Bookmonger: ‘Cured’

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Seattle physician and researcher Dr. Anne McTiernan’s first memoir, “Starved,” was published in late 2016. The book focused on how she experienced neglect and abuse in her childhood, which led first to dangerous malnourishment, then to obesity, followed by obsessive dieting — and finally to a career as a nutrition doctor.

McTiernan is back with a second memoir. “Cured” covers some of the same territory of the first book, particularly with regard to her dysfunctional childhood. But this time McTiernan focuses less on coming into a healthy relationship with her physical body and more on the work she has had to do to achieve mental health.

Whether it was in spite of, or motivated by, the lack of nurturing she received as a youngster, McTiernan has been driven by ambition for a long time.

“Cured” begins when, as a young mother herself, she earns a doctorate in epidemiology. But just a few years later, she concludes that opportunities for women in her field are hard to come by. (Among other things, this book offers a telling flashback to the limitations women faced in the late 20th century.)

She decides to go back to school to become a medical doctor. This means uprooting her husband from his job and her two young daughters from their customary routines to move from Seattle to New York for med school.

McTiernan describes her feelings of insufficiency and isolation as she juggles motherhood and family life with the tough demands of medical training. And as the only mother among her fellow students, it’s difficult to participate in whatever social life they lead outside of school.

Within a few months of beginning classes, McTiernan is suffering debilitating panic attacks. Her husband, grappling with his own set of challenges in a new job and new community, while looking after their daughters so she can study, is not always emotionally available to her.

“I felt like I was facing a behemoth on my own, with no one to guide me, no one to assist me,” McTiernan wrote. “I was the reluctant hero on a journey with no map or signposts, and I was running out of fuel.”

She turns to psychotherapy to try to sort things out.

Most people suffering from chronic anxiety don’t like to talk about it, but the condition is more common than we think. One in five Americans suffers from some kind of anxiety disorder — but if we regard this as a personal failing rather than a recognized disability, it often goes untreated, according to McTiernan.

By sharing her personal experience with anxiety, which includes elements both petty and profound (for even minor complaints can seem insurmountable when one is hobbled by anxiety), McTiernan demonstrates that this is a condition that can be addressed and mitigated. In her own case, asking for help led her on a slow but steady journey that taught her how to identify and share her emotions and build her self-confidence.

“Cured” offers an encouraging story about developing resilience.

‘Cured’ by Anne McTiernan

Central Recovery Press — 298 pages — $18.95