Book Review: Your Crystal Ball Is Whacked by Nancy Stevens
Sometimes, the crystal ball goes dark and you cannot see a future. Whether it’s due to horrible circumstances in your life, a bout of physical illness upsetting your mind, or mental illness, your ability to see beyond the present and its troubles is broken. Nevertheless, the future is still there, and you can get to it if you don’t kill yourself in despair.
This book is aimed at young adults (blatantly, right there on the cover) and meant to help them find the resources needed to avoid suicide. Along the way, the author shares her own experiences with child sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, stillbirth and clinical depression, among other things. She wanted to end it all several times, but managed with help to make it through. Now a grandmother, she wants to help others survive their travails.
The Good: Sometimes it is really helpful for another person to share their painful and humbling experiences so that you know you are not alone, and that such things can be survived. The author presents many constructive tips on surviving the bad moments. She also talks about her experience with Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which is the treatment plan that worked best for her.
As mentioned, this book deals with a lot of touchy subject matter, and parents of teens may want to be ready to discuss it with their kids, or read the book first to see if their young one is ready. Some parents may find certain topics completely unsuitable for their children to read about…but my experience has been those are the children who most need honest information on those topics.
Less good: Outside of the author’s personal experiences, there’s a lot of overlap with other suicide prevention material aimed at young people. LGBT+ teens may feel more comfortable with a book targeted towards their specific issues.
Overall, this book might be best as one you buy well in advance, read once, then put on a bookshelf where your teen can find it as and when they need it. Like many self-help books, it will go over better if the person who needs help reaches for it on their own rather than having it shoved at them.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts right now, please call the national suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255 (TDD 1-800-779-4889) or visit www.suicidepreventionlifetime.org
