Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

disability

“Pure” by Julianna Baggott

by Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: s.e. smith at this ain’t livin’

This is a layered, well-crafted dystopian science-fiction novel offering both entertainment and examination of modern issues. It has scientific advances and their consequences, predictable heterosexual teen romances, well-developed female characters, adventures, violence, nuances of interaction, and a detailed sense of place.

Where many books have default characters who are mainly young, white, male and able-bodied, this book naturally centers on people of color and people with disabilities. It is the young white male able-bodied character who stands out as different.

The plot takes some of the current disturbing trends in the US just a step further. Government and corporate control. Co-opting feminism into another way to support patriarchy. Destruction of the environment. What smart, powerful narcissists will do to achieve their desires.

I read this book late into the night and picked it up again the next morning. It pulled me through despite the distancing violence, despite editing gaffes like a “meaty man [with] fat hands” turned “rail-thin” two pages later. By the end, though, the characters had developed into people I’m not sure I like, molded in service of the revolution.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Horse Boy” by Rupert Isaacson

by Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Father’s Quest to Heal His Son

Recommended to me by: Kristin Neff mentions her husband’s book about their journey to Mongolia in her book Self-Compassion.

Rupert Isaacson writes about how his intuition and determination (and privilege) bring him to Mongolia where horseback riding and shamans help his autistic son Rowan.

He describes both people and places by their degree of physical beauty. He does not acknowledge the privilege that makes his journey possible. His story about meeting his wife Kristin says a lot about how he relates to the world.

[T]he moment I saw her, stretched out in a beach chair by the pool of the Southern Star Hotel, all long-legged, tan, and languid, […] a voice in my head, accompanied by an almost physical pull of intuition under my diaphragm, said, clear as day, That’s your wife. [… She responded,] “I’m not available.”
Which of course for me was like a red rag to a bull.

I learned a lot about autism, horses, shamanism, and Mongolia. I’m glad their adventure went well and brought improvement for Rowan. I’m amazed and a little jealous of how Rupert’s intuition panned out and he got everything he wanted, including financial success.

Of course, it’s unlikely that a book about how someone followed their intuition and was led completely astray would see print.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Alchemy of Illness” by Kat Duff

by Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A woman explores the transforming – and, paradoxically, healing – experience of being ill

Recommended to me by: a client

Alchemists strive to turn lead into gold by heating it alone in a sealed container, a crucible. In the crucible of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Kat Duff turned inward and found healing in the stillness and isolation forced by her illness.

Weaving together symptoms, dreams, mythology, Jungian psychology, and alchemy along with anthropological research into illness and healing, Duff reveals new perspectives on illness. Instead of being an assault or a punishment, illness can be a natural consequence of our history as individuals and communities. She sees her illness as an agent of healing both for sexual abuse she suffered as an infant, and for the land theft her forebears committed against the Sioux tribe in Minnesota.

Duff is careful to avoid the painful idea that “sick people are personally responsible for creating their illnesses through some kind of wrong-thinking or wrong-doing.” Sickness isn’t bad. It just is.

She relates a story about Nan Shin, a Zen nun diagnosed with cancer and struggling with guilt and remorse.

Then an old friend, who was also a Zen student, visited. He threw his arm around her shoulders and wisecracked, “Good Karma, huh? Brings you close to the Way.” Shin wrote later, “The jolt I felt then showed me very clearly that I had been thinking, Bad Karma. Within a fraction of a second the molecules turned themselves round and reorganized. I am flatly grateful to him forever.”

Unfortunately, Duff conflates illness with disability, and occasionally uses phrases like “confined to a wheelchair.” People are not confined by wheelchairs any more than people are confined by bicycles, cars, or any other device that assists mobility.

I recommend this book for its kaleidoscope of new perspectives about illness.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Fixing My Gaze” by Susan R. Barry

by 1 Comment

Subtitle: A Scientist’s Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions

Recommended to me by: jesse-the-k (in a locked post)

This book was a revelation for me. At last, a book for which I am the perfect target audience! Susan R. Barry writes about the experience of having crossed eyes since infancy, and thus lacking stereoscopic (3-D) vision. After practicing a series of vision therapy exercises prescribed by an optometrist, she gains stereoscopic vision.

In addition to the convenience of being able to judge distances easily, she feels a part of the world she can see all around her rather than an observer of the world “out there.” She looks at the spaces between leaves with fascination. The steering wheel of her car “pops out” at her rather than appearing flat against the dashboard. Astonishing!

