Your Voice In My Head

Emma Forrest, 2011

I basically could not stop reading from the moment I opened this book. Four stars.

Oh, you want to know more?

I wasn’t familiar with Emma Forrest until my local bookshop advertised for a reading/talk she was giving for her new book, Busy Being Free (which I will be reading asap). But one of the booksellers mentioned that her first memoir was “about her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.” I ordered the book on the spot, picked it up a few days later, and read it in one sitting.

I wouldn’t say the brief description above is complete, but it’s not wrong. It is about Forrest’s struggle with mental illness, which apparently includes borderline, although there is only one mention of it.* But it’s also about the pressures of being a young woman, about feeling confused about male attention, about writing, meeting famous people, living in New York City. It’s about a lot. Forrest lovingly describes her doctor, who was kind and patient, and critically — who helped her and so many other people before he suddenly died. And she unpacks a devastating relationship with a man she calls GH.

Why did I feel desperate to read about someone’s experience with borderline? My therapist once told me that it sounded as if someone close to me has it. That person has never sought medical help, so of course this diagnosis is only a guess by a stranger, albeit a qualified doctor. The therapist told me that people with borderline rarely seek medical help because one of the main symptoms is that they don’t realize anything is wrong. And so I made my peace with that. But I was fascinated to read about someone else’s experience with mental illness and sought help.

Emma Forrest gave an enthralling talk this week at my local bookshop. All through the event, I was equally intrigued and jealous of the people close to her who get the benefit of a relationship with a healthy person. That is something I gave up on a long time ago.

Still, Your Voice In My Head is a completely engrossing account of Forrest’s spiral and recovery. Her descriptions of her worst moments are compelling and incredibly vivid. Unforgettable. Four stars.

*Her new book explains that her doctor never told her his diagnosis, but that she found a diagnosis in his notes after his death. She also notes that she has been well for several years.