Mental Health Book Review: Birth of a New Brain by Dyane Harwood

Overall Rating:

The Mental Health Book Club Podcast loved this book, both Becky and Sydney gave it 5*.

We adored this book and could not put it down. Not only is its honestly infectious, Dyane writes in a way which means you cannot help but care for her. Dyane’s struggles with postpartum bipolar affective disorder is complex and heart-breaking. The support she gets from her husband and her doula (post birth support) is amazing, a role we had never heard of before.

Dyane’s honesty is raw and will leave you with a much better understanding of bipolar disorder. She reflects on her father’s struggles with the same illness and times in her past when she might have been experiencing it, unknowingly.

It is hard to read the treatments and failures in medication that Dyane goes through. The hope that something will work is finally reached but it is a long bumpy road. Her experiences with the controversial electroconvulsive therapy are explained without judgement. Dyane explains that everyone is an individual and owns the fact this is just her story. However, it is a story many can find hope and understanding.

This book is an amazing story by a courageous and strong lady who overcomes any obstacle put in front of her. She is an inspiration and now a friend.

Find our full review and an interview with Dyane at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com, on iTunes or where ever you get your podcasts.

Episode 70 – Scrambled Heads by Emily Palmer

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses Anorexia Nervosa.

Get Scrambled Heads here

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This is our second episode in our kids week special. You will find our review of the book followed by our fantastic interview with Emily. I was such a pleasure to speak to her and we think that this book is a fantastic starting point to help people talk about mental health with children.

You can support the Mental Health Book Club and get early access to episodes and extended episodes with as little as $2 a month to get advance access to our episodes and a range of other awards. We hope to be able to donate money to a range of mental health charities once we reach certain targets.

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediately.

If you need to talk you can contact:

Samaritans on:

116 123 (UK)
116 123 (ROI)
Find out more at their website http://bit.ly/2wMpKZ5

Mental Health Resources:

Rethink Mental Illness

0121 522 7007
http://bit.ly/1s7txdq

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

Social Media

Twitter:

Becky: @BLawrence85

Sydney: @sydney_timmins

The Secret Psychiatrist: @thesecretpsych

Podcast: @MHBC_Podcast

Facebook

Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/MHBCpodcast/

Sydney: https://www.facebook.com/Sydney-Timmins-1695774814065575/

 

Book 28 – Scrambled Heads by Emily Palmer

Scrambled Heads is children’s book about mental health. The book can support children who are suffering with their mental health, but also their siblings, family, friends, classmates and also children of parents who are suffering with poor mental health. The book is easy to understand and explains mental health in a fun way, to help break the taboo of talking about mental health.

Book 26 – Searching for brighter days: learning to manage my bipolar brain by Karen Manton

Trigger are proud to announce Theinspirationalseries, partner to their innovative Pullingthetrigger range. Theinspirationalseries promotes the idea that mental illness should be talked about freely and without fear.

Growing up in a deprived area of North East England in the 1970’s, alcoholism and violence played a huge role in Karen’s everyday family life. But things were only to become more difficult when, at the age of seventeen, she began her battle with anxiety and depression, an illness nobody recognised.

At times feeling as though she was locked inside her own mind, Karen tried to make sense of her heightened and intense emotions. Her reality became a devastating, deteriorating state of existence, and no one seemed to understand what was happening to her.

A number of harrowing, recurrent and often bizarre episodes – including a phantom pregnancy, a nightclub assault, and an unhealthy obsession with a celebrity – eventually lead to Karen being sectioned under the mental health act and taken into hospital. It then took years and many more dramatic relapses before doctors would finally give her the correct diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

This is a no-holds-barred, inspirational true story of how, despite losses and difficulties along the way, Karen Manton learned to manage her illness, stay out of hospital, and find those ‘brighter days’.

Interview 1 – Dyane Harwood Author of Birth of a New Brain

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses mania, depression, suicide and extreme behaviour.

It was an absolute pleasure to speak to Dyane Harwood author of Birth of a New Brain were we talk about her journey with postpartum bipolar one, treatment resistant depression, hospitilasation, her wonderful family and more.

Get the book here

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediately.

If you need to talk you can contact:

Samaritans on:

Mental Health Resources:

Rethink Mental Illness

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

Social Media

Twitter:

Becky: @BLawrence85

Sydney: @sydney_timmins

Podcast: @MHBC_Podcast

Facebook

Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/MHBCpodcast/

Sydney: https://www.facebook.com/Sydney-Timmins-1695774814065575/

 

Episode 39 – Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder by Dyane Harwood pt 2

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses mania, depression, suicide and extreme behaviour.

Get our next book here

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediately.

If you need to talk you can contact:

Samaritans on:

Mental Health Resources:

Rethink Mental Illness

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

Social Media

Twitter:

Becky: @BLawrence85

Sydney: @sydney_timmins

Podcast: @MHBC_Podcast

Facebook

Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/MHBCpodcast/

Sydney: https://www.facebook.com/Sydney-Timmins-1695774814065575/

Episode 39 – Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder by Dyane Harwood pt 1

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses mania, depression, suicide and extreme behaviour.

Get our next book here

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediately.

If you need to talk you can contact:

Samaritans on:

Mental Health Resources:

Rethink Mental Illness

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

Social Media

Twitter:

Becky: @BLawrence85

Sydney: @sydney_timmins

Podcast: @MHBC_Podcast

Facebook

Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/MHBCpodcast/

Sydney: https://www.facebook.com/Sydney-Timmins-1695774814065575/

Book 16 – Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder by Dyane Harwood


After the birth of her baby triggers a manic maelstrom, Dyane Harwood struggles to survive the bewildering highs and crippling lows of her brain’s turmoil. Birth of a New Brain vividly depicts her postpartum bipolar disorder, an unusual type of bipolar disorder and postpartum mood and anxiety disorder.

During her childhood, Harwood grew up close to her father, a brilliant violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic who had bipolar disorder. She learned how bipolar disorder could ravage a family, but she never suspected that she’d become mentally ill—until her baby was born.

Harwood wondered if mental health would always be out of her reach. From medications to electroconvulsive therapy, from “redwood forest baths” to bibliotherapy, she explored both traditional and unconventional methods of recovery—in-between harrowing psychiatric hospitalizations.

Harwood reveals how she ultimately achieved a stable mood. She discovered that despite having a chronic mood disorder, a new, richer life is possible. Birth of a New Brain is the chronicle of one mother’s perseverance, offering hope and grounded advice for those battling mental illness.