Irritable Hearts striking candor will win McClelland the empathy she deserves. -
The New York Times Book Review
A Buzzfeed Best Nonfiction Book of 2015
I had nightmares, flashbacks. I dissociated... Changes in self-perception and hallucinations-those are some of my other symptoms. You are poison, I chanted silently to myself. And your poison is contagious.
So begins Mac McClelland's powerful, unforgettable memoir, Irritable Hearts.
When thirty-year-old, award-winning human rights journalist Mac McClelland left Haiti after reporting on the devastating earthquake of 2010, she never imagined how the assignment would irrevocably affect her own life. Back home in California, McClelland cannot stop reliving vivid scenes of violence. She is plagued by waking terrors, violent fantasies, and crippling emotional breakdowns. She can't sleep or stop crying. Her life in shambles, it becomes clear that she is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Her bewilderment about this sudden loss of control is magnified by the intensity of her feelings for Nico, a French soldier she met in Port-au-Prince and with whom she connected instantly and deeply.
With inspiring fearlessness, McClelland tackles perhaps her most harrowing assignment to date: investigating the damage in her own mind and repairing her broken psyche. She begins to probe the depths of her illness, exploring our culture's history with PTSD, delving into the latest research by the country's top scientists and therapists, and spending time with veterans and their families. McClelland discovers she is far from alone: while we frequently associate PTSD with wartime combat, it is more often caused by other manner of trauma and can even be contagious-close proximity to those afflicted can trigger its symptoms. As she confronts the realities of her diagnosis, she opens up to the love that seems to have found her at an inopportune moment.
Irritable Hearts is a searing, personal medical mystery that unfolds at a breakneck pace. But it is also a romance. McClelland fights desperately to repair her heart so that she can give it to the kind, patient, and compassionate man with whom she wants to share a life. Vivid, suspenseful, tender, and intimate, Irritable Hearts is a remarkable exploration of vulnerability and resilience, control and acceptance. It is a riveting and hopeful story of survival, strength, and love. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story
Great book. Important book. A thank you for writing this sort of book.
McClelland is a journalist who experienced trauma while reporting in Haiti, and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. This book is a first-person memoir of the experience of having and healing PTSD, girded by research and resources on the science, psychology, and impact of PTSD in the world and how to heal it.
McClelland masters a delicate balance between wrenching, deeply personal experience and situating that experience within the context of other trauma survivors, particularly sexual assault survivors and soldiers. It's a hard balance and I cringed often in the early pages of the book, which leans more heavily on the author's personal history, but she does this purposefully. First she lays bear the trauma of experiencing trauma, as only a self-pillorying writer can do, critically examining and over-honestly recounting awful nuances of psychological pain. And crazy bitchiness. McClelland is brutal in her unveiling of the way PTSD can turn one into a crazy bitch-- overwhelmed by or deadened to emotion, hypervigilance unveiling itself as anger and self-protective cruelty. I write as one who also has PTSD, whose experiences have embodied so many of the words McClelland was able to write down. Things I can apologize for or give heads up to lovers about, but cannot articulate. Like I said: Thank you for writing.
I embodied similar experiences of suffering and healing in my own PTSD journey that McClelland writes, right down to embracing the explicit consent of BDSM sex as a healing mechanism, testing physical boundaries with a loving partner to demonstrate to myself that no, it wasn't the physical pain of my assault that was traumatizing-- I can handle pain, can embrace good kinds of pain-- it was the violation, the lack of control, the inability to protect myself. For me, BDSM play was a way to explore and differentiate assault and abuse from the act of sex, things that look very much alike but are so very very different. I remember reading the short essay she wrote soon into her recovery and the controversy that surrounded outting the use of violent sex as a healing mechanism-- even as survivors of sexual assault have long explored consensual BDSM play as a means to physically take back ownership of sex perverted by assault. Controversy is intellectually good, and it's worth reading the critiques of whose story is whose to tell, deeply considering the words to talk about the secondary trauma of witnesses and providers of support. But I am so thankful McClelland braved a world of shame and stigma to share her pain and process in all its mess. That's how this shit is. It is messy and complicated, surprising and embarrassing and awful. That's what McClelland captures-- the whole of it.
This book is a treasure because it's not a textbook but it is substantial. I have my list of psych resources I can list off when I have a new lover or am helping a friend. Those books can help someone learn the technical skills of coping. But what I appreciated about Irritable Hearts is that it tells a story of experiencing these textbook symptoms, and it shows the application of the healing process over time, in all its yo-yoing, layered complexity. It shows the difficulty and importance of growing relationships and love as a part of healing despite the ease with which trauma and abuse can transfer and replicate. This is one you can hand someone who cares but does not understand, one that is harsh and scary at times but shows with clarity and honesty the way that, yes, things can get better. It's a lot of work! But you can heal.
