Unhinged: A Memoir of Enduring, Surviving, and Overcoming Family Mental Illness

Unhinged, by Anna Berry (a pseudonym), is described as a memoir about the author’s difficult childhood, the mental illnesses of her mother and brother (both with diagnosed schizophrenia), the author’s own struggles with psychiatric symptoms, and her path to wellness and a fulfilling life. Ms. Berry, the flyleaf tells us, is a successful journalist, author, and mental health advocate. Certainly, mental health awareness and treatment have benefited greatly from memoirs written by people with lived experience of mental illness, including William Styron, Elyn Saks, and Kay Jamison. I had high hopes for Unhinged.

Ms. Berry describes her particularly chaotic childhood, when her mother was extremely ill. Ms. Berry gives her own psychiatric diagnosis as borderline personality disorder and recounts several destructive relationships and periods of extremely self-defeating behavior. She also describes episodes of depression and what she refers to as a brief psychotic episode. She recounts some very negative experiences with psychiatrists who did not listen to her and who prescribed irresponsibly; these are stories that need to be told. Ms. Berry also points to important and familiar problems with the mental health system, including difficulty with access to care and the relationship between psychiatry and Big Pharma. She advocates for the effective tool of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Ms. Berry’s memoir fell far short of my expectations, however; its use of stigmatizing language and lack of a real recovery orientation are disappointing. To the author, “mental health consumers” is “a politically correct term for psychiatric patients.” Stigmatizing language occurs throughout the book (Ms. Berry describes herself as a “nutjob”) and made me cringe. She titled the chapter on her brother “Mark: The Lost Cause” and refers to him as a “lazy, manipulative delusional-paranoid schizophrenic.” In the memoir Glass Castles, Jeannette Walls manages a compassion for family members living with mental illness that serves to make her story more poignant and effective. Ms. Berry’s memoir almost completely lacks compassion, and her depiction of her brother seems vindictive. It is almost as if Ms. Berry believes in her own recovery but has little respect for that process in others.

I appreciate the fact that Ms. Berry has made great progress toward her own recovery. She describes herself as having a good life. I wish that she had been aware of the power of language and been less stigmatizing and judgmental, particularly in writing about her brother. As it is, this is not a book that I can recommend.