this will be my last attempt. That whatever came out of it will be what I publish. Having said that I hope that it expresses something. Feel free to ask questions and I will try to clarify what it was I was trying to say. Will try to do better next time, but this was a really hard one to write.

Lets be honest, Jared Laughner is a very, very bad man. For anyone who has been living under a rock for the last week, he is the man who shot and killed six people and wounded 14 others in an attempt to assassinate Gabrielle Giffords a US Democratic Congresswoman. Those killed were mostly innocent bystanders, who were there to meet the Congresswoman, including a nine year old girl.
There is absolutely no reasonable excuse for his actions. This is particularly so since, although it seems that his target was Giffords, it is obvious that he meant to kill as many people as possible. This is based on the fact that he had purchased 90 rounds of ammunition and was changing clips to keep shooting when he was tackled by a couple of people.
Now even a quick look at this guys past will show that he is not what you would call the most stable person in the world. The fact is that he probably does have some form of mental illness, and that this did play a role in his actions. However, the problem that I have is that many, especially on the far right are blaming what happened on his mental illness.
Although, there is little doubt that when all is said and done, we will find that mental illness did play a role in this tragedy, that fact must not be allowed to go unchallenged that this act happened in a vacuum. In other words, I will absolutely agree that mental illness played a part in what happened. However, even the most psychotic person will have a reason for their actions. Even if those reasons do not seem rational to an outside observer. Therefore to deny that the political climate in the USA had nothing to do with it does not stand up to logic.
For a person who is having delusional (or even not so delusional) thoughts about what the government is doing to add blatantly inflammatory language to the mix, is a recipe for something like this to happen. The only real surprise I had when I heard about this is that it took so long to happen. The sad part is that it will, probably, happen again. So are the Republicans, Tea party and the extreme right to blame for what happened? Well the answer is yes, they played a role. But so did the moderate right of the Democratic party. Although they used some of the same tactics of the far right, their primary sin in creating this mess is cowardliness. Backing down at every opportunity to the Republicans.
They are not the only ones to blame of course. There are school officials at various levels who knew something was wrong, and had a responsibility to report it, but chose to do nothing except remove him from the school. His parents must have know that there were problems but again did nothing to help him. He had had run-ins with the police in the past, which in a truly just society would have lead him to mental health services, but didn't. Then of course there is the completely ridiculous gun laws in the US that will basically allow anyone to get a gun, and all the ammunition they need to kill as many people as possible.
Because of all these factors, I was saddened, although far from shocked when I heard that this had happened. When it happens again I will be saddened but unfortunately not shocked.
I may try to rewrite this again, or at least write more on specific areas in order to clarify some of the things I said in here.

New Years Resolutions

Well its the new year and so I suppose that it may be a good time to start writing some posts for this blog again, since I've been slacking off on that front for awhile. So this post is just to let you know about a few New years resolutions that I have made for myself.

1. I am going to be more consistent in writing this blog. Lets say once a month, that may be more doable than every couple of weeks, but if I have something before that I'll publish when It's ready.
2. I'm going to quit smoking. This should be easy as I don't smoke now and haven't had a cigarette in more than 20 years. But just a reminder not to start again:)
3. Going to finish writing the book I'm writing and hopefully get it published. Also start some other writing projects I have ideas for.
4. Get in shape. I don't actually have to loose any weight, but am in awful shape so need to work on that.
5. Going to do my best to stay reasonable sane. Don't want to be too sane, thats just boring.
6. Somewhat in contradiction to the wording of the last resolution, want to work to reduce the sigma of mental illness. After all most of us are realy cool people once you get to know us.

Well, I think if I can manage to do those things, I will have done well for this year. Maybe next year I will be able to come up with something truly interesting. Talk to you later.