Dog Medicine: How My Dog Saved Me From Myself, by Julie Barton
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Dog Medicine: How My Dog Saved Me From Myself, by Julie Barton
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At twenty-two, Julie Barton collapsed on her kitchen floor in Manhattan. She was one year out of college and severely depressed. Summoned by Julie's incoherent phone call, her mother raced from Ohio to New York and took her home.
Psychiatrists, therapists and family tried to intervene, but nothing reached her until the day she decided to do one hopeful thing: adopt a Golden Retriever puppy she named Bunker.
Dog Medicine captures in beautiful, elegiac language the anguish of depression, the slow path to recovery, and the astonishing way animals can heal even the most broken hearts and minds.
Dog Medicine: How My Dog Saved Me From Myself, by Julie Barton - Amazon Sales Rank: #276283 in Books
- Published on: 2015-11-10
- Released on: 2015-11-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .80" h x 5.40" w x 8.40" l, .70 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 234 pages
Dog Medicine: How My Dog Saved Me From Myself, by Julie Barton Review
In this moving debut autobiography, a chronically depressed short story writer tells how her relationship with her dog saved her life.
Barton was a successful associate editor for an unnamed book publisher in New York City and appeared on her way to further success, but catastrophic depression continually gnawed at her. One morning, she found herself lying disoriented on the floor of her barren Manhattan apartment, the room full of smoke because she'd collapsed while at the stove while cooking the night before. With disturbing clarity, the author lays bare in the starkest terms the ravages of deep depression, including the continual destructive self-talk that consistently undermined her. ''You're so stupid,'' Barton berated herself on that fateful morning; she eventually crawled across the floor to call her mother and tell her that she thought she'd had a nervous breakdown. What seeds in the author's life grew such poisoned fruit? Barton writes that her brother often physically and verbally abused her and undermined her parents' attempts to deal with sibling rivalry. The author unmasks the hidden face of domestic violence, writing that her brother once pushed her so hard that she ended up cracking her head, lying unconscious in a pool of her own blood: ''I woke disoriented,'' Barton writes, ''my father hovering over me, yelling, panicked.'' This difficult subject matter might cause a lesser writer to overreach and fall into maudlin sentimentality, but Barton writes with simple clarity and precision about her depression and its effects on her life, and about her bad choices in relationships with men. Her relentless drive toward self-destruction was eventually healed by her crucial, life-changing relationship with her dog, Bunker. Through the memoir, the author shows a captivating ability to observe the interplay of external events and her inner life. Along the way, she discovers, through Bunker's unconditional love, her own capacity for self-realization. When a medical issue threatens to cripple or even kill Bunker, readers will wonder whether the dog--and Barton herself--will survive.
A heartfelt page-turner about depression and how dogs can save us from ourselves. --KIRKUS REVIEW
''Dog Medicine takes on the stigmas surrounding mental illness and medication, while also crediting a very specific canine hero.
''A stunning new memoir from Julie Barton explores the topics of severe depression and canine companionship as treatment in poignant and revealing language. Dog Medicine will strike sympathetic notes with fellow sufferers and dog lovers alike.
''...In the end, Dog Medicine is as much a work about self-acceptance and internal forgiveness as it is about the friends, both human and animal, who help us along the way. Barton commands both empathy and respect, and all of those who themselves battle depression, or who love someone who does, are certain to find this a powerful text.'' --Foreword Review
Dog Medicine is the kind of memoir that will bring tears of sadness and joy to anyone who has ever felt rescued by a pet. It is a memoir about how the right animal can inspire not just hope but mercy. Julie Barton's prose is lyrical and unflinching, a gorgeous howl in the darkness that leads the reader into the light. -- Steve Almond, author of Candyfreak
Any one who has ever opened their heart and asked an animal to teach them how to live--and there are so many of us--will be deeply moved by the story of Julie Barton and her soulmate Bunker. In this honest, gloriously unselfconscious and compelling memoir, she does great honor, not only to her dog, but to the miracles made possible when logic, and even language, is not allowed to stand in the way of love. -- Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted
Julie Barton's memoir Dog Medicine is the most heartbreaking and heart-warming book I've read in years. It tells both the harrowing story of a depression so severe that Barton felt it might ''vaporize her into millions of tiny molecules'' and the consoling story of her eventual recovery through the love of and for her beloved dog and ''spirit twin,'' Bunker. Reader, this book about how Barton's dog changed her life will change your life. --David Jauss, author of Glossolalia: New & Selected Stories
There are times when another creature can hold our love until we can hold it for ourselves. And then, in perfect symbiosis, the beloved can become the lover, until they are one force. Dog Medicine shows us that this is not just possible, but sometimes, a matter of life or death. --Laura Munson, New York Times bestselling author of This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness
You may think you're about to read a book about a charming dog, or about struggling with identity in your twenties, or about how a young woman pulls herself together after a diagnosis of depression, but you'd be wrong. Dog Medicine is a love story--a great big beautiful honest touching intoxicating riveting page-turning instruction manual on the palpable healing power of love and forgiveness. Every word in this book is as honest and courageous as any I've ever read, and I've read a lot. I feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to read this book. You will, too. --Robin Oliveira, New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Mary Sutter --REVIEWS
