Joan K. (clarajolie1) reviewed on 10/12/2013

The chapters are short, but don't let that fool you.

It's the stigma of mental illness she addresses that makes this book great. Stigma is one of things even the best writers do not bring up in the conversation. Yet it soaks mental illness to the point even mental health care professionals will belittle their clients, saying they are not trying hard enough. The guy on the street sees a poster saying mental illness is being helped because the stigma is dying out, and he writes, who are these people? All we know is they have guns. And they are killers!

Simon comes from a dream life, read: privileged, but the best thing it gives her is school in Paris instead of America, and she runs through Columbia University, and gets a producers job even before she graduates. But always that question, tell?, yes? no?

Is it a myth that society no longer cares if you jump up on the top of the filing cabinet while talking to your doctor, just to be higher up, like a cat?

It's no myth, it's still there, breathing its horrible breath down in the basement. Simon finds this out when she interviews successful young people on her Detour, all over the US, and finds every one of them keep their bipolar illness to themselves. Don't ask, don't tell.

And always the Med question. Another, yes? no? Hospitals, yes? no?

It's a great book, but even after Simon goes from one end of the US to other, The. Stigma. Is. Still. There.

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