Passing for Normal
Subtitle: A Memoir of Compulsion
Publisher: Broadway
Published: August 10, 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780767901857
Subjects: Biography: general; Coping with personal problems; Pesonal narratives; Historical - U.S; Mental Disorders; Personality Disorders; Tourette syndrome; Biography & Autobiography; Biography / Autobiography; Biography/Autobiography; Patients; Specific Groups - Special Needs; Women; Biography & Autobiography / General; Wilensky, Amy S.,; General; 1969-; Biography; Obsessive-compulsive disorder
First sentence: As I stood outside the imposing front doors of New York City's Hospital for Joint Diseases, I bounced up and down on the balls of my feet in a halfhearted attempt to keep warm.
Description: The provocative memoir of a young woman's 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 author Wilensky as she watched her body do things she couldn't control, repeatedly twitching and contorting into awkward positions. Her mind lurched and veered in ways she didn't understand: She felt that she must touch wood at all times to ward off harm. And 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. It wasn't until college that she realized she might be among the approximately 5 million Americans afflicted with Tourette's syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This book is her account of her lifelong struggle.--From publisher description.