This Magazine

Progressive politics, ideas & culture
Menu

memoir

I’ve lived with Borderline Personality Disorder for years. Why I’m finally talking about my diagnosis

Erica Ruth Kelly was diagnosed in her teens, but stigma has kept her quiet—even amid calls for more acceptance of mental health challenges

Erica Ruth Kelly

Current photo of the author. Trigger warning: self-injury, suicide When I was 18, a psychiatrist kicked me out of her office in my hometown of Montreal. A framed Sigmund Freud witnessed my humiliation. I’d raised my voice, confessing that I’d scratched up my arm again because I was “fucking sad.” My psychiatrist told me to […] More »
May-June 2016

Fly Away Little Bird

Nadia Alam left her abusive home four years ago, but it was far from easy. Why we need more support— and awareness—for children and adults who are struggling to leave emotionally destructive families

Nadia Alam

Illustration by Jori van der Linde For a long time, no one understood why I hated my mother. After all, pop culture, Hallmark, and general wisdom tend to all agree that a daughter shares her deepest secrets with her mother. With her, I was supposed to feel safe, comforted, supported, and so deeply loved. I […] More »
March-April 2011

Book review: Subject to Change by Renee Rodin

Navneet AlangWebsite

Memory, for good and bad, is crystalline: fragile, delicate, and with a tendency to distort. But in Subject to Change, it is like a crystal held at just the right angle, revealing some startling moments of clarity and beauty. Surveying a life of writing, motherhood, and activism, Renee Rodin’s prose is both understated and unflinching. […] More »
January-February 2011

Book Review: Not Yet by Wayson Choy

Jeremy BealWebsite

Wayson Choy’s second memoir, Not Yet, is bookended by two brushes with the undiscovered country via ticker trouble. The first, an asthma attack and a handful of “cardiac events,” leave him in an induced coma. The second attack is recognized by doctors quickly enough to be reduced to an epilogue and concludes with a writer […] More »

Remembering Frank McCourt and the lessons of his life

laura kusisto

A shrewd writer who told the ugly truth about poverty I first read Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes when I was 14. My family took a road trip from Saskatchewan to Ontario — 1,800 kilometres, 20 driving hours, and about 40 pounds of gummy bears. Anyone who has travelled across the country in a minivan with […] More »