One final thought. I understand that it was some legal and care issues that prevented McClelland from fully disclosing the traumatic incident she witnessed that she feels pushed her over into PTSD. That means the things she does share in detail were all sexual assault close calls. This absence was so important. It prevented the reader from comparing herself with McClelland or other survivors, underlining the point that traumatic stress comes about through complex interconnected lifelong experiences of trauma interacting with one or many traumatic incidents over time. It kept the book readable for triggered trauma survivors-- I don't think I could have handled graphic details of sexual violence at the same time I was absorbing all the descriptions of psychological pain. And finally, it pushed McClelland to focus on the close calls themselves: sexual terror, as she finally allows herself to call it late in the book.
If you're trying to heal or understand PTSD, I also recommend:
- Trauma and Recovery
- Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma
- The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
- Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World: A Guide for Activists and Their Allies
- Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others
Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story As the book synopsis says, McClelland suffered PTSD after witnessing some horrible things as a journalist in post-earthquake Haiti. The book is mostly about her symptoms and her treatment and is also partly about saying I told you so to the people who didn't believe she had suffered anything traumatic.
I felt terrible for McClelland. It's clear that the after-effects of her trauma were far-reaching. She also makes it clear that this could happen to anyone, giving examples of PTSD diagnosed in survivors of Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks as well as soldiers, journalists, and rape victims. Current treatment isn't terribly effective and sufferers of PTSD struggle to get credibility.
But I had a hard time getting through the book. The writing was awkward, with overly-long sentences that I had to read several times. Pronouns also seemed to get in the way; I can't count how many times I had to read a paragraph two or three times to figure out what the word they or it was referring to. And the jumps back and forth through time were confusing since they involved the same characters. I'm not normally so sensitive to writing, but this got frustrating. Halfway through I decided I must have accidentally downloaded one of those self-published and unedited Amazon ebooks that I usually avoid, but Goodreads says the book had a publisher.
I'm not sure the book is worth it unless you're quite interested in PTSD. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story This is an amazing book in so many ways, not least of all because it takes you right into the heart and mind of someone with PTSD, a set of symptoms both behavioural and psychological, very complex, and very confusing not only to those who suffer them, but also to those who walk alongside those who experience them.
What matters here the most, in my opinion, is that Mac McClelland is not only someone who has experienced trauma and the consequences of it, but that she is a VERY capable writer. Her journalistic style, her diligent fact-checking and research - combined with fearless self-reflection and self-revelation - serve the story she is telling: a memoir of affliction and recovery, an exceptional piece of reporting, and a call to compassion and understanding.
Highly recommended.
Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story I've seen a lot of negative things said about this book, but after having read I just can't think we were reading the same book. All the negative comments were pretty much about the same thing, disbelief that what the author went through could cause PTSD or that the author was narcissistic. I just don't get that. The book is a serious opening to a much broader discussion about PTSD and all that we don't know about it. Trauma and trying to cope, it's both highly personal and not and is ongoing despite the best that medicine can currently do. My dad has been fighting PTSD my whole life after he was blown off the top of a tank. His sister? She had lifelong PTSD issues from seeing the wreck he was when he first came back from overseas. I don't think my dad would question this author's credentials or presentation for a moment. He'd understand, and I like to think I do too to at least some extent. It's not pleasant by any means, for obvious reasons, but it's a good book. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story (I feel a weird ethical obligation to say that I kinda know the author, or at least I used to IRL. We worked together for a few years (where she worked while doing the reporting she writes of here) and were union officers at that job together, because we're both awesome nerds like that.)
I'm pretty sure this is a book that will divide people, where a lot of people will love it to pieces, a lot will hate it all to hell, and a few in the middle will back away slowly from all of us.
Personally...I loved it. I didn't expect to, I thought I'd just like it, but...for a lot of reasons, it meant a lot to me. It climbed into my heart, and also made my heart want to leap out and into the pages and find its way to the author. People have had some FEELINGS about certain aspects of her work, but a lot of that was based on speculation, on hearsay, on assumptions, and the truth is a lot less salacious or dirty than the general rumors. People also have opinions on the validity of her illness, and seemingly on her worth as a person, a woman, a sufferer, on her right to own and be open about her truth, no matter who she is or what she's done...and seriously, if that's who you are, someone who questions someone else's pain and struggle, who thinks someone should just shut up because of the circumstances of their birth, you need to examine your own life.
