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No one should be ashamed of their mental illness. Enough already with blaming someone for the way that their brain works! People with serious mental illness have been discriminated against for centuries. It’s time to break the wall of silence and find ways to love and understand those who struggle.
When we share our stories about how we or our loved ones are struggling, we find ways to understand and help each other.
I spent three decades as an investigative reporter writing about the failures of our so-called mental health “system” and another seven teaching young journalists to do the same.
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Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger’s family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy. Whether they were spending summer days on the shores of Lake Michigan, barreling down the ski slopes, or navigating the trials of their Catholic school, the Kissingers always knew how to live large and play hard.
But behind closed doors, a harsher reality was unfolding―a heavily medicated mother hospitalized for anxiety and depression, a manic father prone to violence, and children in the throes of bipolar disorder and depression, two of whom would take their own lives. Through it all, the Kissingers faced the world with their signature dark humor and the unspoken family rule: never talk about it.
While You Were Out begins as the personal story of one family’s struggles then opens outward, as Kissinger details how childhood tragedy catalyzed a journalism career focused on exposing our country’s flawed mental health care. Combining the intimacy of memoir with the rigor of investigative reporting, the book explores the consequences of shame, the havoc of botched public policy, and the hope offered by new treatment strategies.
“The raw intimacy of [Meg Kissinger’s] prose exemplifies the empathy our society so desperately needs.”
―THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
