Episode 43 – A Beginners Guide to Being Mental: An A-Z from Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given by Natasha Devon MBE pt3

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses anorexia nervosa, purging, self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.

Get our next book here

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediately.

Where’s your head at campain petition

Natasha Devon MBE: @_NatashaDevon and _NatashaDevon on instagram

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 43 – A Beginners Guide to Being Mental: An A-Z from Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given by Natasha Devon MBE pt2

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses anorexia nervosa, purging, self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.

Get our next book here

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediately.

Where’s your head at campain petition

Natasha Devon MBE: @_NatashaDevon and _NatashaDevon on instagram

If you need to talk you can contact:

Smaritans 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/

Mental Health Book Review: A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental: An A – Z from Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given by Natasha Devon

Overall rating:


After attending the book launch in London and listening to Natasha talk about mental health we were excited to read this book for the podcast and even bumped it up the list. We are pleased to say that this book did not disappoint and both of us found it hard to put down. This book provides a fantastic overview of mental health. This topic is sensitive, and Natasha handles that very well, interweaving her own journey with mental health, information from experts, science, and humour which means that this book will appeal to a wider range of readers.

On the podcast we identified six letters to discuss but that in itself was a difficult task! There was so much in this book that provoked us to ask more questions and talk about societal issues that impact everyone’s mental health.

If you are looking for a self-help book, then this is not the book whilst she gives tips at the end of each letter the advice is minimal and highlights that because we all have a brain it is okay to feel this way. This book is a great starting point to get people talking about mental health – in comparison, physical health is easily discussed by people.

The main messages that we took away from this book were:

  • Mental health is just as important to physical health
  • We all have a brain so mental health is something everyone should be talking about
  • Social pressures impact mental health

Listen to our full review in:

Episode 43 pt1

Episode 43 pt2

Episode 43 pt3

 

Episode 43 – A Beginners Guide to Being Mental: An A-Z from Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given by Natasha Devon MBE pt1

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses anorexia nervosa, purging, self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.

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/

Interview 3 – Natasha Devon MBE Author of A Beginners Guide to Being Mental: An A -Z from Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses self-harm, young people’s mental health, personality disorders, ethnicity, anxiety and panic attacks.

Get the book here

It was an absolute pleasure to speak to Natasha Devon MBE author of  A Beginners Guide to Being Mental: An A -Z from Anxiety to Zero F**ks Given. We talk about her work as a mental health campaigner, her own experiences with mental health  and more.

Sign the petition: Where’s your head at Campaign

Follow Natasha Devon MBE on twitter and instagram: @_NatashaD

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:

Episode 33 – Eating Disorders with The Secret Psychitrist

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

Podcast: @MHBC_Podcast

Facebook

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

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

Book 18 – A Beginner’s Guide to being Mental: An A-Z from Anxiety to Zero F**KS Given

‘Am I normal?’
‘What’s an anxiety disorder?’
‘Does therapy work?’

These are just a few of the questions Natasha Devon is asked as she travels the UK campaigning for better mental health awareness and provision. Here, Natasha calls upon experts in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and anthropology to debunk and demystify the full spectrum of mental health. From A (Anxiety) to Z (Zero F**ks Given – or the art of having high self-esteem) via everything from body image and gender to differentiating ‘sadness’ from ‘depression’.

Statistically, one in three of us will experience symptoms of a mental illness during our lifetimes. Yet all of us have a brain, and so we ALL have mental health – regardless of age, sexuality, race or background. The past few years have seen an explosion in awareness, yet it seems there is still widespread confusion. A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental is for anyone who wants to have this essential conversation, written as only Natasha – with her combination of expertise, personal experience and humour – knows how

Episode 32 – Sugar by Deidre Riordan Hall

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses binge eating emotional and physical abuse, tragic death, sexual assault and attempted rape.

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:
Podcast: @MHBC_Podcast
 
Facebook

Book 13 – Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall

I’m the fat Puerto Rican–Polish girl who doesn’t feel like she belongs in her skin, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve always been too much and yet not enough.

Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home—cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.

When Sugar meets Even (not Evan—his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.

Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her.

 

Mental Health Book Review: Anxiety Girl Falls Again by Lacey London

Our Review

Overall Rating:

Sydney’s Rating:

Becky’s Rating:

Sadie has moved on from her bout with anxiety and depression and has changed her entire life. She has sold her swanky apartment and moved into a quaint cottage, she has a new job as a counsellor leading several anxiety anonymous support groups and Ruby has become a prominent part of her life. She seems like she has turned her life around and has beaten her issues with mental illness.

Her life becomes more interesting when Aidan Wilder walks into one of Sadie’s support groups. He intrigues her so much that she can’t stop thinking about him and wants to learn more. She makes it her mission to help this new mysterious man fight against his own demons. As the book progresses we start to find out more about what brought Aidan into Sadie’s life after a heart-breaking tragedy leaves him lost and struggling to continue with life.

