The Mental Health Book Club Podcast really liked this book. Sydney gave it 5* and Becky 4*. Sydney felt a particular connection with this book as she shares a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. Rebecca also talks about her Bipolar, Anxiety and Depression diagnosis.
Rebecca’s honesty and sincerity comes through in her writing. She is so open about how her life has been and is affected by her mental illness. She discusses medication, treatments and hospitalisation as well as the daily struggles she faces. Her honesty is so moving especially as she discusses her attempt to take her own life.
The courage she shows as she navigates her illnesses is incomparable. The strength she shows as she faces grief, family and other life events is relatable to everyone. Even after publishes let her down she continues to move forward.
The raw emotion and honesty in this book will make it hard for anyone to put down. We were lucky enough to also get an interview with Rebecca to go alongside our review.
The Mental Health Book Club Podcast loved this book, both
Becky and Sydney gave it 5*.
This book is written as a powerfully profound story of Olive
who is struggling with her mental health. Refusing to know her diagnosis she
attends Camp Reset to get the intense treatment she needs.
While there she meets other adolescents, who share her struggles
in their own unique way. Yet together they can unite to find their own way to
fight their struggles and help the world be a little kinder.
The book is filled with humour while dealing with some
serious points. Our favourite moment was, of course, the Alpaca moment, which
we even recreated when we visited an alpaca farm recently.
This book stands up to the stigmas around mental illness
while also being a fantastic novel for young adults and adults alike.
Find our full review and interview with Holly at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com,
on iTunes or where ever you get your podcasts.
Follow Rebecca Lombardo as she details two years of her twenty-five year battle with mental illness and what brought her to attempt to take her life in 2013. As she recovered from that attempt, she continued to write in the hopes that she would help purge some of the pain in her life. What she never expected was that she could help others as well. This book quite simply began as a blog and became a book; where she opens up about her real and raw emotions during those two years.
Set aside any preconceived notions you may have about what a book should be and put yourself in the shoes of someone struggling daily with a disease she could not control, despite the support of her loving husband. Even with the struggles, Rebecca attempts to offer the reader support and guidance as she begs them not to follow her path.
This book is the true story of one woman that fights a battle inside her mind every single day and attempts to document what she is feeling to help others while she helps herself. This is the second edition of It’s Not Your Journey.
At 44 years of age and happily married for 15 years, Rebecca can finally say that she is on her way to reaching her dream. Not only does she hope to help people that are struggling with depression, she hopes to help everyone realize that you are never too old to find your voice.
We may have been utter fan girls in this interview as we got the chance to speak to one of our favourite authors – Holly Bourne. Holly’s Young Adult books often have characters who are dealing with mental health issues and we often wonder what it would have been like to have these when we were younger. We really could have spent a lot longer talking to Holly as we found out that she actually was in the year below Becky at the same collage!
Thanks to the lovely people at Happiful Magazine who have sponsored Sydney to attend the Mental Health First Aid Course this July. We will be bringing you some special episodes on the course as Becky has completed the young people’s Mental Health First Aid Course.
If you haven’t heard of Happiful Magazine before here is what they are trying to do: Their mission is to create a healthier, happier, more sustainable society. Aiming to provide informative, inspiring and topical stories about mental health and wellbeing. They want to break the stigma of mental health in society, and to shine a light on the positivity and support that should be available for everyone, no matter their situation. The e-magazine is free. Hard copies are available, see their website for more details.
Thanks to the lovely people at Happiful Magazine who have sponsored Sydney to attend the Mental Health First Aid Course this July. We will be bringing you some special episodes on the course as Becky has completed the young people’s Mental Health First Aid Course.
If you haven’t heard of Happiful Magazine before here is what they are trying to do: Their mission is to create a healthier, happier, more sustainable society. Aiming to provide informative, inspiring and topical stories about mental health and wellbeing. They want to break the stigma of mental health in society, and to shine a light on the positivity and support that should be available for everyone, no matter their situation. The e-magazine is free. Hard copies are available, see their website for more details.
Welcome to Camp Reset, a summer camp with a difference. A place offering a shot at “normality” for Olive, a girl on the edge, and for the new friends she never expected to make – who each have their own reasons for being there. Luckily Olive has a plan to solve all their problems. But how do you fix the world when you can’t fix yourself?
Mind The Mental Health Charity Infoline: 0300 123 3393 (Our lines are open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday (except for bank holidays) Text: 86463 http://bit.ly/2p6rntK
Mind The Mental Health Charity Infoline: 0300 123 3393 (Our lines are open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday (except for bank holidays) Text: 86463 http://bit.ly/2p6rntK
Our behaviour is influenced by our parents, we often take on their mannerisms and behaviours. Let’s face it how many times have you found yourself doing something that you can associate with one of your parents?
But, what happens if a parent has an undiagnosed mental health issue that impacts their emotional response to the world around them? Well, it can have a long lasting and devastating impact late into their children’s adult life.
Dandelion Angel by C.B. Calico follows the stories of four adult daughters and their mothers who have undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD). A parent with this mental health condition often results in an emotionally chaotic and unstable home environment for the children in their care. These mothers are often demanding, emotionally neglectful, rage filled and even physically abusive towards their own offspring.
In our opinion C.B. Calico explores the impacts of BPD on the entire family, in a sympathetic way, whilst not excusing the mother’s actions or behaviours. We learn about the childhood stories of the mother’s and whilst they are heart breaking in themselves, they are not there as an excuse to justify their later behaviour towards their children. Their stories are provided to give an insight into the situations that shaped them into the people we read about in this book. Each grown up daughter still bears the emotional scars left by their mothers, but yet all four have been able to move forward with their own lives in differing ways. This story provides hope to those who may have experienced similar upbringings.
What do women learn from their mothers? Everything they want to be and everything they don’t. After all, not all mothers are created equal. In C.B. Calico’s stunning new contemporary fiction novel, Dandelion Angel, we meet four German women brought together by the pain of their mothers. Each matriarch suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder—a condition their daughters never knew had a name when they were growing up. They wish they had. They wish someone had told them this was treatable, or that other girls were being raised like they were: isolated, confused, and completely unsure of their worth.
Caren has known all her life that her mother, Ute, cannot be pleased. Yet, she tries. Even in her thirties, she will do anything to gain her approval; she’ll even risk her marriage. But, Ute’s own wounds, buried in layers of history and tragedy, go too deep.
To the outside world, Irja’s childhood looked like a dream. A famous actress for a mother, trips to Disneyland, she had it all. They didn’t see her mother’s rages, her tantrums and insults. Irja suffered it all, quietly, until her mother’s cruelty threatened Irja’s own son. With the instincts of a lioness, she finally breaks, and breaks free. Jo gave up everything—including her spare time and small joys—to look after her needy, dependent mother. Only after her mother’s eventual death does she gain some solace.
Mandy calls herself Angel. Unimaginably wounded by the scars her mother carried from her East German upbringing, Mandy ran away from home young. Mute, stunted by a heartbreaking stutter, she squats in Berlin. At a crossroads, she meets the right cop at the right time and finally begins to heal. Angel emerges from the desperation of her life, just as the stubborn dandelion on her balcony breaks through a tiny crack in the concrete.
With a sensitive hand, Calico reveals the intertwined lives of these four remarkable women. A touching and fascinating work of commercial fiction, Dandelion Angel is a revelation of the tenacity of the human spirit as it focuses on the recovery of the daughters, rather than the abuse by their mothers.
