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The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays
The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays | Esme Weijun Wang
16 posts | 24 read | 43 to read
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review
Eggbeater
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Pickpick

Esme Weijun Wang brilliantly conveys what it's like to be afflicted with psychosis in a way that is really helpful to those who've never experienced it and relatable to the mentally ill community. As someone whose father experienced severe psychotic symptoms at times, I thought the essays were informative and made great strides toward compassion and understanding. She lost me the last few chapters when she started getting into the mystical realm⬇️

Eggbeater But that is because I am personally skeptical of that sort of thing. This was her truth. I appreciated this book and I think she is amazing. She talks about an assortment of challenges including medication, legal aspects, child bearing, involuntary hospitalization, and the impact on family members. 3y
Leftcoastzen Love your review! Sounds like a good but challenging read. 3y
Come-read-with-me This is a great review - you have me curious! Thanks! 3y
Trashcanman I emailed you back, hope you're well. 3y
Eggbeater @Trashcanman Hi George! 🤗 I got it. I just responded. 3y
53 likes2 stack adds5 comments
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Amandajoy
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Books and mimosas on a Sunday morning.

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dearb00kshelves
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Pickpick

From the beginning, I was gripped by the writing style. Esme Weijun Wang‘s journalist background came through in the best way. She combines hard facts and research with a personal approach and it comes together in such a way that really spoke to my approach to thinking about my own mental health as well as to the way I like to write. I enjoyed learning about the history of schizophrenia and the different...
Full review on IG dearb00kshelves

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Redwritinghood
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Mehso-so

These essays are well-written and give some good insight into struggles with mental illness. A lot of the content is clinical in nature, which would be ok except that, as personal essays, they aren‘t very personal. I sometimes felt that, in the author‘s efforts to demonstrate that she could be high-functioning despite her health issues, she lost some of the individuality that makes personal essays most impactful. 3⭐️

Cinfhen Great review/ I couldn‘t get into this book 3y
erzascarletbookgasm I feel the same. 3y
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rachelm
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Okay #lmpbc #groupG what do you think?? These are five memoir/nonfiction that I own and totally want to read but haven‘t yet.

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HeathHof Ohhhhh good choices! My first pick would be The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays and Second would be When Women Ruled the world. I haven't read any of these and would be good with any one of them. 4y
Pageturner1 i am not familiar with any. pick one for me. @rachelm since you own all of them are you going to send them to us to use? i will pay shipping for mine. i will pay for the book too. 4y
rachelm @Pageturner1 The way it works is that we take turns with the same book. So I would have this book for July but sent it on to someone else for August and they would send their book to someone else eventually you get to read all books and you get your own back at the very end. Does that make sense? 4y
rachelm @PageTurner1 and we will all pay our own postage to send it to the next person in line. Luckily all of us live in the United States and you can also pay a media rate since it‘s just books, so that makes it not very expensive to send the books around 4y
Pageturner1 @rachelm i get that we each read a book and pass it along. Sorry my question wasn‘t clear. but anyways i would like Too Much 4y
Deblovestoread I haven‘t read any of these and the all sound excellent. 4y
47 likes10 comments
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Kalalalatja
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Mehso-so

I really wanted to like Wang‘s book, but I struggled with it, because I couldn‘t really connect. I had hoped for something like An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison, bit this didn‘t hook me in the same way. Wang writes beautifully and skillfully regarding her life with mental illness, but it almost becomes too stylised, too distanced to make you really care for and understand her.

RowReads1 That‘s interesting. I had the opposite experience. I related a lot to Esme. While I highly respect Jamison and have for a long time, I rarely relate to her work on the same level. 4y
erzascarletbookgasm I agree, I couldn‘t connect either. 4y
RowReads1 It could also be that we‘re generally from the same area. 4y
Hooked_on_books I liked most of this but the last two chapters almost killed it entirely for me. Especially the final chapter. 4y
CaroPi I also got mixed feelings about this book and have to force myself to finish it. For some reason it was not as I expected. Didn't live up to the hype I heard 4y
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suvata
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Mehso-so
BridgetteM This is a great book! Hope you like it as much as I did. :) 4y
57 likes1 comment
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Kalalalatja
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One perk about working from home - no one can judge you if you spend your lunch break with a book and a piece of cake 😄📖🍰

#CurrentlyReading

Megabooks That‘s a beautiful copy! 4y
CaroPi I listened the audiobook this year. Is pretty interesting 4y
JennyM You always make the best choices! 4y
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nelehelen
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Pickpick

4/5
As someone who knows little to nothing about mental illness, I found this book fascinating. I did wish the author go a bit deeper into her own personal experience. She provides great information on the clinical side of things, but I wanted to understand more how it was for her. Regardless, the writing is smart and topic is so important.

