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Twilah Hiari is an autistic writer with a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Kansas. She writes about how the siloed nature of Western medicine contributes to misdiagnosis and how clinician biases regarding issues of gender, race, class, education and disability promote a culture that dismisses the credibility of the patient's perspective.
Reviewed by Gisela Dixon for Readers' Favorite
Regression is a non-fiction memoir written in the first person voice by Twilah Hiari on her struggles with mental illnesses and trauma. Regression starts off fairly chronologically and initially begins with childhood reminiscences, early childhood experiences, how she felt growing up, her relationship with her peers and family members, her school years, etc. This is also followed by her older experiences as she grew up and started coming into her own, and also dealing with autism, trauma, development disorders and the huge impact these had on her life. Twilah talks about her experiences with the medical establishment that couldn’t even diagnose and treat her properly and, in fact, made things worse by instead minimizing and invalidating her own experiences. This is a resourceful story that sheds light on the lack of knowledge in the field of mental health.
Regression by Twilah Hiari is a good read and especially relevant in today’s times when medical knowledge in the field of psychology and psychiatry is ridiculously lacking. But more than that, this book highlights how practitioners and doctors in the field claim to know certain “facts” of which they actually have no knowledge. This needed to be brought to light and Twilah has candidly and courageously shared her story so that others might benefit from it. The memoir is a lesson on how we are still in the Middle Ages when it comes to mental health, and to take what “counselors” or laypeople tell you with a dose of salt. Twilah’s engrossing writing style may give relief to thousands of mentally ill patients who have felt misunderstood or misheard even by people in the medical profession.
