Erasing the Stigma of Mental Illness. Review of Jennifer Liberatore, You Wonderful Boy: A mother’s bond with her son through his severe OCD, addiction, and his death (Buffalo: NFB Publishing, 2025)
This book interested me because I had a dear friend with severe OCD. He passed away a little while before COVID. Like Zachary, my friend was highly intelligent, sensitive, and kind. Like Zach, his accomplishments demonstrated great potential, before OCD took its toll. During those times when my friend’s OCD was “under control” with psychiatric medications, he had some qualify of life (although these drugs were not without side effects). Unfortunately, it seems that Zach’s illness was never “controlled” by prescription medications. The only relief he ever got from the constantly intrusive thoughts came from self-medicating with addictive substances, with tragic results. Each person is unique; each situation is different.
I thought the author did a wonderful job of telling Zach’s story. Would that we all could have families as loving and supportive as this one! In my friend’s case, he had suffered trauma in childhood. In Zach’s case, however, there was no cause that could be pointed to. Like Zach, my friend was as strong an advocate as he could be for erasing the stigma about mental illness.
This was a book I had trouble putting down. It is a loving mother’s wonderful tribute to a son who struggled with so much, yet gave so much to others. And of course, perhaps just as important, it is a story about working through grief, spiritually, a process that cannot be rushed.
(Amazon, 4-20-26. See also my blog post, “Remembering Samuel Lucas Benick,” 1-20-20, https://christinagwaldman.com/2020/01/20/remembering-samuel-lucas-benick/)
A Powerful Tour de Force! Review of Katherine Luise Ross, The Erasure of Mikhail Yeyegov (Buffalo: NFB Publishing, 2024)
I could not put this book down! It could be the basis for a compelling movie.
Stalin reportedly said, “The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions, a statistic.” He was wrong. The unjust death of a million is a million tragedies–multiplied by the number of lives each person’s life touched and affected.
I found this book to be a moving testament to the importance of family and connection throughout the generations. I am glad to have read it and grateful to the author for spending the time researching and writing it. We are all members of the same human family. An injustice to one of us is an injustice to all.
There is great power in a story told simply and well. We can’t change the past, but we can use it to help us understand ourselves and our loved ones better. Hopefully we can learn how not to repeat the mistakes of the past on a national and international scale.
“The Erasure of Mikhail Yeyegov” is an eloquent tribute to a man whose life mattered. All of our lives matter.
(Amazon, 5-11-26)