Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Glass
A Psychologist's Memoir

Just finished reading Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Glass. A very good book on reaching for memories of an abused childhood and her recovery in following them. An inspirational book of extreme courage. "How do you find peace? Do you sit under a tree and wait? Will it come by if you are quite enough, li......more

A teenage mental patient endures dozens of shock treatments that cause her to lose all her memories. Years later, as a psychologist herself, she uncovers her medical records, which leads her to rediscover the traumatic memories that triggered her collapse as a young adult. One of the fascinating thin......more

To illustrate her entire point, when I first started this, I was like ‘wow, she was crazy’ but there was so. much. more. to it. Her thesis on psychiatric diagnoses being influenced by provider bias is so relevant, especially considering the detrimental effects of treatments on misdiagnosed patients.......more

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.) Annita Perez Sawyer's memoir Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Glass is hugely typical of a type of book we get se......more

I gave the book 2 stars because the author kept the reader at a safe arm’s length throughout the book. I do not blame her for this. She revealed a lot of personal information about her life to the whole world that few are brave enough to do in the name of self-healing, in the name of fighting the st......more