In addition to describing her experiences of monocular and binocular vision, she covers the neuroscience of vision, and the possible explanation for her ability to regain stereoscopic vision more than 40 years after the “critical period” of early childhood.

I also have slightly crossed eyes and lack stereoscopic vision. I believe I lost the ability around 4-5 years of age. I would love to get it back!

As both a memoir and a scientific overview, this book worked well for me. Because the author was present with her story, I felt included as well.

The only downside was the casual reference to animal experimentation. “Of course they can’t experiment on humans – so they harmed monkeys and cats instead!” (paraphrase) As much as I enjoyed the book, I almost stopped reading there.

Nevertheless, highly recommended.

fixingmygaze.com has a good resources section.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman

by Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures

Recommended to me by: Emily Ross

This is a beautifully written history of the Hmong people from Laos in the 20th century, interwoven with the story of one Hmong family who took refuge in Merced, California. Their daughter Lia Lee had her first epileptic seizure at age 4 months. Both the family and Lia’s doctors struggle with her illness and with the communication barriers between their cultures.

The Lees are frustrated because Lia continues to have seizures, and her prescribed medicines cause side-effects they don’t expect. The doctors are frustrated because the Lees don’t speak English and “aren’t compliant” with the medicine schedule. Also, the Lees have very little money.

Dr. Arthur Kleinman, a psychiatrist and medical anthropologist at Harvard Medical School, developed a set of eight questions to elicit a patient’s “explanatory model.” After getting to know the Lees, Anne Fadiman answers the eight questions from their perspective. The American doctors continue full-tilt in their own medical explanatory model, unable to consider a different model.

  1. What do you call the problem?
    Qaug dab peg. That means the spirit catches you and you fall down.
  2. What do you think has caused the problem?
    Soul loss.
  3. Why do you think it started when it did?
    Lia’s sister Yer slammed the door and Lia’s soul was frightened out of her body.
  4. What do you think the sickness does? How does it work?
    It makes Lia shake and fall down. It works because a spirit called a dab is catching her.
  5. How severe is the sickness? Will it have a short or long course?
    Why are you asking us those questions? If you are a good doctor, you should know the answers yourself.
  6. What kind of treatment do you think the patient should receive? What are the most important results you hope she receives from this treatment?
    You should give Lia medicine to take for a week but no longer. After she is well, she should stop taking the medicine. […]
  7. What are the chief problems the sickness has caused?
    It has made us sad to see Lia hurt, and it has made us angry at Yer.
  8. What do you fear most about the sickness?
    That Lia’s soul will never return.

My only issue with the book is that chapters about Hmong history are inserted at cliff-hanger portions of Lia’s story, causing me to flip ahead and find out what happens to her. The history is worth reading in its own right and doesn’t need manufactured suspense to pull the reader through it.

Recommended to anyone who wants to learn about Hmong culture and history, medical communication at its worst and best, and the story of one much-loved child.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Voices from the Inside” by David A. Karp and Gretchen E. Sisson

by Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Readings on the experiences of mental illness

I found this book because I was curious about Caroline Knapp’s writing after reading Gail Caldwell’s memoir about their friendship, and I read it because I wanted to learn about mental illness without its stereotype of causing violence. In fact, [v]iolence is not a symptom of psychotic illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Unfortunately, this book propagates rather than counters the stereotype. Many of the schizophrenic people’s stories include violent fantasies and actions. The essays also include violent treatment of people with mental illness in mental hospitals and prisons.

The book is intended for classroom use. Each essay is preceded by an introduction telling the reader how to interpret the essay, and followed by discussion questions which are clearly slanted toward preferred answers.

Caroline Knapp’s essay, “Denial and Addiction,” talks about the effortless contortions that make alcoholics’ drinking look acceptable to themselves. “Denial can make your drinking feel as elusive and changeable as Proteus, capable of altering form in the blink of an eye.” Calmly honest, she describes her own and others’ self-destructive behavior while addicted to alcohol.

Other essays describe the experiences of schizophrenic psychosis, depression, mania, taking Prozac for OCD, recovering from anorexia, and the aftermath of a spouse’s suicide.

While I applaud the authors’ venture into personal stories rather than aggregate statistics, I think academia has a long way to go in its attitudes toward people who have mental illnesses.

Available at bookshop.org.