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  • My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward

  • A Memoir
  • Written by: Mark Lukach
  • Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
  • Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (84 ratings)

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My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward

Written by: Mark Lukach
Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
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Publisher's Summary

A heart-wrenching yet hopeful memoir of a young marriage that is redefined by mental illness and affirms the power of love.

Mark and Giulia's life together began as a storybook romance. They fell in love at 18, married at 24, and were living their dream life in San Francisco. When Giulia was 27, she suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break that landed her in the psych ward for nearly a month. One day she was vibrant and well adjusted; the next she was delusional and suicidal, convinced that her loved ones were not safe.

Eventually Giulia fully recovered, and the couple had a son. But soon after Jonas was born, Giulia had another breakdown, and then a third a few years after that. Pushed to the edge of the abyss, everything the couple had once taken for granted was upended.

A story of the fragility of the mind and the tenacity of the human spirit, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is, above all, a love story that raises profound questions: How do we care for the people we love? What and whom do we live for? Breathtaking in its candor, radiant with compassion, and written with dazzling lyricism, Lukach's is an intensely personal odyssey through the harrowing years of his wife's mental illness, anchored by an abiding devotion to family that will affirm listeners' faith in the power of love.

©2017 Mark Lukach (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
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Every detail is so touching.

I can relate to the book because my daughter has schizophrenia and we have been through the same situation step by step as mentioned. It’s life altering illness for everyone in the family. But every thing teaches us lessons so more power to the writer’s wife and to everyone in the world who has been through this kind of illness. Thank you for sharing your story.

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Well done

Great insight into what a psychotic break is, from the perspective of the life partner. A real roller coaster as each episode emerges and the scramble to deal with it. I learned a lot. A good listen.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great read

The honesty of the writer was so evident. This book answered many important questions about coping with mental illness. I recommend this book to anyone.

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    4 out of 5 stars

Great

I thought it was great. Narrator is excellent. Only complaint is the ending was weak.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful memoir

This book was beautiful and raw. It made me laugh and cry. I believe every mental health professional should read (or listen to) this book.

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Beautiful


Really well written memoir. Cried a lot of tears and opened my eyes to mental illness more

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A different way to look at mental health!

What a brave story to tell! I’m sure it couldn’t have been easy.
This book is well written and really opens the readers’ eyes to what it is like to, not only struggle with mental health, but how it effects the entire family! As a nurse myself who has worked on a psych unit, this helped me to understand what it is like for family members who are living with a spouse/parent/child in a psych unit. When he was describing the nurses from the first hospital stay, it broke my heart that they were so disengaged! It’s tough juggling a heavy case load but one thing that should always remain a priority is empathy; people are scared, especially first visits/stays, and the nurses are the frontline staff. I feel as though I need to apologize to Mark and Julia for how horrible and non-understanding those nurses were!
To anyone who is interested in mental health and wants to pursue a career in psychology, this book is for you! And to anyone else who is not interested in psych and/or mental health, that’s okay, you will also love this book! This is a heartwarming story about a family who struggled with the complications of mental health and how they grew stronger as a result of it.

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Great memoir- Annoying voices.

Don't get me wrong, I THOUROUGHLY enjoyed this book and have recommended to it several people, however I found it extremely irritating how the narrator would attempt to do voices for each of the characters. It almost made me want to stop listening to it. At one point, my husband even made a remark about how irksome it sounded.
So, buy the book, maybe the hardcopy versus the audible version!

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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Gives a completely different perspective.

Was not sure what to expect with this book but gives an incredibly intimate account of mental disease and the impact it has on everyone.

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2 people found this helpful

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I couldn’t stop listening

In a full day I listened to this “cover to cover”. I couldn’t stop. I’d pause the book to get dishes done, but rushed to play it again. Absolutely phenomenal, it tore my heart out but the ending gave me so much hope. I’m going to be buying this to give to my friends as a hard copy for them.

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1 person found this helpful