Pathological
The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses
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Narrated by:
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Gabra Zackman
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By:
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Sarah Fay
About this listen
AN APPLE BOOKS PICK OF THE MONTH
“Masterfully written, distinctively researched, deeply humane . . . Genius.”—ANTHONY SWOFFORD, author of Jarhead
“A major contribution . . . A necessary book.”—JOHANN HARI, author of Lost Connections
“This book is a triumph of the spirit and the flesh.”—ELIZA GRISWOLD, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Amity and Prosperity
In this stunning debut—both a memoir and a work of investigative journalism—writer Sarah Fay explores the ways we pathologize human experiences.
Over thirty years, doctors diagnosed Sarah Fay with six different mental illnesses—anorexia, major depressive disorder (MDD), anxiety disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and bipolar disorder.
Pathological is the gripping story of what it was like to live with those diagnoses, and the crippling impact each had on her life. It is also a rigorous investigation into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—psychiatry’s “bible,” the manual from which all mental illness diagnoses come. Yet as Fay found out, some of our most prominent psychiatrists have been trying to warn us that the DSM is fiction sold to the public as fact.
In Pathological, former advisory editor at The Paris Review and award-winning writer Fay calls for a new conversation about mental health diagnosis, one based on rigorous transparency. With exquisite detail and a precise presentation of fact, she digs up her own life at the root to finally ask, Is a diagnosis a lifeline or a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Powerful, mesmerizing, and unputdownable, Pathological sits alongside the other brave and inspiring classics of our time that explore a more intelligent, forgiving, and nuanced approach to human suffering.
©2022 Sarah Fay (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2015, Barbara Lipska - a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness - was diagnosed with melanoma that had spread to her brain. Within months, her frontal lobe, the seat of cognition, began shutting down. She descended into madness, exhibiting dementia- and schizophrenia-like symptoms that terrified her family and coworkers. But miraculously, the immunotherapy her doctors had prescribed worked quickly. Just eight weeks after her nightmare began, Lipska returned to normal. With one difference: she remembered her brush with madness with exquisite clarity.
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Be Prepared To Feel Insane--
- By Gillian on 04-11-18
By: Barbara K. Lipska, and others
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Danger to Self
- On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist
- By: Paul R. Linde
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The psychiatric emergency room, a fast-paced combat zone with pressure to match, thrusts its medical providers into the outland of human experience where they must respond rapidly and decisively in spite of uncertainty and, very often, danger. In this lively first-person narrative, Paul R. Linde takes listeners behind the scenes at an urban psychiatric emergency room, with all its chaos and pathos, where we witness mental health professionals doing their best to alleviate suffering.
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Terrible narration
- By Leah on 12-16-12
By: Paul R. Linde
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Hope and Other Luxuries
- A Mother’s Journey Through a Daughter’s Anorexia
- By: Clare B. Dunkle
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Clare Dunkle seemed to have an ideal life - two beautiful, high-achieving teenage daughters, a loving husband, and a satisfying and successful career as a children's book novelist. But it's when you let down your guard that the ax falls. Just after one daughter successfully conquered her depression, another daughter developed a life-threatening eating disorder.
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Potent and Real
- By Susie on 09-17-15
By: Clare B. Dunkle
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The Boy Who Loved Too Much
- A True Story of Pathological Friendliness
- By: Jennifer Latson
- Narrated by: Heather Auden
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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What would it be like to see everyone as a friend? Twelve-year-old Eli D'Angelo has a genetic disorder that obliterates social inhibitions, making him irrepressibly friendly, indiscriminately trusting, and unconditionally loving toward everyone he meets. It also makes him enormously vulnerable. Eli lacks the innate skepticism that will help his peers navigate adolescence more safely - and vastly more successfully.
