JUNE memoir of the month: Good Morning, Monster.
Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery is one of those rare, treasured booked I have not been able to put down. Catherine Gildiner, New York Times best-selling author and clinical psychologist, tells the story of five of her patients and what lead them to seek counseling. With the permission of each patient, Gildiner, recounts her therapy sessions with each individual, writing how their childhood was the direct correlation to each one’s personal struggles as an adult.
We have a young girl in her 20s, an exceptionally hard worker, climbing the corporate ladder but revved up with constant anger. Where did all this anger come from? Then there is Danny, a stoic but gentle native-American whose wife and daughter just died but he can’t feel any emotions about the tragedy. He is completed numb. Where did his feelings go? Then there is the quiet, kind Asian man, desperate to date and get married but unable to look a women in the eyes without melting into a pool of anxiety. Why do women make him feel so self-conscious? These are a few of the stories that will grip your heart.
As each story progresses we learn how their youth contributed to their mental health struggles as an adult, but what is fascinating to read about is that these adults were not even aware they had childhood trauma. Their anger, silence, and anxiety came from their upbringing? It sure did. As the book progresses it’s impossible not to wonder how many adults are going through life unaware they have childhood trauma that is holding them back? And now a few more reasons you must read this memoir!
3 Reasons This Book Will Change Your Life :
1. You will learn about therapy techniques that actually work.
In the book, you will learn what therapy techniques Gildiner taught or encouraged her clients to do to help them overcome their anxiety, depression, and anger. The stories in this book not only gripped me, but I found this book to be almost more educational and healing than therapy sessions I’ve personally had.
2. You will see (with the right tools) a mental illness can be cured.
In our world today, it’s so easy to put power to sentences like “I live with anxiety” or “Depression is a part of my life,” but what if you decided not to own these taglines and instead worked to overcome these labels? That is just what these five individuals do. A daughter of alcoholics learns how to dissolve her anger, a son of immigrant parents overcomes all his anxiety, and an Indian man, overwhelmed by chronic depression, climbs out of it to become one of the most sought-after healers in Native groups. If you don’t believe a mental illness can be overcome, then it’s time to read this book.
3. You will find an appreciation for your upbringing, no matter how unconventional it was.
If you are stuck in how different you wish your childhood was, as we often are as adults, this book will help you to see it through a different lens, a more observant, less critical one. As a daughter of a mental health condition myself, I have had to sort out a great deal of anger among the adults around me who I felt could have done more for my mother when she was in the depths of her mental health challenges. Reading this book, helped me to see that we all have parts of our upbringing we wish were different, but learning to find what valuable skills we developed as a result of an unidyllic childhood is the KEY to abolishing our mental health challenges as an adult.
