Review: I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can by Barbara Gordon

Dear Lit Loves,
So I've finished my third manuscript and am querying agents and publishers presently.  As I tell them and  as you all know, Cheryl Strayed and Jen Lancaster have nothing on me when it comes to astonishing  and adventuresome memoirs.  When I finish a manuscript I always reward myself by buying books in the genre in which I write:  memoir.  I'm so well-acquainted with this genre that I now have medical specialists ask me if I know of a memoir about this particular medical issue or condition.  Need a book for a patient with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?  How about one regarding Anorexia?  Or maybe one about Autism?  You guessed it!  I always have a recommendation up my sleeve or in my journal. 

Most recently I read I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can by Barbara Gordon.  Now, this was an interesting memoir because it was written before memoirs became spectacularly popular in the mainstream.  Ms. Gordon's book was first published back in 1979.   This is a story about a woman who at first glance has it all:  she's a documentary filmmaker with several Emmys, she has a comfortable apartment in New York, good friends, and a devoted boyfriend.  At this point I know disaster has to strike because that's the only way I'm going to keep reading.  I knew something was up when she started popping Valium tablets like jelly beans.  Then she would have panic attacks while walking the streets of New York and could not enter stores without the potential of a full anxiety melt-down.  Her boyfriend starts showing signs of aggressive, volatile behavior.  Her therapist is not much help as he thinks all she needs is prescription meds for anxiety.  The next thing you know, Ms. Gordon decides to stop taking her anti-anxiety medication and get this, her psychiatrist endorses the notion.  This sends her into a major withdrawal at the same time that her boyfriend decides that because she's falling apart, it will destroy him too; therefore, he becomes violent, pushy, paranoid, and aggressive with her.   Let's put it this way, I was ready to drop-kick him right off the top of her apartment building by this point in the book.

Eventually, Ms. Gordon lands in one mental hospital, stays for six weeks, and is really no better off than she was when she entered.  Fortunately, her boyfriend took the hint and left.  Ms. Gordon eventually lands in a larger, higher quality mental health facility where she spends six months evaluating everything in her life:  her childhood, her relationship with her parents, her work, a divorce, an affair with a married man, and finally, the dysfunctional relationship she had with her boyfriend.  It takes five months before the woman is able to stitch together enough confidence and understanding to get reacquainted with her life on the outside of the hospital.  Fortunately, she had a top-notch therapist inside the hospital and is helped along by several patients she meets there during her stay. 

This memoir is an accurate portrayal of what happens when someone numbs themselves to their problems and anxieties via medication; it's a testament to how tricky it is to find a just right connection between a patient and therapist, it's an example of the stigma associated with mental illness and any kind of stay in a mental health facility, and it's a testament to the power a woman has to save herself not through medication, doctors,  or excessive amounts of work, but through her own best efforts to get to know herself, recognize her weaknesses, and a willingness get the help she needs to resolve her life issues and anxieties on her own.  Essentially, you are your own best advocate.

Till my next update,
Grace