Book Review: "You're Crazy" Volume Two - First-Hand Accounts of Surviving Trauma, Addiction & Mental Health from within the Punk Rock Scene
Review By Casey Douglass
To someone who hasn’t been through it, the notion of “getting help” when you are struggling with life, is often floated in much the same way as getting your car fixed, or cleaning out the closet. Just do it and you’ll be okay. The people who think that getting help is all that you need to do tend to emerge on social media when certain awareness days roll around, signalling their “virtue” and “compassion” by displaying their paper-thin understanding. Yuck. “You're Crazy" Volume Two - First-Hand Accounts of Surviving Trauma, Addiction & Mental Health from within the Punk Rock Scene is a collection of experiences from people who have been through some heavy shit, whose understanding is cement-thick, and who candidly open up about their attempts to get help, to live each day, and to find a reason to keep on living.
"You're Crazy" Volume Two is edited by Craig Lewis, who is also no stranger to how fucked up things can get. In his introduction, he recounts some of his own story, about how he was falsely diagnosed and medicalized, and how he had to fight to see through the gaslighting that he’d been subjected to. People tend to have a lofty view of the medical system, how wonderful it is and how saintly the people who work inside it are. Sure, some wonderful people DO work in the medical field and in other support authorities, but like any profession, there are also lots of arseholes too. When something has failed to help you in the way that most sensible people would think that it should, “get help” soon becomes another stick that an overwhelmed mind beats itself with. Sometimes there is just nowhere to turn to get that help, so you have to make do with what is at hand.
When life feels unbearable, it’s little wonder that people will do almost anything to ease their pain, whatever the original trauma, event or trigger. Drinking until you can forget, taking drugs, self-harm, relentless self-hatred, fantasizing about suicide and maybe even attempting it, all become outlets for releasing the pressure and numbing the pain. Some people in this book managed to get some kind of outside help, others were let down or weren’t in a position to even seek it. Many of the experiences in this book tell of people who’ve lost their hope, their dreams and their enjoyments, besides their numbing substance or behaviour of choice. That is, except for punk music. A common thread between the contributors is how the punk attitude and the punk scene itself, offered their lives something that they just hadn’t found elsewhere. Acceptance, non-judgement, a way to vent through their love of the music. It’s hard not to view it as a double-edged sword however, as certain elements of the scene amplified and eased some of the writers’ access to the substances and behaviours that continued to drag them down.
“Punk rock saved my life. I surely would have killed myself if I hadn’t found this music and lifestyle,” is a quote from near the end of the very first contribution, written by Christoffer. It’s also a sentiment that appears again and again as you read the others contained in the book. However dark the tale and however much the writer is still suffering to this day, the punk scene and its music is credited again and again for having an overall positive effect on the listener’s life. While I myself am not really into punk, I know that a lot of the vibe spills over into the heavy metal that I enjoy. I also can empathise with the feeling of “finding your thing” as I feel much the same way about dark ambient music and the way that it tends to envelop my mind when I need it to. When life seems hard to bear, which is most days, having that outlet is priceless.
“You're Crazy" Volume Two - First-Hand Accounts of Surviving Trauma, Addiction & Mental Health from within the Punk Rock Scene is not an easy read, as you might imagine, but it’s a worthwhile one. If you’ve struggled with mental health, trauma or addiction, you will find some kindred souls here, and if you’re a punk lover, you’ll especially appreciate the playlist tips and stories of how certain bands transformed someone’s life. If you don’t really fall into either of these camps but are open to reading a book of experiences that is raw and unsanitized, you should also check it out. There is also some really cool artwork to enjoy at the end of each chapter.
I was given access to a review copy of this book.
Editor: Craig Lewis
Publisher: Better Days Recovery Press
ISBN: 9781716249372
Price: $16.89 / £15.99 (paperback)