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Williams Syndrome
- By Sharlotte on 09-20-19
By: Jennifer Latson
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Girl in Need of a Tourniquet
- Memoir of a Borderline Personality
- By: Merri Lisa Johnson
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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An honest and compelling memoir, Girl in Need of a Tourniquet is Merri Lisa Johnson’s account of her borderline personality disorder and how it has affected her life and relationships. Johnson describes the feeling of "bleeding out" unable to tell where she stopped and where her partner began. A self-confessed "psycho girlfriend," she was influenced by many emotional factors from her past. She recalls her path through a dysfunctional, destructive relationship, while recounting the experiences that brought her to her breaking point.
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Chaotic, disturbing, meaningless
- By BRB on 04-02-14
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Sybil Exposed
- The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
- By: Debbie Nathan
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist Debbie Nathan reveals the true story behind the famous case of Sybil, the woman with sixteen different personalities.
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No definitive answer, just speculations all around
- By Amy A on 12-30-18
By: Debbie Nathan
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Carly's Voice
- Breaking Through Autism
- By: Arthur Fleischmann, Carly Fleischmann
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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At the age of two, Carly Fleischmann was diagnosed with severe autism and an oral motor condition that prevented her from speaking. Doctors predicted that she would never intellectually develop beyond the abilities of a small child. Although she made some progress after years of intensive behavioral and communication therapy, Carly remained largely unreachable. Then, at age 10, Carly had a breakthrough....
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A peek inside...
- By Yolanda on 08-09-13
By: Arthur Fleischmann, and others
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A Stitch of Time
- The Year a Brain Injury Changed My Language and Life
- By: Lauren Marks
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Lauren Marks was 27 when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain and left her fighting for her life. She woke up in a hospital soon after with serious deficiencies to her reading, speaking, and writing abilities, and an unfamiliar diagnosis: aphasia. This would be shocking news for anyone, but Lauren was a voracious reader, an actress, director, dramaturg, and pursuing her PhD. At any other period of her life, this diagnosis would have been a devastating blow. But she woke up...different.
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Absolutely wonderful book
- By SJMT on 01-27-19
By: Lauren Marks
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An Apple a Day
- A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia
- By: Emma Woolf
- Narrated by: Emma Woolf
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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I haven't tasted chocolate for over ten years and now I'm walking down the street unwrapping a Kit Kat. Remember when Kate Moss said, 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'? She's wrong: chocolate does. At the age of 32, after ten years of hiding from the truth, Emma Woolf finally decided it was time to face the biggest challenge of her life. Addicted to hunger, exercise and control, she was juggling a full-blown eating disorder with a successful career, functioning on an apple a day.
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A memoir of a silver spoon, maybe.
- By S. covely on 06-05-16
By: Emma Woolf
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10:04
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.
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A novel worth reading
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 01-29-15
By: Ben Lerner
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Weekends at Bellevue
- By: Julie Holland MD
- Narrated by: Julie Holland MD
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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His name was Joshua Silver. He was 23 years old, educated, and had an impressive vocabulary. The NYPD had found Joshua Silver naked in Times Square, barking like a dog. It was just another night for Julie Holland, the attending doctor in the world famous Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric emergency room.
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An Uneven Memoir
- By A. M. Dalessandro on 09-24-10
By: Julie Holland MD
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This Is How I Save My Life
- From California to India, a True Story of Finding Everything When You Are Willing to Try Anything
- By: Amy B. Scher
- Narrated by: Amy B. Scher
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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When Amy B. Scher was struck with undiagnosed late-stage, chronic Lyme disease, the best physicians in America labeled her condition incurable and potentially terminal. Deteriorating rapidly, she went on a search to save her own life - from the top experts in Los Angeles and the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis to a state-of-the-art hospital in Chicago. After exhausting all of her options in the US, she discovered a possible cure - but it was highly experimental, available only in India, and had as much of a probability of killing her as it did of curing her.
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A great comfort
- By Sue on 07-07-18
By: Amy B. Scher
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Committed
- Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training
- By: Adam Stern MD
- Narrated by: Adam Stern MD
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Adam Stern was a student at a state medical school before being selected to train as a psychiatry resident at one of the most prestigious programs in the country. His new and initially intimidating classmates were high achievers from the Ivy League and other elite universities. Faculty raved about the group as though the residency program had won the lottery, nicknaming them “The Golden Class”, but would Stern ever prove that he belonged? In his memoir, Stern pulls back the curtain on the intense and emotionally challenging lessons he and his fellow doctors learned.
