Memoir Paper

Book Summary 3

Mental health is crucial part of life. The book discussed in the podcast talks about the mental health of the author and how she overcomed her fears and became normal again. A passage from the book that impacted me is when the author talks about her sponsor teaching her to be patient and not to blame herself hard if she makes a mistake. According to the author, she never realized that she was impatient until her sponsor brought her attention to the topic. This part of book impacts my consciousness as sometimes we overthink for ur mistakes and get angry when we mess up. I realized it is normal to make mistakes, get angry and mess things up while in a recovery phase. Being impatient will only make things hard for an individual.

The author has described how she craved for food abnormally this far. Her addiction for food resembled drug addiction as she couldn’t control her behavior with each passing day. She couldn’t control her eating habits to an extent that her mental and physical health started was degrading. The author felt super hard to live life because of food addiction and losing control over herself. I could classify the author’s behavior as abnormal because it reflects dysfunction and distress. Food habits is a biological disturbance and the fact that she can’t control her behavior is psychological and stressful. Moreover, the author is also experiencing impairment in functioning due to food addiction. Impairment means unable to act and do usual works in daily life due to illness and between-person differences are a result of personality, values and intelligence. The author attributes her mental health symptoms to bad childhood, bad food habits, eating to an extent where one might fall ill, lose calm, act impatient and be hard on relationships. The author may not be aware of the symptom that she felt guilty after eating excessively but couldn’t stop eating. 

Talking about the author’s family and friend’s response to her disorder, her sister suggested her to be compassionate. The way her sister reacted was helpful but she had another sister who was a drug abuser and the author wanted to erase her from her life and memory just because it resembled her addiction of food. The author wasn’t getting better because she didn’t feel like sharing her pain and feeling what she wanted to feel. She kept on being hard on herself and ended up losing control overherself. Some diagnosis that can help the author to get better is substance use disorder mentioned in DSM-5 criteria. However, food addiction is yet to be formally recognized.

The author has been going to meeting full of strangers to share her thoughts. And, this is the only treatment she is receiving for her symptoms. The treatment has resulted out to be helpful for her as she has now become more vulnerable to her feelings and sharing her thoughts without fear. I think the author chose to share her story to motivate people to take care of their mental health and never be scared to feel all the feelings. This memoir can be extremely helpful to those who doesn’t feel like talking much and suppress their inner feelings.