My Nerves Are Bad

Loue Sana

Description

Over a two-year period, author Sana Loue and her research team followed the lives of fifty-three Puerto Rican women living with severe mental illness as they coped with daily challenges in the areas of family, romantic relationships, employment, social services, substance use, and health care. The team interviewed the women and shadowed them at their homes, churches, schools, physicians' offices, family events, and other occasions in order to understand how their mental illness, their gender, their language, and their culture affected their relationships with others, their understandings of their own situations, and their hopes for themselves and their families.

Sana Loue lets us see the remarkable strength of many of the women and hear in their own words about their efforts to survive, despite long histories of childhood physical and sexual abuse, partner violence, substance use, poverty, and severe mental illness. We also witness the violence that surrounds them and the HIV risk that becomes a part of their lives in their efforts to survive economically and emotionally.

Sujets

• Médecine
• Spécialités médicales
• Latin American Studies
• Women's Health
• Mental Health
• Medical
• Anthropology
• Health

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 11 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826517555
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Mis nervios estan malos

“ ” My Nerves Are Bad Puerto Rican  Women Managing  Mental Illness  and HIV Risk Sana Loue

“ ” My Nerves Are Bad

“ ” My Nerves Are Bad

Puerto Rican Women Managing Mental Illness and HIV Risk

Sana Loue

Vanderbilt University Press Nashville

© 2011 by Vanderbilt University Press Nasville, Tennessee 37235 All rigts reserved First printing 2011

his book is printed on acid-free paper made from 30% post-consumer recycled content. Manufactured in te United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Loue, Sana. “My nerves are bad” : Puerto Rican women managing mental illness and HIV risk / Sana Loue. p. ; cm. Puerto Rican women managing mental illness and HIV risk Includes bibliograpical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8265-1753-1 (clot ed. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8265-1754-8 (pbk. ed. : alk. paper) 1. AIDS (Disease)—Oio. 2. Mentally ill—Healt and ygiene—Oio. 3. Puerto Rican women—Healt and ygiene—Oio. 4. Puerto Rican women—mental ealt—Oio. I. Title. II. Title: Puerto Rican women managing mental illness and HIV risk. [DNLM: 1. HIV Infections—etnology—Puerto Rico. 2. HIV Infections—etnology—United States. 3. Mental Disorders— etnology—Puerto Rico. 4. Mental Disorders—etnology—United States. 5. Healt Policy—Puerto Rico. 6. Healt Policy—United States. 7. Hispanic Americans—Puerto Rico. 8. Hispanic Americans—United States. 9. Socioeconomic Factors—Puerto Rico. 10. Socioeconomic Factors—United States. 11. Women’s Healt—Puerto Rico. 12. Women’s Healt—United States. WA 300 AA1] RA643.84.O3L68 2011 362.196'9792009771—dc22 2010036853

God tells you not to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow is not promised. he birds don’t ave any clotes but God provides. We are is cildren and e will provide. Sometimes we feel sad because we are uman, but you ask God and you will feel better. —Maria, diagnosed wit scizoprenia (quoted in Loue and Sajatovic 2006, p. 1175)

Todos nacimos para morir. Dios nos lleva cuando nos necesite. [We are all born to die. God takes us wen e needs us.] —Narcisa, diagnosed wit bipolar disorder

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Contents

List of Tables  ix

Acknowledgments  xi

Beyond Numbers: Faces of HIV and Mental Illness in Norteastern Oio’s Latino Communities  1

Living wit Mental Illness  19

Making Ends Meet  43

Love Is a Four-Letter Word  61

Critical Oters  77

Moterood  95

Adrift: Navigating Systems and Bureaucracies  111

Negotiating Risk  133

Power, Processes, and Agency  155

Notes  163

References  177

Index  209

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Tables

Recruitment callenges and strategies

Retention strategies by study pase

Sources of data

Demograpic caracteristics of te study participants (N = 53)

Illness caracteristics of te study participants (N = 53)

Mental and emotional caracteristics of critical oters

Mental ealt service utilization of te study participants

HIV knowledge among study participants (n = 35)

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Risk beaviors among study participants (N = 53) during past ninety days and over lifetime 136