Passing for Normal: A Memoir of Compulsion

About this book

"What I remember even more distinctly than the incidents of cruelty and confusion intolerance and avoidance--more vividly than standing in front of the mirror watching my head move with no conscious instruction from me--is the strain of trying to conceal my tics and rituals from others especially those closest to me my own family most of all." The provocative memoir of a young womans struggle to come to terms with a life plagued by irrational behavior. I am crazy. But maybe I am not. For most of her life this thought haunted Amy Wilensky as she watched her body do things she couldnt control repeatedly twitching and contorting into awkward positions. Her mind lurched and veered in ways she didnt understand: She felt that she must touch wood at all times to ward off harm that chewing a wad of stale gum would prevent a plane crash. Why couldnt she throw away meaningless scraps of paper? Why were six-word sentences strangely satisfying? While Amy excelled in school and led an otherwise "normal" life she worried that beneath the surface she was a freak that there was something irrevocably wrong with her. It wasnt until she happened upon the book The Boy Who Couldnt Stop Washing after graduating from college that she realized she might be among the approximately 5 million Americans afflicted with Tourettes syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Passing for Normal is Amys emotionally charged account of her lifelong struggle with these often misunderstood disorders. A powerful witness to her own dysfunction she describes the strain it bore on her relationships with the people she thought she knew best: her family her friends and her self. Confronting the labels we apply to ourselves and others--compulsive crazy out of control--Amy describes her symptoms diagnosis and treatment with courage and a healthy dose of humor gradually coming to terms with the absurdities of a life beset by irrational behavior. This compelling narrative by turns tragic and comic broadly extends our understanding of the wondrously complex human mind and with subtlety and grace challenges our notion of what it is to be "normal."