Out of Me: The Story of a Postnatal Breakdown: Amazon.co.uk: Adam Phillips, Fiona Shaw: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review

Out of Me is the compelling account of Fiona Shaw's hellish descent into post-natal depression. In a book which has drawn comparison with Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, she attempts to piece together her shattered identity in a testimony that is both intensely personal yet strangely objective.

The journey takes her back to a childhood where, peddled relentlessly to and fro between divided families, she was always the outsider. Increasingly driven into herself, she began to enact more and more obsessive cries for help. The most heart-rending episode tells of a feigned back pain that became a way of gaining her parents' attention. The weeks in hospital turn into months. She undergoes one test after another as the doctors try to determine the cause of her mysterious condition and finally, incredibly, spinal surgery. The terrifying clarity of her words transports you into the skewed world of a desperate child where the line between real and pretend becomes blurred. It is here we see the root of Shaw's terrifying ability to disassociate from herself and gain an insight into a bizarre psychic splitting process that can occur under extreme emotional stress. Perhaps, Shaw wonders, her breakdown came when it did because at last she was in a safe, loved enough place to allow it to happen. Out of Me explores themes of memory and identity, the fragile, fallible structures upon which we base our selves. It is a story of terrible, almost fatal despair but finally one of survival, reconstruction and understanding. --Rebecca Johnson

Review

Out of Me is the compelling account of Fiona Shaw's hellish descent into post-natal depression. In a book which has drawn comparison with Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, she attempts to piece together her shattered identity in a testimony that is both intensely personal yet strangely objective. The journey takes her back to a childhood where, peddled relentlessly to and fro between divided families, she was always the outsider. Increasingly driven into herself, she began to enact more and more obsessive cries for help. The most heart-rending episode tells of a feigned back pain that became a way of gaining her parents' attention. The weeks in hospital turn into months. She undergoes one test after another as the doctors try to determine the cause of her mysterious condition and finally, incredibly, spinal surgery. The terrifying clarity of her words transports you into the skewed world of a desperate child where the line between real and pretend becomes blurred. It is here we see the root of Shaw's terrifying ability to disassociate from herself and gain an insight into a bizarre psychic splitting process that can occur under extreme emotional stress. Perhaps, Shaw wonders, her breakdown came when it did because at last she was in a safe, loved enough place to allow it to happen. Out of Me explores themes of memory and identity, the fragile, fallible structures upon which we base our selves. It is a story of terrible, almost fatal despair but finally one of survival, reconstruction and understanding.' - Rebecca Johnson, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW 'Her brave book is hugely valuable...' - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

Well written 13 Aug 2006

By C. Arnold

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have suffered PND on a similar scale to Fiona Shaw & looking back at my own experience, I should have been admitted to a psychiatric unit. This book is very well written and does not shy away from the devastating affects of PND. Fiona Shaw describes in beautiful detail of how the illness affected her and how the resulting treatments of ectro-convulsive therapy almost destroyed her memory of those first few months. This book is not for the faint hearted as it is in some places very frightening. I have never come across a book more honest than this.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

Brave 30 May 2007

By Victoria Finlay

Format:Paperback

I thought this was powerful, shocking and well-written book: I have given it to a couple of friends who have been visited by their own black dogs, and am logging on now to buy it again for another.

It made me remember how as a teenager - helping out on the Service Volunteers' bus to take people to see their relatives at the local mental hospital - I was taken to see the straps and wires of the ECT room. I had the conviction that this kind of therapy was not part of the modern world, but I was clearly wrong.

I was at school with Fiona. She was always so tall and confident and sporty that she seemed like one of those people who would have a golden life. Which shows how little I knew, or guessed, about what was really going on in her life then.

I'm glad she chose that writing style - it pulls us effectively and descriptively into the tunnel, so that even those of us who have been lucky enough not to go there can understand for a moment what it is like to be there, in a place where words swirl around, and you feel helpless.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

A scary account of the deep descent into postnatal illness. 31 Jan 2001

By A Customer

I was keen to buy this book as soon as it was published, having been through postnatal depression myself. However, I had to stop reading at page 100 (out of 207) as I couldn't bear to read anymore. I felt that this book should have a government health warning attached to it. I felt really scared as I read each page and it was more like a horror story. Maybe one day I will feel strong enough to read the rest and see how she recovered.