You Had To Be There

Terrence McCarthy was a newspaper reporter, then made a career change. He became an advertising copywriter and worked his way up to creative director. After working in journalism and advertising, McCarthy made another career change; he became a counselor on a locked psychiatric unit in Massachusetts. You Had To Be There chronicles how the author made those career changes. The book begins in McCarthy's hometown, a New England mill town whose nickname is Web Town, after the elastic once made in its mills. The author writes about growing up in that town, of the four years he served in the Air Force, his years as a reporter, and as an ad man. You Had To Be There takes readers behind the locked doors of a psych unit, one of the most dangerous workplaces in the United States. McCarthy describes how the unit on which he worked gained a reputation as a humane place where patients, whose diagnoses ranged from depression to schizophrenia, got treatment and, in most cases, got better. McCarthy also describes his struggle with depression and anxiety, and how he tried not to let those " issues " interfere with the arcs of his careers. There is much humor in this book. Much of the humor was found on the unit. Laughs and grins on a locked ward? You had to be there.