But anyway...there is a lot here, and it can be very hard to read, but for me it was also very very poignant and beautiful and helpful. I feel like it might be wrong to say a book was good when it's about so much trauma, but for me, and I'm sure many others, it *is* good. It's a good thing in our world. Anything that can perhaps introduce a little more understanding and support and empathy into a world so lacking in all these things is a good thing. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story
This review might come off as self-serving. Reading this book was, for me, incredibly necessary. I have PTSD due to Military Sexual Trauma. I have had my diagnosis for 10 years, though the trauma occured nearly 17 years ago. Reading Mac McClelland's words, I found myself saying, either quietly to myself or out loud, on nearly every page, This is every day of my life. Someone understands.
Never have I seen a more accurate depiction of what I go through daily. I kept having to read passages to my husband. He gets it. He signed up for this, to see me through this, just as Nico did for Mac. Their conversations in bed are ones that my husband and I have had regularly.
Of particular interest to me was the wealth of information about somatic symptoms, as well as the admission of the need some trauma survivors have for violent sex, which has been true for me and left me utterly confused and ashamed and hating myself at times. I was also particularly interested in her journey through therapy. The VA info was useful as well, as I am currently trying to find my way through that maze.
Overall, it just made me feel less alone and a little more understood than usual. I want to make everyone I know read this book so that they might better understand me, but I know that's probably selfish. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story Regular people, whether they realize it or not, walk around believing, as you cannot make your way in the world without believing, that the universe is holding them.
Well, the people on our side of the line thought, the fuck it does.
^ Only how I have felt my entire life, NBD. In reading other reviews of this book. I think interpreting this as a work of literature is missing the point, because what is happening here is an attempt to advance and normalize the experience of trauma response and PTSD. McClelland wrote this book for other trauma survivors, and she did so in an attempt to counteract the isolation and stigma that accompanies it. I read this book 100% as an honorable effort to advance the normalization of trauma response in a culture that refuses to acknowledge the importance of mental health. Working as I do in a field in which secondary trauma is not only highly possible, but likely, I cannot understate the importance of this. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story I really wanted to like this book but reviewing this book was a difficult task. On the positive side I admired the author's writing and her raw openness about her condition and its effect upon her life. However, I couldn't help but question her credibility. Being somewhat familiar with her work, I found it very hard to understand how she was dissociating and crying maniacally and at the same time going undercover to write a piece about working in an Amazon warehouse. In addition, she starts the book by vague comments about being traumatized by an event she observed without specifics to make us understand what specific dangers she had been exposed to. Apparently, the person involved and her lawyer expressed that she had no authorization to speak about what happened to her, as she had reported specifics in an earlier article. However, that very lack of information undermines the rest of the book. She does present a great deal of valuable information about PTSD and self mutilation but doesn't build enough of a case to make her exposure believable. She did have a very troubling childhood which in itself could have led to severe emotional difficulties but I could not help judging the means and methods she went through to accomplish her goals. Her self portrayal was not very likable...and I had a hard time being sympathetic..I wish I could have been. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story I don't really think my rating on this book is fair. The rating and my enjoyment of the book were completely colored by my work. I spend the majority of each day in session with children and families who have experienced horrors. Many of them are struggling with PTSD because of it. This is a hard book to read for anyone (hard for me because I consider reading an escape and this one just had me diving deeper into the reality of life for so many people with whom I work) but if you're looking to better understand one perspective of how PTSD torments the mind, then this is a book for you. If you're a therapist, don't touch it unless you're in a place where you have plenty of time away from trauma in your work. It could be a resource for sufferers/supporters of PTSD but could also just be sentence after sentence of triggers. The theme that stood out most strongly for me was how PTSD drives people to compare their trauma with others' and how it can make you feel as if you haven't gone through enough to have earned your symptoms. So frustrating! In the end, if I had such a hard time merely reading this book, imagine what it's like to live it or support someone who is! A very brave and difficult work from McClelland. Grateful it exists to help normalize PTSD and reduce the enormous stigma surrounding diagnosis, symptomology and the ways people cope to survive. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story I don't want to trivialize what this writer went through, but I think she was still too close to tell this story. I heard Cheryl Strayed say recently that her husband told her for years to write about the hike that later became 'Wild' but she kept telling him there she didn't know what the story to tell was. It too her 15 years of reflection before she did. I think this writer and this book would have benefited from the same kind of reflection and distance. It felt very scattered to me. It wasn't until the end that I realized that the focus was really supposed to be the 'love story' between her and Nico. I felt like that got lost a bit. I also felt like Nico had some interesting parts of his life that should have been covered a little better so that he could have been a part of the love story too. Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story
Gabriel Mac Ó 0 REVIEW
