Smoking Cigarettes and Eating Glass
Dr. Annita Sawyer’s memoir is a harrowing, heroic, and redeeming story of her battle with mental illness from an early age, and her triumph in overcoming it. In 1960, as a suicidal teenager, Sawyer is institutionalized, suffering through 89 electroshock treatments based on a misdiagnosis before being transferred, “unimproved.” After finally receiving proper psychiatric care, Sawyer is discharged in 1966, but the damage done haunts her life. She returns to school, keeping her past secret, while she moves on to graduate from Yale, raise two children, and become a respected psychotherapist, achieving a level of equanimity – until 2001, when she reads her hospital records. What does she learn? How does it change her life??