How do you
react when your beloved husband suddenly is not the same anymore? When your
life slowly falls apart and you can only watch but do nothing about it? Sheila Hamilton
has gone through this with her husband suffering from mental illness without
acknowledging his need for help. The author looks back on how gradually the
illness took over her life and shows the signs she was not able to recognize at
the time but which should have been a warning. Short episodes like losing the
wallet again and again, getting more chaotic day-by-day and unbearable
outbursts were a nuisance at the time but could have been read as warnings.
Sheila
Hamilton’s very personal account of her life with an ill partner is not only interesting
but admirable, because this is a very personal insight in other people’s life
at a point where you normally try everything to hide to outer world that there is
a serious problem. There are two things I appreciated most: first, the report
on the single incidents made it easy to follow her line of narration and helped
to understand how the illness develops; second, at the end of each chapter she
provides useful information and help on various aspects of mental illnesses
which can be very useful for caretakers and they are presented in a way that a
non expert can understand it and can take it as a start for further research.
The detailed annotations at the end of the book are also very helpful.
