Easy Crafts for the Insane

Finished November 12

Easy Crafts for the Insane: A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness and Making Things by Kelly Williams Brown

This memoir covers a few difficult years in the author's life. During this time she underwent several losses (divorce, breakup of relationship, loss of friendships, death of pets) and physical pain (breaking both arms and an ankle), not to mention mental illness. 

Kelly had been diagnosed and treated for depression at a very young age, and continued to battle this into her adult years, but during this time period, her treatments changed, and she had more severe and new mental challenges. 

All her life, one of her comforts has been crafting and throughout this book she includes several simple crafts for the reader, giving step by step instructions and, in some cases, direction to more information available online. 

She is very open about all her experiences during this time, both how she made bad decisions, and didn't always consider how her actions would affect those around her, not recognizing the pain she caused them at the time, and how they affected her in ways they didn't understand at the time either. 

Luckily, she was able to afford and get the help she needed, a privilege that she recognizes that not everyone going through similar challenges will have and she makes arguments for improving the access to mental health care.

This memoir definitely has elements of humour and the author is more than willing to laugh at herself and her experiences while still acknowledging the serious nature of what she went through.

Eye-opening and very engaging.