Jennifer Lunden’s American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body’s Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life is at once a piece of medical journalism, a feminist indictment of capitalism, corporations, and the ways they interplay with the medical system, a history lesson in the Industrial Age, and a gripping and self-empathetic memoir. I learned about arsenic in wallpapers, sick building syndrome, the life of Alice James, the history of what we now call ME/CFS and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and finally, Dynamic Neural Retraining – retraining the limbic system that gives many people exquisite relief from chronic illness, including fibromyalgia, long Covid, ME/CFS, PTSD, depression, and other assaults on the brain. **important disclaimer — this does not work for everyone nor for every illness.

My friends know that I’ve had my share of serious chronic illness—less serious than many, more serious than some. Reading the book was at once devastating and affirming. The doctors who, when I was in such excruciating pain – that worsened when I lay down – that I slept MAYBE 20 minutes a night, told me to exercise more. (I exercised a lot – it distracted me from the pain.) The pain doctors who, after I wrote on the intake form that I did not want opioids, looked me in the eye and told me they could not give me opioids. The rheumatologists who, after I brought notes from my physical therapist and acupuncturist imploring them to run rheumatological tests, told me it was probably my menopause. Until finally, I called a physiatrist I had seen years earlier and begged him to help me. I told him I needed him to call a rheumatologist and tell them I was not an attention seeker. After he gave me some painful trigger point injections (that did not work) he made the call while I sat on the table.

Dr. Olga Petryna, to whom I will always be grateful, saw me that week, told me she thought it was rheumatological, ran a bunch of tests, and sent me home with prednisone. Within 2 days my symptoms had alleviated, and within a week we found out that I had something called Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR), which was unusual for someone in my age range. (Usually strikes people older.) During my year on steroids, I caught the flu, although vaccinated. I got the shingles. But I also was out of pain, and healed from PMR. But then something else struck me. An excruciating systemic rash that evaded every diagnosis. I was pricked and prodded and went on special diets and stopped using all skin products and had to go off my regular medications and eventually my doctor found extremely high inflammatory markers and realized we had another auto-immune disorder on our hands. This time I went on powerful chemotherapy-related immune suppressant drugs that I had to stay on for several years.

Throughout this entire time – from the PMR to the rash to the compromised immune system – I asked doctors if they thought this could be triggered environmentally. I had started working in a building across from the World Trade Center, where rents were affordable, so non-profits moved in. You know, I was searching for reasons my body was rebelling against itself, and one of the most obvious places for me to look was at its newest, most changed environment. So I would ask these doctors – do you think that there could be an environmental factor? Something in the building? And they would all say, “Oh, no. That was so long ago.” It had been 13 years. And then I got to the chapter in American Breakdown about sick building syndrome, and I stopped in my tracks.

She tells a story about workers in the EPA who got sick from their EPA building. THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY building was a sick building. She tells about faked science, corporate lies, and callous disregard for sick workers who were advocating for their own safety. I stopped in my tracks because of course (whether or not it was actually the trigger that set off my terrible years) what’s one thing we know about corporations? They lie. They lie their faces off. They don’t have faces cuz they’re not actually people even though the Supreme Court says they are persons, in some circumstances, but they lie their faces off. And whether doctors are ever actually informed about environmental health risks or whether they’re not curious enough to explore them, or whether they just don’t have time to think beyond the 20 minutes that the medical industrial complex will allow them to see their patients, those questions of mine always went unexplored.

But then my work moved to another office, up on 57th Street. And the start and the alleviation of my debilitating illnesses coincided with my tenure in the financial district. Was that the only possible factor? Of course not. Was it very likely a trigger for my body? Yup. Along with probably stress from work and genetic predisposition and a million other factors. Why am I going into such detail? Cuz Lunden reminded me that my story is far from unique, and that I never stopped fighting—that I was and am an activist not only for a transformed and just society, but for my own health. And that is where she wraps her book—with a call to action for us all to spread our wings just a bit further, to notch up our activism just a bit more. And by sharing her personal story, interwoven with expert research into industrialism, medical history, and Alice James’ illness and letters, she invited me to share this small part of mine. And I invite you to read her book.

read more about American Breakdown

visit JenniferLunden.com (the book author’s website)

visit JeynLevison.com (the book review author’s website)