There Is No Good Card For This

Finished May 7
There Is No Good Card For This: What to Say and Do When Life is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love by Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell, illustrated by Emily McDowell

I was attracted to this book partly because I love Emily McDowell's line of Empathy Cards, and partly because scary, awful, and unfair things are happening to people I love and I always struggle trying to find a way to show I care and am glad to do what I can to help, but don't really know what to say or do. This book does help.
The book has three sections: Laying Some Groundwork; The Three Touchstones of Showing Up; and Just Help Me Not Be a Disaster.
They start with the acknowledgement that we all know empathy and compassion are good things and that we want to be helpful friends, but that we are not perfect and we're never going to be. It is important to start with your own mindset. Aligning your actions with your intentions puts you in a better place, making you more able to reach out. They share their own stories of bad things that happened, and things that people said and did, from both sides: the person bad things happened to, and the person who wanted to help people bad things happened to. This insight and the research they've put into this help with the core message in this book which is trust. They look at what the barriers are for us in doing the right thing, and explore how to surmount them.
The three touchstones of part two are kindness, listening, and small gestures. They use examples of what to do and say, and what not to do and say, and show why we often mix them up. Sometimes it is about trying to connect when we should be just listening. Sometimes it is about showing kindness and not worrying about finding the "perfect" thing to say or do. The show the difference between compassion and pity and why it is so important not to go to pity. They also emphasize that even if you have been through something similar, this is not you, and they won't feel exactly the same way that you do, so don't assume they will. This means never using that line "I know how you feel," in any of its disguises. You don't. Instead, listen to them, but don't press them to talk if they aren't ready or willing to. Just show that you are there willing to listen if and when they are ready. Don't obligate them to respond to you if they aren't ready. Make sure they know that. For all of these three things in part two, they give good examples and show situations with possible actions.
The third part goes into more detail about what we might say, and why not to, and suggests things to say instead. They give some cheat sheets for different situations. Remember that it isn't about you. It's about them.
A great book, and so useful.

The Empathy Exams

Finished September 3
The Empathy Exams: essays by Leslie Jamison

This collection was the winner of the 2011 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. It is a collection of essays about our interactions with others, about how we communicate about ourselves, how we feel about that communication, and how we react to others' communication.  The opening quote sets the tone: "I am human: nothing human is alien to me."
The book begins with the title essay and is about the author working as a medical actor who has been given a script and a specific protocol including a followup checklist and who evaluates doctors on their empathy with patients. The task is interspersed with her own medical issues.
* Devil's Bait is about the author's exploration of Morgellons disease including the attendance of a conference.
* La Frontera is about a visit to Mexico, partly for a literary gathering and includes Tijuana, Mexicali, and Calexico.
* Morphology of the Hit is about her experiences in Nicaragua where she taught Spanish to kids, was punched in the face and had a broken nose as a result, and includes the follow-up to this with the police.
* Pain Tours (I) has three parts. La Plata Perdida is about a visit to the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia. Sublime, Revised is about the reality TV show "Interventions" which is about trying to stop addicts. Indigenous to the Hood is about going on a gang tour in L.A. which is led by ex-gang members.
* The Immortal Horizon is about the Barkley Marathons, an extreme marathon race held in the Appalachians, inspired by a prison breakout.
* In Defense of Saccharin(e) is about sentimentality, sweetness, and artificial sweeteners.
* Fog Counts is about her visit to a minimum security prison in Fayetteville visiting Charlie Engle.
* Pain Tours (II) has three parts. Ex-Votos is about Frida Kahlo and her pain as a result of a streetcar accident at the age of eighteen. Servicio Supercompleto is about Joan Didion's account of the El Salvador civil war, looking at the contents of a grocery store as inspiration. The Broken Heart of James Agee is about Agee's book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and looks at labor, hunger, and guilt.
* Lost Boys looks at the murder of 3 boys in West Memphis in 1993, the three teenagers that were convicted of the crime, the trilogy of films that covered the case, and the subsequent release of the men years later.
* Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain looks at how women express their wounds, society's reaction to that expression, individual reaction, and what it means.
The book also includes an interview with the author.