Those around Sadie that care about her begin to worry about how involved she has become with a man she barely knows and as a reader I began to question how ethical some of her behaviour is whilst helping Aidan, and if she is perhaps at times overstepping and becoming unprofessional with him.

The other cause for concern as a reader is the way that Sadie believes that she is done with anxiety and that it will never be a problem for her again, whilst for most reality is rarely like that. I can understand her annoyance at those around her constantly checking up on her wellbeing and that people can feel this way but she fails to see their point of view. After all, in the last book she had made a suicide attempt – at that point it is justified for people to be concerned about you.

Again this is a quick read, the descriptions and discussions about grief are realistic and I look forward to reading the next instalment in the Sadie Valentine series.

Listen to the full review:
Mental Health Book Club Podcast Episode 9

Mental Health Book Review: Anxiety Girl by Lacey London

Our Review

Overall Rating:

Sydney’s rating:

Becky’s rating:

Mental ill health doesn’t discriminate and can have an impact on a person’s life at any time even if from other people’s perspective you look like you have your life together. Sadie Valentine’s life begins to crumble around her.

  • She has broken up with her fiancée,
  • Lost the place she displays her artwork for sale,
  • Her best friend Aldo decides he is moving out of Sadie’s apartment and in with his boyfriend,
  • The image she created about her absentee father is shattered when she finds him,
  • Unsympathetic friends
  • Poor relationship with her mother

It all becomes too much for Sadie and she starts to experience anxiety that impacts every aspect of her life. As her world spirals, she is reluctant to seek help, keeping her mental health issues hidden even from Aldo. The book explores Sadie’s reluctance in detail and highlights the issues associated with being in denial and how the stigma surrounding mental health as not being a legitimate illness.

True to some of my own thoughts, I felt that the descriptions of anxiety, panic attacks and Sadie’s own internal monologue was realistic and people who have experienced anxiety can relate to the things she is feeling.

The ending of the book felt a little too perfect, and the time frame that these changes occur is very quick. By the end of the book, Sadie feels like she has overcome anxiety and is completely back to normal but the impacts of anxiety can be longer lasting and really can change later behaviour.

This book is a quick “beach read” but has an important message, that anyone can be impacted by mental health issues.

Find our full review at:
Mental Health Book Club Podcast Episode 2

Episode 9 – Anxiety Girl Falls Again

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this podcast discusses suicide and accidental death

Get the book here

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediatly

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

Find out more about anxiety, grief and depression with Episode 10

Book 4 – Anxiety Girl Falls Again by Lacey London

Book Blurb

So, what did Sadie Valentine do next?

After an emotional voyage through the minefield of anxiety and depression, Sadie decides to use her experience with mental health to help others.

Becoming a counsellor for the support group that once helped her takes Sadie’s life in a completely new direction and she soon finds herself absorbed in her new role.

Knowing that she’s aiding other sufferers through their darkest days gives her the ultimate job satisfaction, but when a mysterious and troubled man attends Anxiety Anonymous, Sadie wonders if she is out of her depth.

Dealing with Aidan Wilder proves trickier than Sadie expected and it’s not long before those closest to her start to express their concerns.

What led a dishevelled Aidan to the support group?

As Sadie delves further into his life, her own demons make themselves known.

Will unearthing Aidan’s story cause Sadie to fall back into the dark world she fought so hard to escape?

Join Sadie as she guides other sufferers back to mental wellness and battles her own torment along the way…

Find our review in Episode 9

Episode 2 – Anxiety Girl by Lacey London

Find out more at www.mentalhealthbookclub.com

Trigger warning: this episode contains discussion about suicide, panic attacks, anxiety and depression.

Get the next book here

If you feel suicidal call 999 immediatly

If you need to talk you can contact:

Samaritans on

Anxiety support groups:

Anxiety UK

  • Infoline: 08444 775 774 (Mon-Fri 9:30am – 5.30pm)
  • Text Service: 07537 416 905
  • Or visit their website http://bit.ly/1DRRCUb
 Better Help

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

If you want to find out more about Generalised Anxiety Disorder and panic attacks check out Episode 3

Book 1 – Anxiety Girl by Lacey London

Book Blurb

From the bestselling author of the CLARA ANDREWS series!

One in four people will be affected by mental health issues at some point in their lives, but it couldn’t happen to you, could it?

Sadie Valentine is just like you and I, or so she was…

After a series of unfortunate events in her life, Sadie finds herself in a dark hole that seems impossible to crawl out of.

Once a normal-ish woman, mental illness wasn’t something that she really thought about, but when the three evils, anxiety, panic and depression creep into her life, Sadie wonders if she will ever see the light again.

Set in the glitzy and glamorous Cheshire village of Alderley Edge, Anxiety Girl is a story surrounding the struggles of a beautiful young woman who thought she had it all.

Lacey London has spoken publicly about her own struggles with anxiety and hopes that Sadie will help other sufferers realise that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The characters in this novel might be fictitious, but the feelings and emotions experienced are very real.

Find our episode here