All in Her Head: A Novel
Sunny Mera
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
A woman's shocking experience of orgasmic labor starts her down the path into a delusional condition in which she struggles to separate the real from the unreal.
Product Details
Price
$16.95
$15.76
Publisher
She Writes Press
Publish Date
November 10, 2015
Pages
184
Dimensions
5.4 X 8.4 X 0.6 inches | 0.55 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781631528187
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
I'm a mother who writes and lives in Brooklyn, New York, where I landed by way of New Hampshire. I was inspired to write the book All in Her Head: A Novel after my diagnosis of severe mental illness and my battle with postpartum depression, psychosis, and delusional disorder. I come from a privileged, educated, and stable home; I grew up attending a small, private Christian school that my parents and their friends founded in our attic in Topeka, Kansas. Thankfully, medication is effective for me and I wasn't criminalized for my illness. On my journey, the thing I needed was more role models to explain how to share. I needed to hear stories of people who told their stories, and see more stories explaining how to teach others to listen. This would have helped so much during my dark days and then during my early days of insight. I've spent the last decade writing a narrative I can live with. Now that I'm finished with this story, I can work on what I want: mothering and writing about things that aren't centered on me. I'm sharing this story with the aspiration that others will share my real hope for building a reality that is a place we want to live.
Reviews
"What a vivid and riveting central image: the explosion of orgiastic feeling concomitant with childbirth-physicality that leads to a mental split between real and delusion to become an obsession that is almost like a religious stigmata. For the reader, the protagonist becomes lovable in her tenacious struggle. The precision of the description of her delusional states is very helpful, whether for a reader wanting to learn or a reader wanting to empathize."
-Judith Carrington, media and advocacy group chair, National Alliance on Mental Illness, New York City "The book enthralled from the beginning to the end. It impressed upon me Sunny's struggle to know "real" from "unreal." On a personal level, I feel proud to know her story."
-Sarah Kennedy McPhee, MPH, Sexuality Educator, New Hampshire "What is real and what's a delusion? An erotic, intimate, tantalizing journey through a life like no other."
-Grant Thorsson, author of Bipolar for Beginners "There is something in this memoir that will speak to each of us. The protagonist's development and upbringing is arresting, and the descent into psychosis is real, maddening, and mind-numbing. The difficulties that the protagonist faces and often surmounts, are laid out in an explicit manner that is unmistakably personal. There are insights in this novel that demand thoughtful consideration, especially about the ways and depth with which we affect each other."
-Frederick Naftolin, MD, PhD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynocology and Director of Reproductive Biology Research, Department of Obstetrics and Gynocology, New York University
-Judith Carrington, media and advocacy group chair, National Alliance on Mental Illness, New York City "The book enthralled from the beginning to the end. It impressed upon me Sunny's struggle to know "real" from "unreal." On a personal level, I feel proud to know her story."
-Sarah Kennedy McPhee, MPH, Sexuality Educator, New Hampshire "What is real and what's a delusion? An erotic, intimate, tantalizing journey through a life like no other."
-Grant Thorsson, author of Bipolar for Beginners "There is something in this memoir that will speak to each of us. The protagonist's development and upbringing is arresting, and the descent into psychosis is real, maddening, and mind-numbing. The difficulties that the protagonist faces and often surmounts, are laid out in an explicit manner that is unmistakably personal. There are insights in this novel that demand thoughtful consideration, especially about the ways and depth with which we affect each other."
-Frederick Naftolin, MD, PhD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynocology and Director of Reproductive Biology Research, Department of Obstetrics and Gynocology, New York University
