The World I Fell Out Of
Melanie Reid
Having read it
★★★★★
Brilliant. So good, I’d give it six out of five! Insightful and really helpful. The author has gone through an awful lot, but she describes it all with humanity, honesty and directness. Some of the moments she has experienced were familiar to me and helped give some credence to some of my own thoughts about my situation.
A good passage
We are all entitled to our own perspective on how badly we are injured. What seemed trivial to some was life-changing to others, and vice versa.
A second good passage
The moral question of how far a public health service should go to treat addicted or self-destructive people is a gnarly one. But it is funny how the middle classes are the ones that agonise over this the most, and see no equivalence in their own behaviours. [...] I figured I wasn’t in a position to criticise any dangerous lifestyle choices. To be human is to possess weakness.
A third good passage
Our Western culture, focused on beauty and pleasure and the myth of a perfect life, makes it hard for the healthy to accept the reality of illness and the existence of death. People are threatened by the permanence of chronic illness and would like to think there’s a cure for everything. They reject scientific dead ends.