Anthology of a Crazy Lady

If you are bipolar and/or borderline, you may love this book, or you may hate it; you may be angry at it, or it may contain a lot of triggers; or you may recognize yourself in parts of it. If you love someone who is mentally ill, you may learn from it. If you are any kind of therapist, you must read it.

The one thing I don't think anyone who reads this book will be is indifferent to it.

Reviewed by Marcia Purse

This is a courageous book, the scraped-raw story, "warts and all," of an illness that began in early childhood. As a little girl she suffered from racing thoughts; as an adolescent and teen, from painful shyness, nonexistent self-esteem, paranoia and deep depression filled with both anger and guilt. Through marriage, childbearing and career, she continued to suffer from random cycles of irritable hypomania and angry depression. A hysterectomy at age 45 sent her into severe depression and into a ten-year odyssey of multiple psychiatrists and therapists (good and bad), a "kaleidoscope" of medication combinations, self-destructive behavior, and a quest for health that part of her fought tooth and nail every step of the way.

NO, I DON'T DESERVE TO FEEL HAPPY

I HAVE TO KEEP THE BROKEN PIECES OF MY HEART APART

IT HAS START TO MEND, BUT IT CANNOT

I MUST NOT ALLOW IT

I WILL NOT ALLOW IT

--Susan L. Heisler

Susan Heisler tells of her lifelong struggle with mental illness in time-fractured short sections, punctuated with her artwork, prose poems, notes from her journals and - perhaps most revealing of all - notes written by her sister, her daughters and her husband. I never got used to the way the narrative bounces from one time period to another, and found it difficult to tell when and where some events or passages took place. Some of what she relates was almost painfully familiar, and I wanted to push it away; sometimes I wanted to shake her.

The book demonstrates how very self-absorbed the mentally ill can be: she even says of her younger daughter, "She was an especially sensitive individual who knew me like a book. She was always there for me." Yet this same daughter says of her mother, "I just needed her. But she was not there, and my father had his own problems, so I was alone."

Anthology of a Crazy Lady is subtitled "a creative cure through writing and art." For much of her life Susan lived behind a cheerful, even callous façade, not revealing her true feelings; through her writing and drawings she was able to express the rage, hostility and despair that ruled her inner self. Yet Susan's ultimate "cure" came from this and several other elements: psychiatry, psychotropic medications, and spiritual renewal - in her case, in the form of Christian "inner healing."

People who have a mental illness should approach this book with some caution, and put it down if reading it proves too painful or triggering. But get your therapist and psychiatrist to read it - if they haven't already!