An often brave but sometimes bland reflection of living with “pathological doubt.”
Dahlberg’s debut memoir details his experience growing up with obsessive-compulsive disorder before OCD was a household term.
The author writes that nearly one out of every 40 Americans will be diagnosed with OCD at some point in their lifetimes, according to U.S. government statistics. Dahlberg, a self-described “math whiz” with hypochondria and a photographic memory, has suffered from OCD since childhood, but wasn’t diagnosed until late in life. He believes his “latent potential” for OCD was triggered when a fellow Boy Scout developed a tumor and died. “Suddenly cancer was everywhere,” Dahlberg writes—in the news, in the movie Brian’s Song, but mostly in Dahlberg’s own head. An overwhelming fight-or-flight response led to his first nightmarish encounter with OCD, the “disease of doubt.” Soon his obsession with reducing larger numbers into simpler ones grew to include “counting, images, names, rituals” and led to difficulties in social situations. The potential benefits of cognitive therapy, meditation and medication for OCD were unknown then, so Dahlberg survived instead through martial arts, school athletics and a number of jobs, and he discovered that an occupied mind could provide an escape. His first college roommate, a prolific Barbra Streisand memorabilia hoarder, apparently had OCD as well, and “might have been more bizarre” than Dahlberg was. But after Dahlberg suffered a few bouts of uncontrollable mania and some painfully awkward social interactions, he gained his own reputation around campus. After he had a breakdown as an adult, Jeffrey Schwartz’s book Brain Lock (1997) and Dahlberg’s wife, Judy, helped him realize just what he was up against. Today, the author feels that he can keep his irrational fears under control and “mental ambush” at bay. As tragic as Dahlberg’s disorder was and as inspiring as his recovery appears to be, the book lacks forward motion at times and ends rather abruptly, which may leave readers with more questions than answers. At times, it delves a little too deeply into an extraneous anecdote or Dahlberg’s difficulty with what he calls “dimensional analysis.” However, he stresses that the details of his own condition are personal and that OCD is different for everybody, and he does lend helpful advice to fellow OCD sufferers, such as taking up a sport that requires focus and attention.
An often brave but sometimes bland reflection of living with “pathological doubt.”Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1480279865
Page Count: 238
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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