Comments on: The Thing Inside My head https://chipmunkapublishing.com/product/the-thing-inside-my-head-1/ the mental health publisher Sat, 23 Sep 2023 00:00:14 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.5 By: Megan Karnes OCD Action https://chipmunkapublishing.com/product/the-thing-inside-my-head-1/#comment-1147 Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:51:06 +0000 https://chipmunkapublishing.com/?product=the-thing-inside-my-head#comment-1147 In coming to terms with the devastating effect of OCD, or any serious Mental
Health disorder, it can seem simpler to create an ‘us and them’ situation,
coolly distancing ourselves from the person and our own feelings in the
interest of survival-both theirs and ours. Lois Chaber has written a
heart-wrenching book that explores the impact of her daughter’s OCD from all
sides.

‘What went wrong?’ would be a standard place to begin. Ms Chaber then
continues on to ask ‘How did I contribute to the problem?’ This is just one
of the unique aspects of this book. How many of us do feel responsible for
‘the others’ Mental Health? How many of us have the courage to really look
at how we may actually, in spite of our best intentions, make things worse?
Struggling to get help within a system, which at the time was significantly
less aware about appropriate treatment, is a mother battling her own
depression and lack of knowledge about what she needs to do.

The book is written in three parts. The first details the interesting
family story of the English family living in the Middle East. The second
weaves Sybil’s personal diaries into an often desperate narrative from the
mother trying to save her daughter and seemingly succeeding. The third
follows the surprising and tragic downturn that Sybil, and the family,
experiences.

I would highly recommend this book for carers, families and friends. Lois’
personal journey, Sybil’s poignant and honest diary and the harrowing
journey the family takes through treatment provide valuable insight. While
Sybil’s innocent honesty can potentially help families to understand suicide
ideation and other areas within OCD, it may not be beneficial for those
personally struggling with this dynamic. Sybil, for a myriad of reasons,
rarely was able to differentiate between OCD and her own experience. For
anyone else I would consider this a ‘must read’.

Megan Karnes, OCD Action

]]> By: Elena Domaratskaya France https://chipmunkapublishing.com/product/the-thing-inside-my-head-1/#comment-1099 Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:04:04 +0000 https://chipmunkapublishing.com/?product=the-thing-inside-my-head#comment-1099 ‘The Thing Inside My Head’ by Dr. Lois Chaber is a poignant account of her daughter’s short and tragic life darkened by obsessive-compulsive disorder, the life that ended in a suicide at a place where one would think their loved ones are best protected, i. e. an NHS hospital. An accomplished academic, Lois Chaber goes far beyond the standpoint of a grieving mother and produces a detailed and objective piece giving voice to all people and organizations involved.

The most invaluable of those voices is, of course, that of her deceased daughter: the diaries of the sufferer herself give the reader a rare insight into the mind of a person affected by this particular mental illness. Reading them after you have already been acquainted with her bizarre behaviours through the eyes of her family and friends, as well as through official and personal accounts of staff attending to her, can turn everything you have been thinking of it upside down. Whether you have experience dealing with mentally ill people in your own life or not, it is extremely hard to comprehend what goes on in the mind of the person affected. Through its structure and particular combination of sources, this book comes very close to giving its readers an almost first-hand experience of the issue.

At the same time, the author raises a number of issues related to the British medical system, such as the rule of confidentiality applied to adult patients. Although far from accusing the system or any particular individual, Lois Chaber questions through her daughter’s story whether mentally disturbed people can be held responsible for decisions that affect their own treatment, as well as whether British hospitals have adequate facilities and regulations to prevent their patients from suicides.

Anyone taking interest in mental illness for whatever reason will find this beautifully written, whilst disturbing, book useful and informative.

]]> By: Dolores Rosenblum "Licensed Clin Chicago, IL USA https://chipmunkapublishing.com/product/the-thing-inside-my-head-1/#comment-1060 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:42:47 +0000 https://chipmunkapublishing.com/?product=the-thing-inside-my-head#comment-1060 This harrowing account of a family’s struggle with a beloved child’s severe mental illness is indispensible for sufferers and professionals alike. Sybil McIndoe suffered from severe obsessive compulsive disorder, compounded by anorexia and depression from childhood until her death at 20, a suicide. Obsessive compulsive disorder is known to be an especially refractory mental disorder, for which there was little effective treatment at the time Sybil was growing up. It’s the story of a well-intentioned and devoted family’s failure to negotiate the mental health system, abroad and in England, successfully. The author, Sybil’s mother,is unsparing in her critique of her role–and the family’s–in the origins and progress of Sybil’s disease. The narrative’s strength lies in its multivocal nature: we hear Sybil’s own voice, as set down in diaries and other writings, the voices of mental health professionals in their case notes, the voices of friends and companions in their responses to the writer’s requests. Through it all, Sybil comes off as a gentle and caring person, despite her torments, and her family as increasingly baffled by the limitations and inconsistencies of the mental health system. Lois Chaber’s integration of detail and analysis is impressive. I recommend this book highly to professionals dealing with families, and families themselves.

Dolores Rosenblum “Licensed Clinical Social Worker

]]> By: D. Ellerton UK https://chipmunkapublishing.com/product/the-thing-inside-my-head-1/#comment-997 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:52:50 +0000 https://chipmunkapublishing.com/?product=the-thing-inside-my-head#comment-997 The Thing Inside My Head gives us a rare window into the thoughts of a sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder through her diaries – and scrawled notes – as her condition worsens. Via these and many carefully detailed observations, we are able to better understand the actual mindset and feelings of someone in the grip of severe OCD when she exhibits the behaviours we find so bizarre and incomprehensible as observers.

The author records meticulously the experiences of herself and her family in dealing not only with her mentally ill daughter, but importantly, with the medical profession; the family’s problems in trying to cope with the confidentiality accorded a patient who is technically an adult, but is in fact far from being able to assume responsibility for decisions affecting her own treatment, resonate with those of us who have had similar experiences.

The resultant lack of a cohesive therapy, together with being shunted from one hospital or facility to another, from one PCT to another, from one doctor and set of nurses to another, had disastrous consequences, culminating in the ultimate tragic suicide of the author’s daughter while in hospital.

This book should be mandatory reading for anyone who has a friend or relative suffering from mental illness, particularly OCD – in this case complicated by depression and sporadic bouts of anorexia – and who also may wish to delve into the possible “nature vs nurture” elements of the antecedents of mental illness.

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