In Bloom Not Broken

Book excerpt: A book to provide insight and hope into mental illness including self harm, anorexia, depression, suicidal ideation, bipolar and psychosis.A must read for both people struggling with mental health issues and those who treat them.Katie Provides a personal first person account in to the world of living with mental illness as well as to the treatment system covering both NHS and private sectors.Author Katie Maylea makes her debut in this raw, honest memoir about surviving life when living seems no longer an option. Katie revisits her past and looks beyond to her future as a person living with mental illness, sharing with the reader a message of hope driven by sheer audacity. Through personal writings spanning years, Ms. Houghton invites us into the mind of a troubled young woman navigating through the hostile, barren landscape of depression entirely by feel, driven by her insatiable will to survive no matter the obstacles in her way. As the author guides the reader through her journey, she offers candid self-examinations of her actions, behaviours, and experiences against the backdrop of a tumultuous childhood and adolescence marked by family upheaval and undiagnosed mental illness. In detailing her subsequent experiences with self-harm, anorexia, bipolar disorder and the battle for the right treatment the author offers a compassionate perspective on life lived in spite of adversity before her eventual redemption through mental health treatment. Inspiring and thought-provoking, advocates, treatment professionals, and general readers alike will be moved by such perseverance despite the rabidity of personal demons