Key Themes: family struggle, mental health institutions, anorexia,
depression, extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder, Child and
development psychology, Family Psychology, Abnormal Psychology,
Mental Health Services, Memoirs, Autobiography, Coping with Eating
Disorders, Coping with Death & Bereavement "Human life is
suffering but Sybil Macindoe suffered more than others with a
severe and complex mental health problem, known as Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Anorexia Nervosa. It was an extremely
distressing and handicapping condition for both her and family that
ultimately led to her tragic death. This book provides some insight
into both the experience of Sybil as well as that of her carers and
professionals. We can all learn from her narrative and from the
different perspectives of her family and carers. I felt moved by
her experience and was left wishing that she could have taken
advantage of the newer developments in treating OCD. The impact of
OCD on the family is often hidden. Her family s observations and
narrative are extremely balanced and provide a cautionary tale for
sufferers, carers and professionals alike. There is lots of
information and self help material about OCD but this book is a
valuable addition to our knowledge about OCD and Anorexia Nervosa
and its impact on others." David Veale, Consultant Psychiatrist in
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, South London and Maudsley Trust and
the Priory Hospital North London. Description Tehran, spring 1978:
Into the political maelstrom of Iranian revolutionary activity is
born a severely premature baby, Sybil Macindoe. Where and why will
this child s life end tragically twenty years later? Sybil,
crucially, is separated from her mother by the Iranian medics, and
when she finally goes home, her isolated and inexperienced parents
struggle to manage her care as events crescendo around them. Her
mentally unwell mother, an American academic and feminist with a
troubled background, cannot cope. The same toxic mixture of
ingredients will threaten Sybil s survival throughout her young
life: bad genes, adverse environmental triggers, family
dysfunction, and inadequate medical institutions. Her mother traces
these interacting influences as Sybil grows up later in
fundamentalist Qatar and then immigrates with her family to the UK,
where a mixed array of mental health institutions deals unevenly
with the things in her head anorexia, depression, and an extreme
version of obsessive-compulsive disorder that includes bizarre
religious fixations. So that readers may draw their own
conclusions, her mother s confessional narrative is interwoven with
other viewpoints of carers and administrators, family members,
friends and especially the raw diaries of Sybil herself,
intelligent and bewildered, generous and paranoid. This memoir pays
tribute to Sybil s brave struggle, is instructive for anyone
involved with the onset and treatment of mental illness, and also
tells an eventful and moving family story. About the Author Born a
New Yorker, Lois Chaber was absorbed in a conventional academic
career as a scholar/teacher in Eighteenth-Century English
Literature until she was lured away to the Middle East in the
mid-1970s by her third husband, a dynamic New Zealander. There,
they experienced first-hand the turbulent triumph of Islamic
fundamentalism in this oil-rich region and eventually left with
Sybil and her younger sister Molly for London, where Lois has
taught for a decade in a small American university. Various family
misfortunes reached their climax in 1999 with Sybil s tragic
suicide, which compelled Lois to begin her memoir. A life-long
anxiety/depression sufferer, Lois presently benefits from her
psychotropic medicine, Quaker meetings, good literature, purring
cats, the Jane Fonda Workout, and many rewarding relationships. She
is committed to supporting various mental health charities.
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