![]() ![]() “I often encourage people to dig deep and ask questions that may feel taboo,” he said. Lendermon loves that the Human Library is a safe space to ask things that might not be acceptable in other settings. “I get a lot of questions about how I came out, and how my family responded,” he said. “But everyone walks away with just a little bit more empathy and lightness.”Īt the event, Adam Lendermon, a book whose title is Gay, says a lot of people ask similar questions. “It’s not about changing anyone’s mind,” Amend said, noting that the project’s organizers emphasize that no one book represents an entire identity or community. She says it’s freeing to have civil, open conversations with strangers.Īmend, one of about 100 human books in California, says people have different experiences living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and as a book in the Human Library she’s only expected to share her own experience with the condition. When she heard about the Human Library project, she was excited about the chance to share her experience in a more structured setting. That moment of vulnerability with a relative stranger stuck with Amend for years. (Camille Bas-Wohlert/AFP via Getty Images) “I think it definitely started to, somewhere in the back of my head, trigger that thought of like … you helped someone by being a hot mess, so maybe this is my deal in life: to be the one that speaks up.” A volunteer writes the day’s list of ‘human book’ titles on a blackboard at the Human Library in Copenhagen on Aug. “She was like, ‘I have a lot of insecurity and anxiety.’ She was trying to say, ‘Me, too! I know what this is and I’ve experienced this,’” Amend recalled. “It’s extremely raw, showing everyone your insides and all your darkness,” she said.īut afterwards, as everyone was gathering their belongings and leaving the room, a woman approached her. When the panic attack subsided, Amend said she felt mortified. “I started crying and just babbling because I gather my thoughts,” she said. When it was her turn to request a prayer, she was unable to speak. Sitting in a circle of fellow worshippers one evening, Amend began to feel a sense of panic rising in her chest. “That kind of environment was always a huge trigger,” she says, “because I was sitting in a room full of people I thought were perfect, and I was the only one that was carrying this mess.” Jesse Amend, whose book title is OCD, had been looking for an opportunity to open up to strangers ever since an upsetting experience during a Bible study meeting years earlier. ![]() The event is part of a regular series hosted by the Los Angeles chapter of the Human Library, an international organization that holds similar events around the world. ![]() During their 30-minute chat, the reader can ask the book anything about the experience. “Readers” can choose a title that interests them and the pair sit down at a small table in the leafy courtyard of the library. Each human “book” represents a lived experience that has been stigmatized or misunderstood, and those people have signed up to have frank conversations with members of the public about it. ![]()
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