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Surrounded by Madness A Memoir of Mental Illness and Family Secrets Ph D Rachel Pruchno 9781457551901 Books

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"What was the likelihood my adopted daughter would have my father's hazel eyes and my mother's mental illness?" In this fi ercely candid memoir, Dr. Pruchno, a scientist widely acclaimed for her research on mental illness and families, shows how mental illness threatened to destroy her own family.

Not once, but twice.

As a child, she didn't understand her mother's episodes of crippling sadness or whirlwind activity. As a mother, she feared her daughter Sophie would follow in the footsteps of the grandmother Sophie never knew.

Unraveling the mysteries of her mother's and daughter's illnesses, Pruchno fought to preserve her marriage and protect her son. But it was not until she came to terms with her own secrets that she truly understood the destructive and pervasive effects mental illness has on families.

Surrounded By Madness is transforming. It will empower families to stop hiding and start talking when mental illness strikes.

Surrounded by Madness A Memoir of Mental Illness and Family Secrets Ph D Rachel Pruchno 9781457551901 Books

Based on the subject matter, I wanted to like this memoir. This book is written in short chapters which begin with a useful and descriptive title, followed by a less than useful subtitle of date and age of Sophie (author's daughter). The reason I say the dates were not useful is because numerous times the initial paragraph of the chapter jumped to a completely different time period anyway, so the subtitles merely confused me. Most chapters are heavily dialogue-based in a way that felt scripted and unnatural to me, while at the same time serving to 'get to the point' of what the chapter was meant to present. I found myself feeling this would make a terrific "Lifetime" made-for-television movie. As a mental health professional (of the clinical variety), and the mother of a teenage daughter who has gone through very similar struggles, I at times felt at odds with parts of the story, i.e. page 125 when the author phones 911 to report that Rick (Sophie's friend) has a knife and has threatened to kill himself, Rick is taken to hospital and then "released to his mother's care later that evening", or various conversations between the author and her husband and the array of mental health professionals - many of which don't ring true to my personal or professional experience. I do appreciate the story that the author was trying to tell - that of the despair one feels when a loved one is suffering from a mental illness that you cannot control or effect. Her closing chapters are more internal and insightful rather than dialogue-heavy, and this served to provide the clarity of her own mental and emotional process that I would have preferred to see much earlier, and throughout the book. Also, caution should be given that while the author, herself, is a psychologist, she does not have clinical experience nor expertise in the area of mood and emerging personality disorders in children and adolescence. For information, facts, and expertise in these areas, one should look to other sources. I think there is much more to explore, both as an individual and as a writer, in the author's own piece of this puzzle - sandwiched between the abandonment she experienced as a child by her mother, and the replaying of that abandonment of her own daughter during the similar phase of her daughter's life. It took me until half-way through the book to connect to Sophie as a person since she appeared mostly as anecdote after anecdote of her most unpleasant moments, rather than balancing those with more about her intelligence, artistic talents, and empathy. It is Sophie who is the victim in this book. Her mental illness, while effecting her family, is happening to Sophie. I wanted to jump inside the pages and give her a big hug. I am sure the author did this in reality, but it did not come across in the first 90% of the book. The feeling I had while reading was one of burden--that Sophie was a constant burden. What a sad feeling to have about your own daughter. The author redeems herself in the final chapters where she describes that she did have loving feelings throughout Sophie's childhood. What I'm saying is...I wanted more. The story is rushed. Perhaps the author felt the details of the normal day-to-day family life would be boring or irrelevant, but I would not have found them so. I would have felt the wholeness of the family unit and the bipolar nature of everyone's feelings in the wake of mental illness. I greatest hope is that Sophie survives to tell us her own story one day.

Product details Hardcover 344 pages Publisher Dog Ear Publishing (January 9, 2017) Language English ISBN-10 145755190X

Tags : Surrounded by Madness: A Memoir of Mental Illness and Family Secrets [Ph D Rachel Pruchno] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. What was the likelihood my adopted daughter would have my father's hazel eyes and my mother's mental illness? In this fi ercely candid memoir,Ph D Rachel Pruchno,Surrounded by Madness: A Memoir of Mental Illness and Family Secrets,Dog Ear Publishing,145755190X,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY General
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Surrounded by Madness A Memoir of Mental Illness and Family Secrets Ph D Rachel Pruchno 9781457551901 Books Reviews

