My Fluorescent God
Joe Guppy, 2014
Booktrope Editions
202 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620154410
Summary
In 1979, the 23-year-old Guppy was dealing with a bad breakup and existential angst, but it was a few stomach pills he took in Mexico that pushed him over the edge into paranoid psychosis… and straight into the mental ward of Seattle’s Providence Hospital.
Once Guppy recovered, he put his journals and medical records in a cardboard box, marked the box “Crazy Period,” and didn’t open it until 30 years later when he decided to write My Fluorescent God.
In this raw, often wryly comic memoir, Guppy battles his personal demons, jumps out a second-story window, and encounters God in a fluorescent light fixture. He was barraged with psychotropic drugs and rigid cognitive-behavioral therapy, and threatened with shock treatment, but what helped him was the traditional "talking cure."
The story of Guppy’s struggle to rebuild his sanity is not only a gripping spiritual and psychological adventure, but one he hopes will speak to those whose lives have been touched by mental illness. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—Seattle, Washington, USA
• Education—M.A., Washington University
• Currently—Seattle, Washington
Seattle native Joe Guppy, an award-winning writer and performer, worked in theater and television from 1980 to 1995. In 1996, he switched careers and trained to be a psychotherapist at Seattle University’s existential-phenomenological master’s program. He was a community mental health counselor for seven years and currently has a private practice in Seattle where he sees clients for such issues as anxiety, depression, and compulsive behaviors. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website
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Book Reviews
Riveting. Captures the world of mental illness and made me feel like I was right there in it. All of the tension, anguish, frustration is brought to life on the page, as well as the moments of hopefulness, humor, and eventual triumph.
Bob Nelson, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska
Joe Guppy’s My Fluorescent God is a moving and poignant examination of madness and redemption.
Charles R. Cross, New York Times best-selling author of Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain
Joe Guppy describes the isolated experience of insanity with such insight, brilliance, and intensity, I found myself thinking, "Oh my god, this is exactly the hell of mental illness. I get it. I get it." Plus, it’s often FUNNY. Not an easy task.
Lauren Weedman, author of
A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body
Discussion Questions
1. The 23-year-old Joe Guppy was clearly in an unstable state even before the prescribed stomach medications triggered his toxic psychosis. Has there ever been a moment or period in time when you felt like you were losing your mind? If so, what brought you back?
2. A friend of Joe Guppy's once pointed out to him that he (Joe) was convinced his perceptions of Dr. Hardaway as Satan and his fear of demons were delusions… but that Joe considered his mystical encounter with God as real. Joe addresses this question on page 196 of My Fluorescent God, but how might you explain it?
3. Does it surprise you that the author is an award-winning comedy writer? Were there parts of the book that you found funny? If so, which scenes, and why?
4. When Joe was in the high-security room, he describes the walls—and even the floor—as being covered in dark red medium-pile carpet. When you read that, did you think this was just part of Joe’s hallucination of Hell? Were you surprised to find out in the Dialogues in Part III that this was real—an actual soundproofing attempt? Was there anything else about the conversations in the Dialogues that informed or enhanced your reading of Joe’s story?
5. Part of the reason Joe Guppy was motivated to write My Fluorescent God was to express how important the "talking cure" was in his struggle to regain his sanity…not shock treatment, not drugs, but talking with professionals who connected with him and who cared about him. Has there ever been a time of crisis for you that talking with others helped you get through?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)