Julie Barton's wise, wonderful, impeccably written memoir is not just a book about how a puppy can help keep at bay the gray wolf of depression. It's also a book filled with love stories and stories of people finding their better selves, all dramatized with novelistic suspense and complexity. In this age of hour-long therapy shows and sensationalistic self-depiction, Barton's book holds true wisdom as it tells the hard-earned truths of mental illness, self-doubt, abuse, hope, family, forgiveness, connection with self and others, and finally some-thing close to salvation. Barton gives real insight, conveyed through incisive, evocative prose. And she proves the adage that purpose comes not only from how well we are loved, but by how well we love. --Tim Parrish, author of Fear and What Follows and The Jumper
A raw and honest memoir about Julie Barton's clinical depression and how the love of a dog helped pull her back from hell. An eloquent testament to the resilience of humans and the healing power of canine love. --Susan Richards, New York Times bestselling author of Chosen By a Horse
Julie Barton was haunted by a childhood of abuse from her brother, and the resulting major depression threatened to topple her. What could one small puppy, Bunker, do in the face of such calamity? Only when Barton created a sacred place where she and Bunker could meet, a place without ridicule, doubt, sorrow, or anger, could the true healing begin. Her meticulous rendering of this transformation honors the power of love. --Jacqueline R. Sheehan, New York Times bestselling author of Lost & Found
Dog Medicine accomplishes what only the most authentic writing can do: craft language so that readers live an experience. In this brilliant and lyrical debut memoir, Barton has written a narrative of inescapable appeal. The bond, here, between human and animal isn't easy or sentimental--rather, it's archetypal and magical. --Sue William Silverman, author of The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew --REVIEWS
About the Author Julie Barton is a writer living in Northern California. She has an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been published in several magazines and journals including Brain Child, Two Hawks Quarterly, Huffington Post, Louisiana Literature, The South Carolina Review, and more.
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Most helpful customer reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful. Julie’s book wrecked me in the best way. Her writing sings when she writes about ... By Pam Dog Medicine is a story of returning from the brink.Julie’s book wrecked me in the best way. Her writing sings when she writes about Bunker and you want her to do anything for him. For those of us who love dogs, we know what a wag of the tail, a poke of the nose, a crawling into a lap can do for the spirit. A dog saves us without knowing he is doing so. He’s just being a dog, the rest is a kind of magic, which Julie captures so amazingly in Dog Medicine.I have never sobbed while reading a book. Which is kind of crazy considering I was an English major, then a bookseller, then worked in publishing — which is to say, I have read a ton of books in my lifetime. But none made me have to move to another room so my sobbing wouldn’t wake my husband. None have made me sit on my couch in the dark and cry for a good while. Or cause my own dog to come and sit next to me. As if he knew I was crying for the author, a dog I never met, but also for him, for all he has done for me and for the day that will inevitably come — the day he is gone. It was a beautiful cry. One that made me appreciate my own lucky mental health and more deeply appreciate what my dog brings to my life.This book is well worth your time. Maybe just don't read it in public. And if you do, bring an onion, a knife, and a cutting board so you can blame it on that.(less)
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful. but depression can be like a slow leak By Melinda I didn’t know this then, but depression can be like a slow leak. Once the dam’s hit, water starts to seep through and as the days and weeks go by, the crack grows bigger.Thank you Julie Barton for sharing your touching story. Reading of Julie's battle with depression was quite affecting. Depression is ugly, often glided over, reading this young woman's downward spiral you understand its seriousness. I hope this story serves as a slap in the face to a term most are desensitized to. As she discloses her turbulent and abusive relationship with her brother you begin to grasp the origin of Julie's pain. Her suffering and struggle with depression brought me to tears, in fact I cried through the entire book, yes, it impacted me greatly. No doubt Julie and Bunker were meant for each other, they really were each other's salvation. As an animal lover, a dog owner, no wonder Julie and Bunker penetrated my heart, I understood their unbreakable connection. I applaud her for her candor in sharing the very intimate details of her life, her missteps and successes. Julie demonstrated the capacity of acceptance, to give and receive love, and forgiveness. I'm happy she finally found the peace, love and happiness she deserved. A bittersweet story etched in my heart, memorable and tender, with all certitude an unconditional love story.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. If you've ever had a pet that changed (or saved) your life... By Tracy DeLuca Julie's book came to me a week after a family member tried to take their life. I was reeling, searching for some bit of hope in a situation where I could not make my loved one's pain go away. I would not wish depression on anyone, but this book, and Julie and Bunker's experience, was a gift at a time when there was no light. It gave me hope and empathy and a step forward. And all of this in addition to Julie's deftly written prose. You will cry, and it won't be pretty. But it just might cleanse your soul.
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