Change Your Mind

Is it me, or are there an awful lot of really interesting sounding books being published at the moment?  Thanks to reviews in the weekend papers and the wonders of the LibrariesWest app, I have a lovely selection of non-fiction lined up covering everything from free speech to the NHS.  One fascinating book I was glad to read about was 'It's All in Your Head' by Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan.  I finished it earlier today.

Written by a consultant neurologist, 'It's All in Your Head' explores the complex and misunderstood subject of psychosomatic illness with a combination of compassion, pragmatism and professional experience.  Throughout her working life, Dr O'Sullivan has encountered patients suffering symptoms with no clear biological cause.  They have often endured countless invasive and comprehensive tests and spent decades taking heavy duty medication, yet their lives have been destroyed by apparently incurable illness.  Visiting a neurologist can be the last step on a journey that includes everything from debilitating headaches to epileptic-type seizures to complete blindness to chronic fatigue.  But once all the tests have been done, the results analysed and every physical cause ruled out, is it really possible it could all be in your head?

This book was absolutely fascinating.  Dr O'Sullivan's expert deployment of case studies to illustrate her points made the book both readable and humane,  In this economic climate, it would have been very easy for someone to go on a political rant and use this as a platform for blaming clearly ill people for wasting money and destroying the NHS.  Even the reviews I read used it as a stick to beat people with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome because there is one paragraph in which the writer sticks her neck out and suggests that psychological factors may contribute to the prolonging of some cases of ME/CFS.  She's a scientist for crying out loud, she's looked at the research and evidence and drawn a logical conclusion.  She freely admits she could be wrong, but she's made a judgement on what information is currently available and in no way belittles the suffering of others.  Whether influenced by psychology or not, these patients are clearly suffering through no conscious choice of their own and need help, support and understanding, not blame.

Reading the heart rending stories of different patients, sometimes angry, sometimes pitiful, always relatable, made it easy to understand the subject and recognise how serious the consequences of stress and trauma can be for certain people.  According to Dr O'Sullivan, at the root of all psychosomatic symptoms lies some undealt with and unrecognised cause, buried away in the mind but making itself felt in the most terrifying way.

Doctors are frightened to diagnose such psychological causes for physical illnesses because they might have missed something or a new test in the future could prove them wrong or the patient might simply get angry (a common and understandable response).  Meanwhile the patient thinks they're being called a liar, a faker or a fantasist.  And all this in the context of a society that has so firmly separated the mind from the body that mental health is neglected and everyday twinges are over medicalised.  It's a toxic cocktail that lets many people down.

My only complaint about this book is its subtitle; 'True Stories of Imaginary Illnesses'.  In the very least, the jury is still out on that.  These patients are clearly suffering from something, their symptoms are involuntary and do exist.  The cause may be in the mind, but 'imaginary' suggests a stereotype that the author clearly wanted to undermine, that of the patient who is making it all up.

Before jumping to conclusions, I encourage you to read this book.  Whether right or wrong, it is genuinely fascinating and full of ideas that could really change your mind.

Now, what next...? 

Thin End of the Wedge

I've just finished another book!  That's three in one month and it's only March!  Yippee!

The latest book was 'The Real Me is Thin' by Arabella Weir.  I was aware of the comedy actress author in a I'm-sure-I've-seen-her-in-a-few-things sort of a way and hoped that this book would be a down-to-earth yet uplifting take on body image.  Unfortunately, it wasn't what I'd hoped for, although I feel that there is a great book in here trying to get out.

'The Real Me is Thin' is an autobiographical account of the author's difficult relationship with food and eating and where her attitudes came from.  Full of self-analysis, painful sounding memories and reflection, the book explores one woman's complex attitude to food, eating and body image, with a bit of feminism thrown in for good measure.

This could've been a fantastic book, but it feels a bit half-baked, if you'll pardon the pun.  If it had been written in conjunction with a therapist or psychologist, perhaps someone like Pamela Stephenson Connolly, and the author's experiences used as a case study, I think it would've had the potential to help both the author and anyone reading it who has similar complex feelings about food.  It sounds like Ms Weir has been through some absolutely horrific experiences, but the book offers no resolution, no hope, and I feel it's slightly depressing and a bit of a missed opportunity as a result.  I turned the last page and was left feeling pity and regret that although the author has fully reflected on the subject, she doesn't appear to be ready for the 'next step' of trying to deal with her issues.  It's one thing to say it's OK to be a normal size, but it's another to say it's OK to eat whole packets of biscuits in one sitting and admit to feeling bitter that you don't have a different attitude to eating.

If the book had been taken in this direction, been more a journey from biography, analysis and reflection to receiving professional help, looking to the future and hopefully attempting to change bad habits, it would have had a much better structure.  As it is, it's a bit hit and miss, as though the author sat down when she had a few spare minutes and just mused on paper/screen about the subject matter.  This gives it a nice, accessibly chatty style, but does lead to some less comprehensible sentences.  After the initial biographical elements are covered, the book seems to meander about a bit, I think because there is no target, no resolution.  There is no clear, overall, positive message, perhaps suggesting that this book was written too soon in the author's personal journey.

On the plus side, it's great to hear someone in the public eye speaking out about the body image issue.  The size and shape of the bodies we see in the media is ridiculously limited and we have to remember that these people are a minority and a minority with a particular lifestyle which means they can work to look like that.  The rest of us are a bit busy with jobs, kids and lives.

On the whole, I applaud the motivation behind this 'The Real Me is Thin', but would love to see it re-written with some input from a dietary or psychological professional to ground the personal experiences in a broader context.  This would hopefully help put things in perspective for readers and naturally lead to pointers on how to change your habits or, if necessary, to seek help.  As this book makes very clear, we are not alone and shouldn't be embarrassed by any unusual attitudes we've been brought up with.  Equally, though, we shouldn't just accept them if there is a better, healthier way.