Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story

By Mac McClelland

"I had nightmares, flashbacks. I dissociated... Changes in self-perception and hallucinations-those are some of my other symptoms. You are poison, I chanted silently to myself. And your poison is contagious."
So begins Mac McClelland's powerful, unforgettable memoir, Irritable Hearts.
When thirty-year-old, award-winning human rights journalist Mac McClelland left Haiti after reporting on the devastating earthquake of 2010, she never imagined how the assignment would irrevocably affect her own life. Back home in California, McClelland cannot stop reliving vivid scenes of violence. She is plagued by waking terrors, violent fantasies, and crippling emotional breakdowns. She can't sleep or stop crying. Her life in shambles, it becomes clear that she is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Her bewilderment about this sudden loss of control is magnified by the intensity of her feelings for Nico, a French soldier she met in Port-au-Prince and with whom she connected instantly and deeply.
With inspiring fearlessness, McClelland tackles perhaps her most harrowing assignment to date: investigating the damage in her own mind and repairing her broken psyche. She begins to probe the depths of her illness, exploring our culture's history with PTSD, delving into the latest research by the country's top scientists and therapists, and spending time with veterans and their families. McClelland discovers she is far from alone: while we frequently associate PTSD with wartime combat, it is more often caused by other manner of trauma and can even be contagious-close proximity to those afflicted can trigger its symptoms. As she confronts the realities of her diagnosis, she opens up to the love that seems to have found her at an inopportune moment. Irritable Hearts is a searing, personal medical mystery that unfolds at a breakneck pace. But it is also a romance. McClelland fights desperately to repair her heart so that she can give it to the kind, patient, and compassionate man with whom she wants to share a life. Vivid, suspenseful, tender, and intimate, Irritable Hearts is a remarkable exploration of vulnerability and resilience, control and acceptance. It is a riveting and hopeful story of survival, strength, and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781250053497

Mac McClelland

Mac McClelland is the author of For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question. She has written for Reuters, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications, and has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Sidney Hillman Foundation, the Online News Association, the Society of Environmental Journalists, and the Association for Women in Communications. Her work has also been nominated for two National Magazine Awards for Feature Writing and has been anthologized in Best American Magazine Writing 2011, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011, and Best Business Writing 2013.

Reviews for Irritable Hearts

[nancyjean19 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An amazing read. The author not only shares her deeply personal story in a brutally honest way, but she also connects her life to a larger discussion about how women are treated in the world, and how often our experiences are dismissed. She shares everything she learns with the approach of "Can you freaking believe this?" I like how honest she is about her previous conceptions of PTSD and how hard those were to shake. I think she's also very aware of her own privileges, just as a white American with a good career. An important read for everyone to better understand the emotional minefields many walk through every day.

[muddyboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is written by a woman who witnesses a brutal attack while covering a news story in Haiti. It, along with other events in her life start her long struggle to overcome PTSD which triggers alcohol abuse and the desire for abusive sex. She has done a lot of research on the topic and this book would be helpful to someone who suffers from PTSD or family members affected by this condition. Through it all she maintains the love of an understanding partner.

[kellifrobinson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"No one says that unresolved trauma can kill you. If anyone did, maybe people would take it more seriously. Serious as cancer." Mac McClelland is an American journalist and author that reports on domestic and international human rights stories. She has seen and heard a lot of nasty stuff through the course of her work, but it was a particularly violent sexual incident that she personally witnessed on the streets of Haiti in 2010 that ultimately led to her diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Mac adamantly refuses to describe that Haiti incident in detail for the reader, but instead focuses her memoir on the physical and mental after effects that she has now come to realize may be with her for a lifetime. Towards the end of the book, Mac spends some time contemplating secondary traumatic stress disorder (STSD) which can affect spouses, children, and caretakers. This was an important question for Mac because she also fell in love on that fateful trip to Haiti. My question: Is it possible to exhibit minor symptoms of STSD from just reading a raw, well-researched account of someone else's PTSD? I literally had to put this book down at times when my pounding headache and racing heart made it impossible to proceed. For me, that is evidence of the strength and impact of this book.