The woman in this book is not famous. The events of her life are not tragic. The setting is not exotic. This is an ordinary story. Which makes it an extraordinary memoir.
Miji Campbell grew up in a close-knit family in the 1960s and ’70s. The youngest of three girls, she was raised under her parents’ watchful eye, in a middle-class Calgary suburb called Kingsland. Her life proceeds in an orderly fashion: coming-of-age, university, first job, first apartment—and then suddenly, inexplicably, it begins to unravel.
Miji Campbell brings her life to the page in this story of coming fully into herself. She weaves the reader into time and place and pours us the comforting tea-cup of commonality. Though I am not Catholic, not Canadian, not the same age—I find the sisterhood of story and am grateful for the journey.
By turns penetrating and poignant, Separation Anxiety is a clear eyed, compelling examination of the challenges associated with living with a misunderstood mental disorder.
An honest and courageous memoir. The narrator’s voice sparkles with intelligence, with a sharply observant eye, and with a quirky, wry sense of humour. She charts the ties that bind, sometimes far too tightly, the bond of love between mother and daughter.
Leaving home doesn’t happen overnight. For the author of this compelling memoir, moving beyond the safety of her family at the age of 24 triggers nights of insomnia, followed by days—and years—of mysterious, escalating dread. Anyone who has struggled with anxiety and depression will be consoled by the author’s fearless, vivid portrait of breakdown and recovery.