
Strangers to Ourselves
Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
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Narrated by:
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Andi Arndt
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By:
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Rachel Aviv
About this listen
2022 The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Yea, Long-listed
2022 Vogue Magazine Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Los Angeles Times Holiday Books Guide, Long-listed
2023 National Book Critics Circle Award - Nominee, Short-listed
2022 Wall Street Journal Best Books of the Yea, Long-listed
2022 BookPage Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 New Yorker Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Time Magazine Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2022 Washington Post Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
The highly anticipated debut from the acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv compels us to examine how the stories we tell about mental illness shape our sense of who we are.
In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children’s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn’t know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.
Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
©2022 Rachel Aviv (P)2022 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- A Memoir of Moods and Madness
- By: Kay Redfield Jamison
- Narrated by: Kay Redfield Jamison
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Abridged
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Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide.
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It Says Unabridged. That is incorrect.
- By Casey Wagner on 10-17-11
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Wave
- A Memoir
- By: Sonali Deraniyagala
- Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived. In this brave and searingly frank memoir, she describes those first horrifying moments and her long journey since. She has written an engrossing, unsentimental, beautifully poised account: as she struggles through the first months following the tragedy, furiously clenched against a reality that she cannot face and cannot deny....
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Tragic. Raw. Heart-Ripping!
- By CBlox on 03-19-13
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Virus of the Mind
- The New Science of the Meme
- By: Richard Brodie
- Narrated by: Richard Brodie
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
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Virus of the Mind is the first popular work devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. Here, the author carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and others who have become fascinated with memes and their potential impact on our lives.
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The "Memes Explain Everything" Meme.
- By Nelson Alexander on 02-20-10
By: Richard Brodie
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Far from the Tree
- Parents, Children and the Search for Identity
- By: Andrew Solomon
- Narrated by: Andrew Solomon
- Length: 40 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A brilliant and utterly original thinker, Andrew Solomon's journey began from his experience of being the gay child of straight parents. He wondered how other families accommodate children who have a variety of differences: families of people who are deaf, who are dwarfs, who have Down syndrome, who have autism, who have schizophrenia, who have multiple severe disabilities, who are prodigies, who commit crimes, who are transgender.
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A Gripping Masterpiece
- By C. Beaton on 12-14-12
By: Andrew Solomon
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Brain on Fire
- My Month of Madness
- By: Susannah Cahalan
- Narrated by: Susannah Cahalan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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When 24-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: At the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?
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A must read for anyone in the medical field, and anyone who has ever gone undiagnosed.
- By Sarah M Valentino on 05-13-20
By: Susannah Cahalan
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Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs
- A Journey Through the Deep State
- By: Kerry Howley
- Narrated by: Nikki Massoud
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections—a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help.
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Really good - But Too Much Focus on Reality Winner
- By Kindle Customer on 07-14-23
By: Kerry Howley
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The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control
- A Path to Peace and Power
- By: Katherine Morgan Schafler
- Narrated by: Katherine Morgan Schafler
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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We’ve been looking at perfectionism all wrong. As psychotherapist and former on-site therapist at Google Katherine Morgan Schafler argues in The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, you don’t have to stop being a perfectionist to be healthy. For women who are sick of being given the generic advice to “find balance,” a new approach has arrived.
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The Life Changing Book I didn’t know I needed
- By S. RINCON on 04-23-23
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The Center Cannot Hold
- By: Elyn R. Saks
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor of psychiatry Elyn R. Saks writes about her struggle with schizophrenia in this unflinching account of her mental illness. In The Center Cannot Hold, Saks draws readers into a nightmare world of medications, a misguided health-care system, and social stigmas. But she would not be defeated. With a strength and force of will that most can only imagine, Saks reclaimed her life and went on to achieve great success.
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Schizophrenia Inside Out
- By Pamela Harvey on 07-23-09
By: Elyn R. Saks
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Darkness Visible
- A Memoir of Madness
- By: William Styron
- Narrated by: William Styron
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his experience of crippling depression. Styron is perhaps the first writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychic landscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.
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Intimate and revealing
- By S. Yates on 01-31-18
By: William Styron
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Invisible Child
- Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
- By: Andrea Elliott
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
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Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott
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The Big Leap
- By: Gay Hendricks
- Narrated by: Gay Hendricks
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks, the New York Times bestselling author of Five Wishes, demonstrates how to eliminate the barriers to success by overcoming false fears and beliefs. Fans of Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, and The Secret will find useful, effective tips for breaking down the walls to a better life in The Big Leap.
