Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

What Doesn't Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness - Lessons from a Body in Revolt by Tessa Miller

18 reviews

madeofmatter's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Beatifully written retelling of life with chronic illness. An incredibly useful resource filled with helpful information, tips on how to deal with various situations and tailored humour that hit home. I cannot recommend this book enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Gaslighting

ivi_reads_books's review

emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.5

 This book is part memoir, part practical guide to navigating the U.S. healthcare system and advocating for yourself. It offers valuable insights on finding community, hope, and managing your health by focusing on what you can control.

The author shares her story with honesty and courage, offering readers both guidance and hope in their own health journeys. 

I recommend it to anyone living with a lifelong illness, as well as their family members and friends 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness and Medical content

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Excrement, Vomit, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Ableism, Eating disorder, and Blood

meliroo's review

informative reflective

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

atokuyama's review

emotional informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Ableism, Misogyny, and Gaslighting

gloriabyrd's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Medical trauma

rockyroadbutch's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Ableism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

skillwithaquill's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

katrinarose's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Part memoir, part self-help, part political/sociological analysis, this was a wonderfully realistic yet hopeful book. As someone who has her same diagnosis (but has not gone through the level of severity she has) I empathized with her harrowing medical trauma. Her writing style kept me hooked. I imagine the self-help aspects to be invaluable for those with severe chronic illness and are written with such tenderness. She also rounds the book out with many statistics and research articles both to infuriate the reader about the state of healthcare in America but also act as a call to action. Since I am able to forget about my diagnosis 90% of the time, I don’t feel I am the exact target audience, however I loved it and would recommend to anyone chronically ill, anyone who has a chronically ill loved one, or anyone interested in the topic of healthcare in America.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Excrement, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, and Grief

bookishpip's review

challenging emotional informative inspiring sad slow-paced

4.0

I was really excited to read this book - I’d never heard of any memoirs that detail life with IBD, a condition that I have and have struggled with deeply in the past few months. Being mid-flare up and being off work for a few months with IBD, I couldn’t think of a more perfect time to read this.

I expected that the book would resonate, but I didn’t anticipate how much. There were so many nuances and intimacies of my own life that paralleled in ways that I didn’t expect - for example, basing my identity around her career, being profoundly impacted by the loss of her father, and the daily mental hurdles that accompany the physical ones. As a result, this book has had a profound impact on me. 

The reason I’ve given this 4* rather than 5, is because I feel that, at the start especially, the book oscillated dramatically between being a memoir, a self-help guide, and an essay critiquing the American healthcare system, which made it harder to follow. Also, large sections of this book are very specific to experiences within the US. This in itself isn’t a bad thing - the author does a great job of reminding the reader that her experiences are rooted within just that, HER experiences as a white, thin, cisgender woman living in America. But it did mean that, as someone not living in the US, large sections devoted to teaching the reader about how to apply for insurance didn’t apply. (But I’ve never been more thankful to have the NHS!)

Overall, I’d love for everyone to read this. This book was validating in so many ways to me as a chronically unwell person, and I think healthy folks could learn a lot about our experiences in these pages.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Chronic illness, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcoholism and Drug abuse

laurenkimoto's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

4.0

Why isn’t heart wrenching an option for the mood of the book??

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail