The stigma of silence [Nothing to hide: mental illness in the family]

This book takes the reader on a journey to unstable regions of the psyche: anxiety, depression, panic, schizophrenia, eating disorders, mania, suicide, obsessive compulsion and substance abuse. In describing common psychiatric disorders and their treatment, [Kenneth Duckworth] dispels some of the myths perpetuated in the media -- for example, that psychiatric patients are violent. (Statistically, they are not.) Mental illness is, unfortunately, quite common. The US National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 22.1% of Americans aged 18 and older -- about 1 in 5 adults -- suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. Using the 1998 US census, Duckworth translates this figure to 44.3 million Americans. Assuming a similar prevalence in this country, over 4 million Canadians have a mental illness. Who has not had to share the pain of a family member, classmate, colleague, friend or lover struggling with mental illness? As if coping with the symptoms of the illness were not bad enough, there is, as [Jean J. Beard] and [Peggy Gillespie] argue, "an additional challenge: the pervasive and destructive burden of stigma. Stigma gives rise to myths, stereotypes, and misunderstandings." Beard and Gillespie travelled across America to interview families affected by mental illness, later presented the results of their project as a touring exhibit, and have now published this book to reach a broader audience. This book includes interviews with 44 patients and their family members, accompanied by black-and-white photographs by [Gigi Kaeser]. What emerges is an album of mental illness from a first-person perspective. Although there have been excellent popular books in recent years on mental illness, such as [Kay Jamison]'s An Unquiet Mind, Andrew Solomon's Noonday Demon, William Styron's Darkness Visible and Mark Vonnegut's The Eden Express, the narratives in Nothing to Hide illuminate a dark collective wisdom. Here is a sampling of voices.