Mental illness is always sad. Somehow it can seem even more tragic when the sufferer is a gifted young person as in the case of writer Emma Forrest who details her battle with this debilitating illness in her memoir Your Voice In My Head. She spares neither details nor people, least of all herself in relating her experiences with depression and obsession.
At the age of 22 Forrest’s future held great promise. She was the child of a caring family, and was soon to have her first novel published. She moved to Manhattan to continue writing where she was lonely and bulemic. For all of her intelligence and promise it isn’t long before Forrest embarks on a destructive path - binging, purging, casual, harmful sexual relationships. So harmful that “sex didn’t register unless it hurt,” and she finds herself in a hospital emergency ward.
Following that she sought the help of a psychiatrist, Dr. R., who does manage to help her although it is a battle for several years as she continues to form hurtful relationships and attempts suicide. Nonetheless, once her life seems to be turned around, she learns that Dr. R. Has died quite suddenly. She is alone again, abandoned.
Next she tackles screen writing and moves from New York to Beverly Hills where she embarks upon an affair with a famous actor (this would probably be about 2008 - 2009). He swears to love her and to want to have babies with her; she believes him and even picks out a name if the child is a girl - Pearl.) Before long he dumps her for no apparent reason. Although she doesn’t name the actor in her memoir Google does - Colin Farrell. What lethal parents they would have made.
Listeners are left to believe that Forrest continues to struggle. There is naught that one can do save to wish her well. Your Voice In My Head is a fearlessly candid memoir, not an easy listen but surely an absorbing one.
- Gail Cooke
No comments:
Post a Comment