My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward: A Memoir
Written by Mark Lukach
Narrated by Josh Bloomberg
4/5
()
About this audiobook
A heart-wrenching, yet hopeful, memoir of a young marriage that is redefined by mental illness and affirms the power of love.
Mark and Giulia’s life together began as a storybook romance. They fell in love at eighteen, married at twenty-four, and were living their dream life in San Francisco. When Giulia was twenty-seven, she suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break that landed her in the psych ward for nearly a month. One day she was vibrant and well-adjusted; the next she was delusional and suicidal, convinced that her loved ones were not safe.
Eventually, Giulia fully recovered, and the couple had a son. But, soon after Jonas was born, Giulia had another breakdown, and then a third a few years after that. Pushed to the edge of the abyss, everything the couple had once taken for granted was upended.
A story of the fragility of the mind, and the tenacity of the human spirit, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is, above all, a love story that raises profound questions: How do we care for the people we love? What and who do we live for? Breathtaking in its candor, radiant with compassion, and written with dazzling lyricism, Lukach’s is an intensely personal odyssey through the harrowing years of his wife’s mental illness, anchored by an abiding devotion to family that will affirm readers’ faith in the power of love.
Mark Lukach
Mark Lukach is a teacher and freelance writer. His work has been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Wired, and other publications. He is the ninth-grade dean at the Athenian School, where he also teaches history. He lives with his wife, Giulia, and their two sons in the San Francisco Bay area.
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Reviews for My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward
147 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Being in a book-discussion group forces readers out of their comfort zones … and this book is an example. I never would have picked the book up, much less checked it out, had it not been a selection of our group. I’m usually a procrastinator when it comes to book-group books. I wait until three days before the group meets to even pick it up. For some reason, I sat down with the book after getting home from the discussion group … and I couldn’t put it down. It’s not that I read it in a single sitting, but two days later I finished it.Anyone who has experienced seeing a loved one in a psychiatric hospital will have “aha moments” while reading My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward. It all seems so familiar. With psychiatric illness, there is no one-size-fits-all guidebook for families to follow. Each journey is different. Mark Lukach writes about his own journey in a straightforward way without resorting to overly dramatic language or unnecessary melodrama. My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is the story of a man who does his best in a loving way.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very easy to listen, showed detailed insight of dealing with mental health that I have never known/thought about. Felt like a good friend was telling me about his experience.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A deep and honest true description of a man’s immense patience in dealing with a mentally ill spouse and her recurring relapses into that scary unknown territory of the mind.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Synopsis: This book is a memoir written by a husband whose wife, after years of marriage, begins to have some serious mental health problems. It is his perspective on their journey as a couple. It also talks about what it is like to be the family member of someone who is severely mentally ill. My Rating:4/5This book hit home for me on a personal level. I live with mental health issues and I also have several family members who suffer from them as well. I am both a patient and a family member and sometimes caregiver to those I love who are struggling with mental health issues that are chronic. I read several reviews on this book where people were upset that the book was not focused on the wife's mental health journey as much as it was focused on how her mental health affected her family. If you are looking for a book about an individuals struggle with mental illness then this isn't that book. This book is about how having a chronically ill family member impacts the rest of the family. The author expresses some feelings throughout the book that may be hard to understand, believe, or respect for those who have never been a caregiver. As someone who has been the family member and patient in similar situations his words rang true. His helplessness and, at times, anger, are both things I have struggled with. If seeing someone frustrated with a sick spouse is upsetting for you then this isn't a book for you. Let me clarify that he isn't angry at her for being sick he is simply frustrated that the life he had was turned upside down and managing his wife's health is a challenge. Some days, he and his wife are not on the same page. Some days, he feels tired, lost, and hopeless. Some days, he feels like he needs care and resents that his wife can't reciprocate the care he gives her. These things all rang true to me as a family member who has watched loved ones struggle but it is also ugly. It isn't the simple narrative of martyrdom that family caregivers are often given by those outside the situation. It is raw and ugly. It is equally beautiful because despite the authors pain, he continues to cherish the wedding vows that say in sickness and health. He cares for his wife despite realizing she will never be fully cured. They will have good days and bad days but this is a lifelong chronic condition.I think this book was an interesting and honest. I really enjoyed reading this book and I could relate to what the author was going through.I will note that, despite the title, very little of this book takes place in the psych ward. If you are looking for a book about psych wards or the personal mental health journey of a suffering patient this isn't the book you want. If you are curious about what it is like to live with and care for someone struggling with mental illness I recommend this book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memoir of a family and the challenges faced when a family member is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Lovely Wife In The Psych Ward:A Memoir
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By Mark Lukach
2017
Harper
Mark and Giulia fell in love at 18. Married at 24. Everything was wonderful for this young couple, planning their future and future family. Living a great life in San Francisco, Giulia was chasing her dream of becoming a marketing manager for a large firm.
