How We Survive Ourselves tells the stories of mental illness through the eyes of a man with dissociative identity disorder, a young woman with misophonia, a young woman with depression, the wife of the DID sufferer, and a therapist trying to help these characters cope. How We Survive Ourselves is meant to be a realistic picture of mental illness, but that does not mean there is no hope. Through the eyes of the characters and their experiences, a new sort of understanding develops.