The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness

by Amanda Bennett, Lori Schiller, Amanda Bennett

Book Overview

At seventeen Lori Schiller was the perfect child - the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit family. Six years later she made her first suicide attempt, then wandered the streets of New York City dressed in ragged clothes, tormenting voices crying out in her mind. Lori Schiller had entered the horrifying world of full-blown schizophrenia. She began an ordeal of hospitalizations, halfway houses, relapses, more suicide attempts, and constant, withering...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446671339
• ISBN13: 9780446671330
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The Quiet Room was a book that was hard to put down!

A hard to put down book I read in 2 days. A very touching story of a young lady and her family trying to adjust to a new way of life with their beloved family member. A must read to understand just how real mental illness is and how families and the suffering ones manage to cope.

What I never knew I needed.

This book doesn't just live in the pages. It lives in the lives of many sufferers. At first glance, this story makes you want to hide your face and pretend things like this don't happen. The person who gave the book to me never read it, and didn't want to. However, I soon found out I am extremely different. I read this book cover to cover many times throughout my freshman year of high school, and I pulled out many sections from this book for a monologue that I used to go to competitions with (an event called Dramatic Interpretation). I've placed first many times with this story. It's truly beautiful, it's outstanding to see how pain and suffering can become hope, and how greatly people can impact you. This story is everything to me, offering insight, inspiration, and reality, while dripping with poetic phrases and many different points of view that make the story come together. All in all, everyone should read this book, whether you're an actress or a psychologist. It will be what you never knew you needed.

Read it in 2 days

This is a very moving, perspective-changing book. Also a very honest one. I'm researching schizophrenia genetics now at UCLA and wanted to get an 'inside' view of schizophrenia. I began reading this book 28 hours ago and finished it this morning, never really putting it down except for a 5 hour catnap. Bless you Lori, wherever you are. I hope you're doing well. The amazing accomplishment of this book is that it truly enables the reader to have a glimpse of the life and torment of being a schizophrenic. I came away much more sympathetic to what so many of our fellow human beings go through. Absolutely the best non-scientific book I've read this year.

An insightful glimpse into life with schizophrenia

This is a beautifully written book about a woman's battle with schizophrenia. She begins by describing her descent into the illness and the confusion she experienced. Somehow Lori Schiller manages to describe her experiences with the illness so that you can always see the person inside the mental illness. This is not an easy feat but invaluable for professionals in the field. The most moving scene, to me, was her description of being in a psychiatric hospital and hearing a baby crying. She was frantic because no one would help the baby-yet the baby wasn't real. This is what mental illness is like and why it is such a painful experience. My favorite part of the book was that she reaches a point where she is successfully living with schizophrenia. Too often we forget that people can live with this illness. Not everyone is forever doomed to a halfway house or psychiatric hospital. This is a book every mental health professional should read, especially if you are considering work with the mentally ill.

perfect insight into mental illness from every angle

when i first heard about this book several years ago, i could not wait to get my hands on it. the story attracted me as it is my own story. and i was not to be disappointed. never before had i read a book that so expressively described my own illness. since it first came out, i have read it many times. this book is honest and direct and tells our story as it needs to be heard, for lori gives the true and painful portrayal of how a psychotic brain manifests itself through behavior. i was glad that she told so forthrightly of her experiences in the hospital. it is because of such honesty that people like us can learn to tell our own stories and demystify society's understanding of mental illness, particularly schizophrenia. through this telling the unfair stigma that has been placed upon us is exonerated. i also liked that the people in her life told their stories as well, for an illness such as this affects all involved. i am grateful to lori and amanda for helping me to gain insight into my own illness and understand better what my family and those closest to me have endured and still endure. i highly recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining an honest understanding of mental illness and the impact on the individual and their loved ones.