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Thank you for reminding me,
- By Ms D on 12-29-21
By: Adam Stern MD
What listeners say about Pathological
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ann S
- 10-09-22
very interesting
I appreciated all the information as well as the personal experience of the author.
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- Anonymous
- 08-26-22
Psych PhD's opinion!
Loved it. I get how mental health professionals use the DSM as a "bible" without questioning it and dismiss patients perception. I also get how mental health professionals are overworked and sometimes make crazy decisions or don't keep up with the literature. Some need more intellectual humility and compassion. The author understands this and gives a balanced account. Her personal story makes it better because the story is her LIFE and this is what's important, not the diagnosis. I differ from other reviews that the story is scattered....that's usually how patients and pretty much everyone tells a story. This makes it more authentic. Also it helps by not making this book a textbook about the dsm.
The chapter on solitude was my favorite hands down. The extrovert world always has a negative opinion on solitude unless you're a monk.
The narration is PERFECT.
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- bosco
- 06-08-24
Really wild ride
I was curious about this book because of the mental health issues that have troubled my niece for years. In the case of the author, I wonder why she wound up going down the path of drug treatment by psychiatrists and medical doctors rather than a more talk based treatment by psychologists. I would want to exhaust all the talk and behavior therapy options with a drug free and clean mind first before I resorted to therapy that used mind altering drugs and the side effects. The book was very insightful.
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- Cristy
- 07-13-24
Incisive and fascinating
Though I don’t agree with every point the author makes about diagnoses (since my ADHD med has precluded the need for any other meds) I appreciate her exploration of the lack of validity of the DSM versions. There is a lot of work to be done in this area.
The story was well told. I especially appreciate the author’s willingness to disclose this journey despite the threat of stigma.
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- Desiree Gonzalez
- 10-20-22
Excelente historia
Creo que la historia se extendió más que lo que debería, sin embargo es un excelente libro. Me abrió los ojos acerca de la medicina en el mundo de la psiquatría. Es impresionante y triste saber que el estado actual de ese sistema es tan deficiente y con bases tan mal estructuradas.
Sarah pasó de ser una persona que creía en todo lo que sus médicos decían, a cuestionarse e investigar, que es algo que todos deberíamos aprender a hacer. Sin embargo, considero que aún faltó más información científica en el libro,
En general me gustó y sí lo recomiendo ya que no estamos excentos a estar en este tipo de situaciones, y es mejor conocer cómo funciona esta línea de la medicina.
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- Me
- 12-21-23
Thank you
Thank you for sharing your story and breaking the stigma! Will have to learn punctuation another time :)
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- Cynthia Scott
- 04-10-22
good book leaving me furious
if you're "bipolar" think again and READ this and try not to kill your "Dr"
wow!
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11 people found this helpful
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- MRO30
- 11-17-22
Love it
Well written. The story cautivated me.
An inside view on how little we know about mental illnesses and how the "business" focus of the pharmaceutical industry don't help. Everytime there is more and more medication prescription without learning more about the root cause and other solutions.
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- J. T. Conn
- 07-09-22
Balanced perspective
As one who has seen the unscientific assignment of symptoms into categories that every person could fall into, I found Pathological a great book. Psychiatry and psychology are important fields. The DSM has a beneficial purpose. But as is true for most things, it is also a tool that has been used for much gain.
I truly appreciated the journey of Sarah And her openness about the problems with the DSM.
Hopefully, this book will help people make informed decisions about their mental health. Highly recommend
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25 people found this helpful
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- Jonathan I. Rosenblatt
- 09-16-22
Shattering and important
Carefully researched and cleverly structured. The trope of exploring the history of punctuation adds a lyrical dimension. This book is a gut punch to the pathologizing mental health complex. If I were the DSM, I’d make sure my résumé was up to date. One of those books that turns the lights on! I’ll
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