The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery Hardcover – 26 October 2021

I thought I was all alone. Not with chronic Lyme Disease; I knew that I had many co-sufferers there. In fact, I knew that there were a great deal more people with Lyme Disease than those listed on the CDC website. But I thought I was alone, or mostly alone except for a few wing-nuts, in trying really weird things in order to heal from chronic Lyme Disease. Some of which helped me, and keep helping me. I learned from Ross Douthat that not only am I not alone, I’m in good company.If you were a healthy, athletic kid and young adult who liked the outdoors, say someone like me, then getting Lyme Disease at the tender age of 30 and remaining undiagnosed for a long time is a tough break. It’s more than a tough break, it’s heartbreaking, as Ross speaks of so movingly in his wonderful book. It effects every aspect of your life- your marriage, career, ability to have children, your fragile self-esteem, and certain friendships with people who don’t understand or cannot understand. All of these are put on the chopping block of your life.Ross understands. He gets it. That in and of itself makes this book invaluable to me, but he offers so much more. “I will not give up, and neither should you!” he insists, sometimes pleading, other times shouting. Sobbing. This book is raw with his honesty, and I am so grateful to him for it. He could have taken the easier way out, and followed the path of many other Lyme books- here are the symptoms, and here is what you should do about it, etc, etc. But Ross doesn’t do that. He describes his excruciating, ever- shifting symptoms, but more than that, he says what it feels like to be a husband, journalist, provider, father, and believer when everything you cherish is being dismantled.He also talks about the reality that this disease, while incredibly common, is dismissed nine out of ten times by the mainstream medical community. Imagine having all that physical, emotional, and sometimes mental suffering and being told by supposedly “good “ doctors, “You know chronic Lyme Disease doesn’t exist, don’t you?”, or “You can’t STILL have Lyme Disease!” , even though your blood tests show in black and white that, yup, you’ve STILL got Lyme Disease. That was Ross’s reality, my reality, and that of almost the entire Lyme community.Ross got it bad, worse than me. He felt that he had no choice but to tackle it head-on, and tackle it he did. And this is where he has changed my life, and I will forever thank him for it. Because my symptoms were usually not so severe, I had unwittingly settled for a half-life, or in reality, a 1/3 life. Ross says, NO! Don’t do that! You deserve better than that, you deserve to keep working towards wholeness. He gave me a loving kick in the pants, and I am now more actively involved than ever in my own healing. Thank you, Ross.Finally, he wraps this wonderful gift of a book in the prettiest writing, making it a pleasure to read. I will never forget the section where he compares weird Lyme treatments to the poet Yeat’s “foul rag and bone shop of the heart”. It was gorgeous prose, but more than that, it was true.This book is not just for those who have Lyme or their caregivers. It is for all of us who suffer from chronic illness, or chronic anything. From pain that won’t go away, no matter how hard we try. “Keep trying!” Ross says. And you do. So much so that by the end of the book you’re not just rooting for Ross, you’re rooting for yourself.

This is an excellent memoir of one man’s excruciating battle with an illness the medical establishment refuses to recognize. He sheds light on this unfortunate reality and offers hope to sufferers. If only the skeptics in the medical establishment would read this one book.

Patients, doctors and family of both, would benefit from reading this one. Good length. Great ending.

This is a beautifully written book about what happens when a smart guy who is experiencing generalized anxiety transfers to a new psychiatrist after moving to Connecticut. The psychiatrist "diagnosed" him with chronic (post-treatment) Lyme disease, a condition whose existence the totality of scientific evidence doesn't support. Douthat also never had an authenticated case of Lyme disease to begin with.This is concerning in itself, as doctors are supposed to follow the medical evidence, at least in the clinical hour. Douthat then follows a self-navigated path, encountering a cottage industry of scientifically unsupported practices. He takes a prolonged course of antibiotics, (often self-prescribed), though controlled treatment trials show no benefit for this treatment approach, and it's associated with considerable harm.Douthat's writing seems "sciencey," but he's a guy looking things up on the internet and swallowing whole the idea that post-treatment Lyme isn't recognized by the wider medical community because they are behind the times. Actually, it's not recognized because there's no clinical evidence for it: well-designed studies have already been done, disproving the claims of its supporters.The "providers" in the mushrooming cottage industry of post-Lyme "treatment" are making plenty of money, pushing unsafe courses of antibiotics that don't perform better than placebo and are associated with harm. Also, Douthat never did receive treatment for his anxiety. His weight loss, muscle pain, sleeplessness, flushing, and occasional urges to sprint do seem consistent with anxiety.

Wonderful book - read it in 3 days.