Book Review: Unhinged

Anna Berry’s Unhinged is an intense read — a personal, in-depth account of the heartbreaking and grueling components of a life with mental illness. However, a pertinent takeaway message for readers is the optimistic road to recovery — one that doesn’t necessarily have to involve medication. Unhinged delves into Berry’s painful history with mental illness. The beginning pages depict a rather exhaustive list of the multiple diagnoses she has received over the years. She validates her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder — an unstable childhood upbringing most likely left a poignant mark of trauma. Her mother and brother suffer from chronic mental illness that include serious bouts of schizophrenia and advanced obsessive-compulsive disorder. In addition, her father, who possessed symptoms correlating with sex addiction, did not facilitate a source of secure and healthy attachment. An article on Psych Central discusses the link between trauma and borderline personality disorder. “I’ll admit that when I hear that a client has borderline personality disorder (BDP), my first thought is ‘oh, this person is a trauma survivor of some sort,” Sara Staggs, LICW, MPH, said. “And while not all people with poor emotion management, impulsive and destructive actions, intense fear of abandonment and an unstable self image have a history of complex trauma, it gets me to a non-judgmental place where I’m able to be very open to hearing someone’s story.” Berr...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Book Reviews Disorders Family General Psychology Relationships & Love Treatment anna berry Bipolar Disorder Borderline Personality Disorder Schizophrenia unhinged Source Type: news