Hidden Valley Road: My Thoughts

Hidden Valley Road
By Robert Kolker



My own copy


I picked up the book, Hidden Valley Road because Oprah recommended the book. She recommended it for her book club. Our book club has not met in two months. I missed discussing books with our club. I thought I might try it out. Oprah discusses her book each week on Oprah Book Club on Instagram. I thought it was a great idea.

Hidden Valley Road is a hard book to read. It brings up many emotions and stirs up feelings. I connected with the book right away. Two reasons, I worked as a psychiatric nurse for the VA Hospital, and also my son has Bipolar that is managed( thank g-d).

The book has many facets to the reading experience. I love the writing style of the author. It is part biography, part scientific research of psychiatry, social culture, and psychiatric history.

Hidden Valley Road is about the Galvin family. The family is a large dysfunctional family. I am not going to go into the dysfunction, and craziness of the book. I will say during the time the children were growing up. Families hid dysfunction in the family. Most families didn't talk about personal things happening in the family. It was hidden.  Families felt embarrassed and ashamed. Everything was hidden. As the saying goes, "Pull yourself up from your bootstraps, get over it".

The book is unbelievable what the family went through. I am not going to go into the craziness, absurdities, and dysfunction of the family. You will just have to read it yourself. What I will say, anyone who is a young person who is interested in psychiatry, and schizophrenia.  Or someone who doesn't know about the illness will learn what it is like living with schizophrenia. The research, and the psychiatric history, and social history relating to the mental health community is amazing. The author did a good job writing the book. I loved the writing style, and the way research and narrative were interwoven in the book.

I always wondered what is the ramification of long term use of psychiatric medication. For years in practice, I wondered. The book talks about it from a family perspective. Also how hard it is to be a caregiver to six brothers as they age. How hard it is to take care of your family, and have a job, and wife, and take care of your sick sibling with a long term mental history. Lindsey didn't ask for that. It was her mother. Unfortunately, her mother couldn't care for them as she aged and eventually died.


 Some things I knew and was aware of working as a psychiatric nurse. Some things are constantly brought up over and over in the book. Which is talked about and debated, and still debated, Nature vs. Nurture?  Myself, I think it is both. I liked reading the different perspectives of the research, the family, and history. I found my mouth drop. Some people in the field will most likely say, I already knew that. That's why the book I would not recommend to some people who may find it is a refresher course. I found it refreshing for a younger author to see his perspective.

 The scientists now realize after years genomes play a role in our genetic code. Which one? That is the big question that causes our brain to be normal or dysfunctional. Which specific one causes the issue. There are too many to really know that answer. As the codes have too many different arrangements. The family has 12 boys and girls. Six of the boys have schizophrenia. The family had a difficult time coping with six. I can't imagine with one. Both the mother and father had issues that is why I say where does genetics start and nature begin. Because I feel it goes hand in hand.

Out of the book, I found we still treat mental illness the same. Nothing has changed, unfortunately.  We still look away at a mentally ill person. When gun control is talked about, its a crazy person. We treat mentally ill people as criminals. We, the rest of society doesn't and won't deal with it. We turn the other way. Until it is talked about, really. Nothing will be fixed in our society.

 I have seen as a nurse and a caregiver to my son so much inequality. Some of these people are shoved under the rug. No support system. Let me give you an example. I talked to my son's caseworker. I told them my son can't be on the expensive medication. Do you think they listen, no?  The hospital discharged him not ready for discharge yet. Luckily, as his support system. He was lucky, he had a support system to help him. And at the time it was financially stable. Others are not so lucky. besides knowing how the psychiatric community works. Others are not so lucky.

 The hospital discharged him with his medication $1500. I don't have that kind of money. Luckily, I found a coupon. Someone with a mental illness wouldn't know what to do. For me, it was discounted to $400. I could take care of it short term. Which I did. But, what about the many others who can't afford it. How could a social worker discharge someone without finding out in discharge planning? How he was going to pay for it? This is just one example of many experiences I have had dealing with Doctors, Nurses, and Social Workers. They just discharge them and forget it... So sad in our society.