I know! Isn't it a thousand times better, and you're not even into the awesome passages that come later! It, for me, obviously had a very personal connection, but it's just a good reference book in general. I learned almost as much about the neuroscience behind OCD in "Tormenting Thoughts" as I did about mood disorders in "The Bipolar Survival Guide." (Not bipolar, but wanted to learn about it w/out stereotypes, and it told you everything!) Here's the part that made me go, "OMG! That's me!" the most: later in the book, a husband says his wife meets him at the door every day when he gets home from work with a "barrage of confessions", like, "The baby put his finger in the formula," and "The baby got too close to an ant trap", and she had to get them off of her chest in order to feel better. NEVER read something that described my confessions of inane things sooo well! I was the person who had to confess every single blasphemous/violent/sexual obsession I had to my mother, and she, like the husband, would either wearily give me the reassurance compulsion I needed, or most of the time, would get angry that I was telling her these stupid things. Now, if I confess, it's actually something somewhat worthwile, but honest to God, I have never lied to my mother; I have to tell her everything. I've always had this, though- I remember one incident in particular vividly that my mother would relate the above 12-year-old confessions to: I would tell her crap like, "Mommy, I touched my shoe!" over and over again when I was four. She called it "tattling on myself", and how right she turned out to be! ;) (Oh, here's some "OCD-sickness" for you: the sentences I put in quotes from the book are actually word for word, what it says, and no, I wasn't typing it looking at the page! Isn't that awful?! :D )
-GatsbyLuvr1920-