When Giulia was 27, her usual vibrant and engaging behavior changed, almost over night. She became sad, delusional, and warned people to stay away from her.Thisxwas her first very unexpected psychotic break, and her first stay in a psych ward. After a full recovery, she was blessed with a son, Jonas, followed by another breakdown - and then a third. Giulia is diagnosed as a schizophrenic, and later was changed to Bi Polar. Marks daily visits to his wife are at first inspiring, but eventually he becomes resentful and this turns to anger. Mark doesn't seem to understand the illness and that it's not her fault; she has no control over her illness. Mark is also having problems dealing with his own issue - that Giulia has a lifelong illness and it has the potential to affect him, and his sons, for all their lives.
This is heart-wrenching, and I went through the gamut of emotions. Feeling sad for Giulia illness. Feeling anger at Marks seeming inability to accept the illness for what it is. And exasperation at the caregivers lack of empathy or truly caring for the patient.
Wonderful enriching story. I could not put it down. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Surfer dude Mark Lukach and his beautiful, ambitious Italian wife Guilia have the perfect marriage, until their idyllic life is interrupted by her sudden development of a raging psychosis. Their happiness quickly dissolves into a dreary round of hospitalizations, outpatient programs, and powerful medications with crippling side effects. The situation is only made worse when they have a baby. Guilia becomes sluggish, hostile and taciturn while her husband alternates between striving to rescue her and resenting her illness. My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward provides an honest (if at times syrupy like the title) look at a couple whose relationship comes close to folding under the stress of severe mental illness. Recommended for those who like stories in which love goes a long way toward conquering all.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mark and Giulia meet in college and seem to be A Golden Couple until work stress and inability to sleep pushes Giulia into a breakdown. Her diagnosis is unclear, and Mark, with help from his mother and mother-in-law, devotes his time to trying to manage his unexpected new life with an incapacitated Giulia. She eventually recovers, but has to contend with large quantities of varied medications causing horrible side effects. After a second commitment, Giulia is diagnosed as bi-polar and is able to come home after a shorter inpatient treatment than the first time. Despite her obsessions with God and Satan, the couple decides to have a child. A third breakdown occurs after his birth, and now it seems clear that the pattern has been established and that the family will have to keep trying to prepare for the destructive episodes. Mark is a truly admirable and dedicated spouse, but Giulia's viewpoint is completely missing in the memoir. To me that is a fatal flaw.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mark Lukach fell in love at first sight with the beautiful Italian woman Guilia when both were freshmen in college. They had so much in common- they're both lefthanded, their moms have the same birthday, she grew up in Italy and moved to the US, he grew up in the US and moved to Japan in the same year. They felt these coincidences were part of their mythology that they were destined to be together.Mark and Guilia planned a future together, one where Guilia would have a fabulous job in fashion marketing, and they would have three beautiful children. Family was important to both of them.For awhile things were looking like they would follow the track they had planned. Until Guilia began to act erratically. She had a great job, one that she was good at. One day she started emailing Mark during the day with work emails that she was agonizing over for hours. She would waste an entire work day worrying about these simple emails she had to send.That is how Guilia's mental illness manifested itself, as Mark describes in his heartbreaking memoir My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward. Soon she began to believe that the Devil was tormenting her. It got so frightening that Mark took her to the local ER, where the doctors decided that Guilia must be admitted to the psych ward for her own good.Mark and Guilia's world was turned upside down. Everything became about her mental illness, which the doctors couldn't really pinpoint with a diagnosis. Was it schizoprehenia? Was she bipolar? Her symptoms didn't exactly fit any diagnosis.Mark takes us inside the world of mental illness with a loved one. The unpredictability, the unbelieveable emotional and physical stress on not only the person with mental illness, but also on loved ones.Guilia's parents came over from Italy and were heartbroken at what had happened to their daughter. Mark's parents also came from Japan to lend support, but no one knew exactly what to do.Guilia was heavily medicated, and it took a long time to find the correct medications that would abate her depression and suicidal thoughts, and those medications frequently left her lethagric and zonked out.Mental illness is so debilitating because the sick person often cannot help themselves, as someone with a physical illness can. Mark was responsible for Guilia, but when she requested that he not be given information about her from her doctors, the doctors had to respect her decision, making the situation even worse.Guilia did get better, and their dream of having a child was realized. She went back to work and things seemed better, until she relapsed. Now Mark had to balance Guilia's illness with caring for their infant son.My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is a moving memoir about loving and living with someone with mental illness. It will break your heart, and enlighten you as to how difficult it is to deal with an issue that our healthcare system is woefully unprepared to do, although Guilia was lucky enough to have doctors and hospitals that were caring and professional.If you read Susannah Cahalan's Brain on Fire, I recommend My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward as a good followup to that book.