#Booked2020 #MillennialAuthor

Cinfhen Have this on my Kindle. I‘ve heard such good things about book so my expectations are high ( that‘s never a good thing) I‘m also debating whether to add audio narration??!!? 4y
nelehelen @Cinfhen can‘t wait to hear what you think! I really want to read more on the subject. This was a great intro for me. 4y
39 likes2 comments
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rmaclean4
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Pickpick

3.5 🌟 own voices essays about mental health issues and what it is like when you can not trust your mind. Beautifully written. The Audio book is read by the author and is great.

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Rbabyblue
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Ok but this is so important! I can‘t even tell you how irritating this is to me! The number of times I have corrected someone on this or I have disregarded an article because of their use of ‘schizophrenic‘ to describe a hypocrite society or something along that line is tremendous, so much that I wanted to center my thesis around the vulgarisation and the misuse of mental illness terms and how they‘re perceived in the collective consciousness. 😤

ImperfectCJ Hear, hear! This is something that really irritates me and that I think both perpetuates and is a symptom of our culture's negative/dismissive view of mental illness. 4y
Emilymdxn Fantastic sentiment and fantastic book! After I read it and spoke about it to people I realised almost no one i knew knew what schizophrenia was at all, just scary ideas from movies. Ideas like this make it so much harder than it needs to be for people to get help and respect. 4y
Rbabyblue @ImperfectCJ @Emilymdxn it really is sad, and it‘s even worse in countries like mine where a big chunk of the population equates schizophrenia to being possessed (as it is discussed in a further chapter of the book, so it‘s safe to assume that it‘s somewhat common in western cultures as well) 🤦🏻‍♀️. I‘m hoping that the subject will be handled and regarded in a more positive and respectful way in the future! 4y
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Emilymdxn What country are you from if you don‘t mind me asking? I think movies and stereotypes of ‘crazy people‘ being murderers in crime shows etc. is a big cause of the problems in the uk at least 4y
Rbabyblue I‘m from Morocco. And yes definitely! That makes people vilify the person as soon as they‘re diagnosed with any type of psychosis, which makes the patient suffer repulsion instead of support from others. I have seen many cases like these during my internships and it‘s pitiful. 4y
ImperfectCJ @Rbabyblue @Emilymdxn Same in the US. It's becoming more acceptable to talk about depression and anxiety, but there seems to be a line when it comes to psychosis. Also, people seem unable to imagine someone committing certain types of crime if the perpetrator isn't "insane" or "evil," which has echoes of the idea of possession, now that I think about it. This book's on my TBR; I really need to pick it up! 4y
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Rbabyblue
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My nonfiction pick for the week

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Victoriahoperose
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Pickpick

This book is so well written and really stands out among nonfiction books written about mental illness, in my opinion. The author blends her personal experiences with schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness with a lot of instances in popular culture that really illuminate the topic of mental health. I read this for #booked2019 as the book given to me as a gift. I can‘t remember who gave it to me, but it was excellent!

Cinfhen Sounds fascinating and I‘m digging the cover 5y
BarbaraTheBibliophage I picked this up on sale. Looking forward to it! 4y
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Augustdana
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Two very different books arrived from the library! I‘ve been eagerly anticipating both.

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Victoriahoperose
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Wow thank you so much @Endowarrior21 ! This box is amazing. I love the books and all the goodies stuffed in them. Thank you for the teas and the tasty sauce in my box. I love to cook so that is going to come in handy! The little crossbody purse is adorable! I love it “rebel against reality read”. Stickers, and socks and candy! All of it is awesome. Thank you times a million. #mysterymessageswap (notice how my cat is scoping out my goodies, lol)

gradcat Really beautiful! Love how your cat would like her presents now! 😂🎁😺 5y
Victoriahoperose @gradcat I know. He will not leave my stuff alone. I guess I have to share lol!! 5y
gradcat Well, he might think he‘s sharing with you, right? 5y
Victoriahoperose @gradcat 😂😂😂😂😂 this is so true lol 5y
Erofan 😻 5y
39 likes5 comments
review
Nitpickyabouttrains
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Pickpick

A book of personal essays about having schizophrenia. I liked how it started from a scientific place, laying out how diagnosis can work.

Gaylagal2 Good morning Michelle, I was wondering what size tshirt you where? @Nitpickyabouttrains 🤓 5y
Nute It‘s good to see this book get a lot of exposure. 5y
17 likes3 stack adds3 comments