A review of Schizoid at Smith: How Overparenting Leads to Underachieving by Blair Sorrel.
Blair Sorrel’s memoir arrives as both a revelation and a warning. In A Schizoid at Smith, the author offers an unflinchingly honest account of living with schizoid personality disorder – a condition so rarely discussed that sufferers remain largely invisible to society. What distinguishes this work from conventional memoirs is Sorrel’s willingness to chronicle not triumph but survival, not achievement but the crushing weight of underachievement despite attending prestigious Smith College. Her literary prose transforms what could have been a clinical case study into a deeply human story of isolation, misunderstanding, and eventual self-knowledge.
The book’s most powerful passages examine the roots of Sorrel’s disorder in severe overparenting. Her mother, a WAAC nurse during World War II, imposed military-grade protocols on everyday life – obsessive hygiene rituals, rigid social rules, and emotional austerity that left young Blair ill-prepared for human connection. Sorrel masterfully illustrates how extreme parental control, however well-intentioned, can profoundly damage a child’s capacity for normal social functioning. These early chapters read like psychological horror, as readers watch a sensitive child’s natural development systematically undermined by the very person meant to nurture her.
What makes this memoir essential reading is its rarity. Schizoid personality disorder affects primarily men and sufferers seldom seek help, making Sorrel’s decision to “come out of the cupboard” an act of considerable bravery. She provides invaluable insight into the internal experience of emotional detachment, the exhausting effort required to maintain employment, and the profound loneliness of watching life happen to everyone else. Her 1988 diagnosis by clinician Selma Landisberg becomes a turning point, not toward cure, but toward understanding. The clinical descriptors, “desire to be alone, difficulty expressing emotions, trouble holding jobs”, suddenly contextualize decades of bewildering struggle.
Sorrel writes with remarkable self-awareness and literary skill, employing vivid imagery and cultural references that elevate the narrative beyond mere confession. Her observations about the 1960s-70s era at Smith College, the expectations placed on educated women, and the chasm between promise and reality resonate universally. The contrast between her Smith pedigree and subsequent “marginal subsistence” becomes a meditation on how mental illness respects neither privilege nor potential. Her prose carries both wit and pathos, refusing self-pity while acknowledging genuine suffering.
This memoir serves multiple audiences: those struggling with their own withdrawal from the world, therapists seeking to understand this elusive disorder, families grappling with the aftermath of overcontrol, and anyone interested in the complex relationship between parenting and mental health. Sorrel achieves what she set out to accomplish, shedding light on an arcane condition while offering hope that understanding, if not recovery, remains possible. A Schizoid at Smith is an important contribution to the literature of mental illness, remarkable for its honesty, clarity, and ultimate message of human resilience against invisible odds.