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Inspiring, useful, a little preachy but VERY good
- By Monica Raven on 08-20-09
By: Gay Hendricks
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Invisible Rulers
- The People Who Turn Lies into Reality
- By: Renee DiResta
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
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Renée DiResta’s powerful, original investigation into the way power and influence have been profoundly transformed reveals how a virtual rumor mill of niche propagandists increasingly shapes public opinion. While propagandists position themselves as trustworthy Davids, their reach, influence, and economics make them classic Goliaths—invisible rulers who create bespoke realities to revolutionize politics, culture, and society. Their work is driven by a simple maxim: if you make it trend, you make it true.
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the more things change...
- By Gina S. on 07-01-24
By: Renee DiResta
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Livewired
- The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain
- By: David Eagleman
- Narrated by: David Eagleman
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The answers to these questions are right behind our eyes. The greatest technology we have ever discovered on our planet is the three-pound organ carried in the vault of the skull. This book is not simply about what the brain is; it is about what it does. The magic of the brain is not found in the parts it’s made of but in the way those parts unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric.
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Very interesting but the book shpold have had
- By Adi on 12-05-20
By: David Eagleman
What listeners say about Strangers to Ourselves
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- Sally F.
- 06-08-23
Very powerful
I loved this book! What a wonderful writer, and excellent narrator. If you're interested in mental health, these very perceptive and fascinating case histories will move you and make you think.
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- Piper
- 08-13-23
Powerful look at mental health
Great collection of experiences to explore the history and complexity of mental health and society.
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- Jenny Jenkins
- 01-15-23
Just Falls Short ...
What works when dealing with mental illness? What is mental illness? How do we view our own emotional and mental states?
The answers to these questions shift depending on the individual, the culture a person comes from and the prevailing understanding of illness and treatment at the time. Rachel Aviv's book explores the tangle of diagnosis and treatment, individual response to family and culture, and the difficulty separating these powerful forces. She writes movingly about four people whose mental illness can be linked to their role in their own society, their feelings of alienation and isolation from the prevailing culture, their struggle to understand themselves and the struggles of their family, friends and doctors to understand and heal them.
But how are these stories linked? What do they have in common? Aviv demurs from pulling these strands together explicitly.
Even if she is not in a position to make a Grand Statement about mental illness, culture and narrative, I wish Aviv had made some more explicit attempt in that direction. Aviv is powerfully descriptive but she shies away from the outright analytic. Is she afraid to do so lest she find her own argument outmoded or viewed as benighted in the future? Even if Aviv's conclusion is that mental illness is too complex, too personal, too culturally explicit for a grand theory ever to work, I would like to hear it!
The reader was very good, but I wish the production had permitted more of a silent break between chapters. Jarring to end one narrative about a person whose life was destroyed by mental illness and misguided treatment and launch right into the next. Radio silence is not an evil - at least not for a whole 5 or 10 seconds!
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6 people found this helpful
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- Christine
- 01-19-23
Mental health is broken in our country
There is no mental health in our country. This was a true awakening for me.
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- M
- 05-03-24
Makes you think
I really enjoyed this book. It helped me out a lot with new ways of thinking of mental health and how I should look at it.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-30-22
Revelatory Journalism about the history of mental illness
Rachel Aviv has written an important account of the manifestation and treatment of mental illness through history, up to present day. Through her chosen subjects, Aviv illuminates how our environment, our access to mental health care, and even our individual diagnosis’ can contribute to what is essentially disordered thinking and subsequent behaviors. It is often our oppressive environments that not only cause, but exacerbate mental health issues.
In her story about Naomi I was struck by the part when she was in solitary confinement and began speaking a “different language.” Only a therapist who had known Naomi could understand her ramblings and in that simple act of listening and affirming, Naomi was able to find her way back from that psychosis.
This strikes me as one of the cohesive themes of mental illness and of Aviv’s subjects; people just wanted to be understood. They did not want to be pathologized, or medicated, or punished into assimilating. People just want to be understood and validated and loved, We all need someone to listen and learn our language of pain, and then affirm us. It is essential to the recovery process from any source of mental and emotional pain, imo.
This was a fantastic book. I would recommend it to anyone who has ever suffered from disordered thinking, or loves someone who has suffered from disordered thinking.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Nancy Tice
- 02-01-23
Important book
This book is full of important mental health stories
And is worth reading or listening too
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- Db
- 11-30-22
Good read
Provocative Loved the first few chapters. The end was not as compelling as the beginning
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-22-23
Shines a Refreshing Light
I find this book shined a refreshing light on psychological traumas and how we throw medicine at it rather than stopping to listen and respect the person who is suffering from it.
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- Carolc
- 03-23-25
intimate look at the history and experience of mental illness
I am a physician. I wish I would have had access to this book and read it before I started my career.
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