I Thought I Could Fly: Portraits of Anguish, Compulsion, and Despair

Charlee Brodsky removes the clinical veil of mental illness through a breadth of first-person accounts that turn anguish to understanding, compulsion to compassion. I was at a conference recently when a speaker said "you know, we are all only temporarily abled", meaning we will all suffer mental or physical illness, it is just a question of when, to what degree. I write few reviews, but this book brought me closer to this fact than anything I have read, and made me much stronger and more caring in the process.

This is a "must have" book for anyone working in the field, living with, or just knowing someone suffering from mental illness, and a great book for students who wish to work with mental illness too. Charlee Brodsky captures the lives of people with mental illness through her beautifully written short stories, highlighting the immense array of emotions, pain, and misunderstanding, that everyday people endure due to suffering from mental health problems. She is able to illustrate to you the reader just what people feel, fear, and have to conquer through the expressiveness in her words and pictures. This book gives us a glimpse of what life for the person with mental illness is like, and it also helps to shed the stigma associated with it as it opens up our hearts, and minds, and lets us know that we have more in common with each other than differences. Brilliant is the word that comes to mind about this book, I LOVED IT!!!!

This book is beautiful, wrenching, inspiring and brave. The extraordinary challenges of mental illness are tackled with depth and grace. The stories are real and compelling. They provide a window into the day to day struggles of those suffering from mental illness as well as the impacts on those who love them. For me, the photographs are the most moving part of the book. They are beautiful, haunting art but, more important, they are integral to the stories being told. This book provides real insight into the complex nature of mental illness.

I loved this book for many reasons. On a practical note, for anyone who can't stay awake at night for more than two or three pages, this book delivers an intense personal story in a ten minute read. Some nights I couldn't put it down, and stayed up for two or three intense stories. Second, this book offers insight into the day-to-day living of those who deal with mental illness - both those that are ill, and those who must care for them. Each story is different, and all are compelling. I think that anyone who either suffers with mental illness or has a loved one who suffers, will find this book both disturbing and comforting. Don't miss the end, where each person is revisited two years later, offering a peek at the possible outcomes of such extraordinary stories. I highly recommend this book.