The Complications: On Going Insane in America

In this raw debut memoir, essayist Rensin interweaves an account of his struggles with schizoaffective bipolar disorder with a cutting examination of American attitudes toward mental health. Most chapters are rooted in Rensin’s own experiences, describing, for example, the year he visited four different psychiatrists, his various periods of institutionalization, and his experiments with going off such medications as Seroquel and Abilify. Rensin expounds on these episodes with incisive critiques of the way Americans discuss mental illness, pulling in sources ranging from Roman history and ancient Chinese medicine to track shifting attitudes toward mental health across several centuries. Provocative ideas abound, including Rensin’s argument that the current tendency to reduce stigma around mental illness undermines meaningful discussions of the actual experiences of mental illnesses: “Everywhere, the shame and embarrassment and stigma of lunacy is held up like a scarecrow, while every actual discussion of madness insists that it is trying to liberate us from that straw man’s repressive gaze.” Such strident takes might alienate some readers, but Rensin’s points are trenchant and well argued, and the harrowing details of his own struggles lend him credibility. While the unremitting darkness can be tough to stomach, it’s a rousing rebuke to more placid treatments of similar subject matter. (Apr.)