I found Dr. Rachel Pruchno's memoir very well written, moving, and riveting. Like the author, I too grew up with a mentally ill parent and 40 years later we are still estranged. Rachel is brutally honest of what really goes on in a family affected by mental illness. I was discouraged to know that after 40 years the mental health community is still very broken and very little support is obtainable. The laws must be changed when dealing with a child with mental illness in that parents need to be in control of their child's mental health treatment. Teens are not mature enough to determine the best treatment for mental illness without their parent's contribution. Their condition prevents them from thinking and behaving rationally. Even adults with mental illness who continue to behave irrationally are not able to make the best of decisions, how is a teenager to do that when their brains are not fully developed nor do they have life experience to anticipate how their decisions as a teen will affect them in 5, 10 or 30 years later. With all that said, I appreciate and value the author's experience, written from her heart. I found her heartache, as a mother weaved all through her story and I agree with the author that at some point if the parents have done everything in their power to help their mentally ill child, but at the same time their hands are tied as far as the legal system, then there is nothing more that can be done. The legal system has robbed the parents of their rights to get the right treatment for their child. Her story is an example of this. I found the dialog in this book well-written; it moved the story forward and provided the context needed. The only negative I found in the book is the chapter titles. Instead of using her age, I would of preferred a regular chapter title for each new chapter that describes what the chapter would be about, then add how old Sophie was in her narrative somewhere. Other than that, I liked her title; it perfectly describes her and her husband and son's experience. I also found her book informative and factual and I appreciated her doing her research for the benefit of her readers. Additionally, my purpose for reading her book is to gain more insight into her experiences for the writing of my own story of a parent with mental illness and the devastation of the lives of three generations of mother's and daughters.
I went to school with the author’s husband so I thought I knew the family, but the story begins after graduation. As it turns out, I had no idea the hell they were going through. If you or someone you know is raising a “difficult” child this is a must read. It is billed as a memoir but it reads like a mystery. With every chapter I kept thinking surely they will figure this out! Pruchno exposes not only the difficulty of raising a child with mental health issues but the shortcomings of our system for supporting such families. It is raw, emotional and personal. (I purchased the printed and the Audible version of the book. The reader for the audiobook version made Sophie sound too childish and /or manipulative or I would have rated the book higher. I recommend the printed version over the audio versionfor that reason. This same review appears on Audible.com).
Based on the subject matter, I wanted to like this memoir. This book is written in short chapters which begin with a useful and descriptive title, followed by a less than useful subtitle of date and age of Sophie (author's daughter). The reason I say the dates were not useful is because numerous times the initial paragraph of the chapter jumped to a completely different time period anyway, so the subtitles merely confused me. Most chapters are heavily dialogue-based in a way that felt scripted and unnatural to me, while at the same time serving to 'get to the point' of what the chapter was meant to present. I found myself feeling this would make a terrific "Lifetime" made-for-television movie. As a mental health professional (of the clinical variety), and the mother of a teenage daughter who has gone through very similar struggles, I at times felt at odds with parts of the story, i.e. page 125 when the author phones 911 to report that Rick (Sophie's friend) has a knife and has threatened to kill himself, Rick is taken to hospital and then "released to his mother's care later that evening", or various conversations between the author and her husband and the array of mental health professionals - many of which don't ring true to my personal or professional experience. I do appreciate the story that the author was trying to tell - that of the despair one feels when a loved one is suffering from a mental illness that you cannot control or effect. Her closing chapters are more internal and insightful rather than dialogue-heavy, and this served to provide the clarity of her own mental and emotional process that I would have preferred to see much earlier, and throughout the book. Also, caution should be given that while the author, herself, is a psychologist, she does not have clinical experience nor expertise in the area of mood and emerging personality disorders in children and adolescence. For information, facts, and expertise in these areas, one should look to other sources. I think there is much more to explore, both as an individual and as a writer, in the author's own piece of this puzzle - sandwiched between the abandonment she experienced as a child by her mother, and the replaying of that abandonment of her own daughter during the similar phase of her daughter's life. It took me until half-way through the book to connect to Sophie as a person since she appeared mostly as anecdote after anecdote of her most unpleasant moments, rather than balancing those with more about her intelligence, artistic talents, and empathy. It is Sophie who is the victim in this book. Her mental illness, while effecting her family, is happening to Sophie. I wanted to jump inside the pages and give her a big hug. I am sure the author did this in reality, but it did not come across in the first 90% of the book. The feeling I had while reading was one of burden--that Sophie was a constant burden. What a sad feeling to have about your own daughter. The author redeems herself in the final chapters where she describes that she did have loving feelings throughout Sophie's childhood. What I'm saying is...I wanted more. The story is rushed. Perhaps the author felt the details of the normal day-to-day family life would be boring or irrelevant, but I would not have found them so. I would have felt the wholeness of the family unit and the bipolar nature of everyone's feelings in the wake of mental illness. I greatest hope is that Sophie survives to tell us her own story one day.