A part of one of the dozen-plus bookcases in my home.
Books have always been one of my great escapes. I was the kid who brought a book to the Superbowl party. My math teacher routinely confiscated books during class (I wasn’t as sneaky as I thought), and returned the stack on Friday. When I spent months in a hospital with Crohns Disease at age 14, I slipped away from the pain and homesickness in the deeper home of my books.
Three decades, my heart was in a hospital again, a piece of it anyway, the part that is called Nicholas. Books came to the rescue again. I went back to old favorites, because I needed to make sure they would do their job- uplift me, rather than bring emotional upset. My emotions were already plenty upset.
Here is some of my reading list from that time:
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, and then all the sequels.
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon, and then all the other Mitford books
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Although I preferred to read to escape, I also read to help me with the steep learning curve of parenting a kid with mental illness. There are many, many books for this. Some that helped me the most:
You are Not Alone by Dena Yohe
The Novelist by Angela Hunt (this is fiction exploring the parent’s heart when a young adult son first develops a mental illness- creative and healing)
Stop Walking on Eggshells by Paul T. Mason and Randi Kreger
Full disclosure: I also watched a lot of TV. I remember watching many episodes of Bones, which ran in 3-4 hour stretches during the times in between visiting hours. All those experts and interns became my TV friends.
How about you? How do you escape and soothe when things are overwhelming?
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