Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Lori Schiller has done a magnificent job of chronicling her battle with schizophrenia. Horrible, taunting voices drove her to suicide attempts, drug abuse, numerous hospitalizations, and homelessness. Eventually she got the right treatment, the most important component of which was the antipsychotic drug Clozaril. I'd like to see more from her, because this book is Pulitzer Prize-caliber writing.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult to put down and difficult to forget
Review: Lori Schiller's story is beautifully written and difficult to forget. What makes this story of a journey through treatment for schizophrenia exceptional is that it is told by several people, not just Lori. Her father, a psychologist, deals with her illness through denial. Her mother faces it with overwhelming sadness. Her brothers are confused and embarassed. Her friends are overburdened. Lori is not the only person suffering due to her mental illness. I was amazed with her strength during her ordeal. How difficult it must have been to live with multiple voices belittling her, constantly yelling insults, telling her she would die, telling her to kill others. After years of misdiagnoses, treatment by indifferent mental health professionals, hospitalizations, halfway houses, overmedication, undermedication, self-medication through cocaine abuse and constant suicidal thoughts, Lori finally comes to terms with her illness and fights to overcome it. With the help of several caring healthcare professionals, Lori learns to live with the voices that will always be a part of her life.
Rating:
Summary: A GOOD CASE FOR CLOZAPINE
Review: Lori Schiller, a high academic achiever suffered from her first mental breakdown at 17. She was a counselor at a camp in upstate N.Y. when she first heard nonexistent voices. She describes the voices and cruel and taunting. Alarmed, she tells nobody about her auditory hallucination and valiantly tries to "jump the voices away," by jumping up and down repeatedly.Lori barely manages college, where psychotic episodes disrupt her formerly sterling academic career. Her life becomes a litany of hospitals, restraints and half way houses until she was admitted to a hospital in White Plains, N.Y. Lori's psychiatrist, in a last ditch effort to spare Lori the inevitable trip to a state snakepit, tries administering Clozapine. The Clozapine clears Lori's mind and for the first time since she was 17, she is free of psychotic episodes. The trick is, she cannot afford to miss even one dosage. Lori, her brothers and parents band together to try to make it possible for her to regularly receive this medicine. It is a question of her life and health. Her parents are absolutely lovely and have nothing but her best interests at heart. Her brothers will go to the mat for her and it is this loving family that Lori can count on. Her father, who is a doctor offers his observations in this book. He paints a loving, yet hard and realistic picture of the pain and mental anguish of a family coping with a loved one seemingly lost to mental illness. There is no doubt that this man is very loving and will do anything to help his child. There is never any doubt that Lori has good back up. This author has appeared on 60 minutes and shows describing her plight and the need for this medication. It has literally saved her life.
Rating:
Summary: Perspective Changing
Review: Mental health receives very little emphasis in the media, public planning, and political rhetoric, mainly because assumptions of what schizophrenia, mood disorders, and other mental illnesses are like for people are generally made without consideration to individual experience and social impact. This is a book to give to people who believe the world turns exactly how they think it does. With the inclusion of entries from friends, family members, and hospital staff, it illustrates how interconnected the impact of mental illness is, how important support is, and how incredibly difficult daily life can be.
Peter Gamache, MBA, MLA, MPH
Rating:
Summary: Exprsses prfectly how it feels to think/know yr going crazy.
Review: The book "The Quiet Room" is one of my all time favorite books. Possibly my favorite. If I could, I'd give it 10 stars or MORE!!! I have been diagnosed as having some sort of "disorder" also, though not as severe. Not only did this book give me hope for myself, it helped me to realize my own interest in psychology. In reading it, you can feel the color of each piece of the story, each mood; the grayness and and the colorful spots. Any book which can draw you in this much is definately worth reading, so DO!!! It's a great book and experience, and if you suffer from any kind of mental illness, at times it feels as if she's describing your story.
Rating:
Summary: A Saviour!
Review: This book gave so much needed information for me about the life of a schizophrenic. It wasn't scientific mumbo jumbo but a heart wrenching true story with real life education. Lori is a true survivor and gives hope to everyone suffering from mental illness.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Realistic POV
Review: This book helped me through my troubles and illness with bipolar and let me see and know that other people are going the exact same thing. So any one interested in reading of how it really is and what really goes a mentally uncapable person through family and being in mental institutions then please read this book because it tells how it is. A real sense of scenery and the restraints and the treatments that they put the patients through. I have personally been it all and this book tells it truthfully.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful to parents of bipolar adolescents/ young adults
Review: This book was extremely helpful to me as the parent of a recently diagnosed bipolar teenage daughter, aged 17. Many of their bipolar daughter's unusual behaviors rang a common chord with our daughter. Coincidentally, they even share a common nickname, "Lulubelle". Their familial reactions of denial and frustration exactly mirrored our family reactions and reassured me that we weren't reacting so inexplicably after all. The book assisted me in understanding the condition and in knowing what to expect in the future. Indeed it is a guidebook complete with all the pitfalls that should be avoided on the rocky road to a final stabilization. More than in any other profession, there is a huge gap in the amount of knowledge that the psychiatric commnunity provides and the desperate need for information of a newly diagnosed bipolar patient and her confused, frustrated and yes, scared, family. This book helps to fill it.
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best direct account of schizophrenia
Review: This book, along with "The Eden Express", is one of the best accounts of schizophrenia. The quality of writing is extremely high, the story is told with good pace, and the ending is hopeful. Lori's description of schizophrenia itself- the disorienting and downright frightening aspects of the disease- is one of the best accounts of the disease that I have read. It's comforting to think that the treatment of this disease has improved substantially since the 1980s due to the advent of the atypical antipsychotics, but I have my doubts as to whether these newer medications are really all that effective. Overall, this book is excellent and should be read by anyone interested in schizophrenia or mental illness in general. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best direct account of schizophrenia
Review: This book, along with "The Eden Express", is one of the best accounts of schizophrenia. The quality of writing is extremely high, the story is told with good pace, and the ending is hopeful. Lori's description of schizophrenia itself- the disorienting and downright frightening aspects of the disease- is one of the best accounts of the disease that I have read. It's comforting to think that the treatment of this disease has improved substantially since the 1980s due to the advent of the atypical antipsychotics, but I have my doubts as to whether these newer medications are really all that effective. Overall, this book is excellent and should be read by anyone interested in schizophrenia or mental illness in general. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".
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