In 1912, at the cusp of the First World War, two young Americans, Anne Williams and Maggie Parker, travel to England in hopes of finding refuge. What they find instead is love, hate, deceit and betrayal. Their initial hopes for safe refuge in this land slowly peel away, as the shameful secrets of all those they meet come out. Maggie runs back home aboard the fateful Titanic, fighting for her life and that of her new family. Anne instead finds herself tangled in desperation and fear, trying to find her own way home, but her journey back would prove to be more treacherous than a sinking ship. Inspired by true events, Opprobrium is a compelling thriller, sure to captivate its readers as they travel back in time at high speeds.

Description

A serious pro-survival, pro-recovery book, written because I have been the survivor of many suicide attempts, not to forget also the person left behind after actual suicides, and the victim of serious self-harm in myself and those I love. I haven't attempted suicide or self-harmed for 8 years and I don't plan to do so again, but I always have my plan to hand.

Starting at the age of 11, I have attempted suicide 443 times (sometimes barely surviving, twice dying, only to be revived) and for fifteen years I was a person who self-harmed - cutting and bloodletting, sometimes as self-harm, sometimes as a suicide attempt. The two are definitely linked but not all self-harm is suicidal, not all suicide attempts are meant to kill, and sadly about one million people kill themselves every year, not all of them meaning to. As I have also been the victim left behind when someone I loved took their own life, I really can see the issue from all perspectives. Allow me to fill you in on my personal experience first of all, so you know you are 'talking' to someone who really has been there before herself. Pull up a chair, or sit back in bed, and we will talk.

Description

This book includes 14 true stories from people with bipolar disorder or unipolar depression and their great courage and suffering, their struggles and triumphs. Edited or co-written by Katy Sara Culling, the stories are all of high quality and interest. Each story is totally unique, giving the reader a broad spectrum of mood disorder experiences to draw from, making this book useful for the sufferer, carers, and medical professional, as well as the general public who wish to educate themselves about these topics.

As with mood disorders there are a wide range of treatments used, from therapy to medication and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). All are covered in this book. As it is common for co-disorders to exist, especially alcoholism, anxiety and eating disorders, some of the stories include tales of people struggling with these issues as well as their mood disorder. That is, after all, true to life.

Because peoples' experiences with mood disorders vary there is a chapter at the end explaining mood disorders and the terminology. This can be read before the stories in the book if a person feels they need to know the background information first. This means a person who knows nothing about mood disorders can pick up this book, read it, and finish with a good understanding of the subject.

Description

Reflective Reflections is the quintessential up-to-date book on ALL eating disorders, written from the perspective of a recovered sufferer, therefore especially about anorexia and bulimia, but not forgetting about other eating disorders out there. Written from personal experience and extensive research, and for the first time tackling the dangers of the Internet.

This book considers the factors that might predispose someone to an eating disorder, what are the many and main causes of different eating disorders, and the factors that trap people within these horrific illnesses that trick your mind. Eating disorders bring disarray to both the life of the sufferer and to those people around who love them. Eating disorders are nasty, they fight dirty, but they can be beaten, and I, the author am proof of that after 15 years of anorexia and bulimia myself.

But never forget, eating disorders kill. They kill young people. Indiscriminately. Killing without warning, and quickly. I have lost a few friends to eating disorders, I close my eyes and my heart misses a beat because they were so young, so deserving of life, as deserving of life as me and yet here I am and they are gone. I see friends still living within its grasp year after year and I feel sad for them - and an ill part of me feels jealous. I see others who have partly recovered, and some who are back to "normal."

This book will answer all your questions on eating disorders in a comprehensive but friendly manner, and I hope it helps you be you a sufferer, carer, or medical professional.

Description

This book includes a true story about reaching the very edge, the very depths and heights of bipolar illness, but almost always with a sense of humour. Much like a car crash, people cannot help but look when they spy on these sort of black events. It is a new perspective on manic depression as in Prof K.R. Jamison's autobiography about her illness in An Unquiet Mind, but mixed explosively with S. Kaysen's immersion into madness in Girl, Interrupted; except this book feels like it's been written whilst on crack-cocaine and directed by Quentin Tarantino on a blood-thirsty day. This book may be dark but its underlying message is one of hope. Sometimes you have to see the depths of Hades before you can really appreciate life and health.

Being a manic depressive from just 5, then adding in anorexia, bulimia, self-harm and hundreds of suicide attempts, "typical" student substance misuse on the heavy end of "normal," culminating in a long hospitalisation when I was an Oxford doctoral student in clinical medicine. I ended up totally "mad," in a long-term psychotic mixed episode (being both manic and depressed concurrently, and suffering from delusions and hallucinations) and several actual deaths that I was revived from.

This is my autobiographical tale, a girl who came from nowhere "up North" to study medicine at Oxford University and spent the majority of her life quite literally mad, but never stopped laughing about it. This suits a wide audience for personal and professional reasons. I want to reach sufferers, carers, and professionals. I am proof that anything can be overcome, what should not be survived can be, and that nothing is more important in these diseases than hope.

About the Author

Katy Sara Culling was born in Liverpool, North England, in 1975. Daughter of Sue and Paul Culling, her family moved back to its roots in Derbyshire, where she grew up along with her younger sister Beth, in the village of Castle Donington, on the Derbyshire-Leicestershire border. However, even as young as 5 she exhibited symptoms of bipolar disorder. She attended a private school for girls, Loughborough High School, where she was a high achieving student. Unfortunately, due to bullying and also to numb her mania and depression, she developed anorexia nervosa and began to self-harm.

Katy Sara then went to The University of Nottingham, where she studied Biochemistry and Nutrition. She did her (1st class) thesis on alcohol and metabolism, interested in the psychology of Alcoholism. All this was done despite considerable illness including over 60 suicide attempts and purging-type anorexia - and yet more bullying. Her good work at Nottingham lead to an offer of a place at The University of Oxford, where she studied for a PhD (DPhil) in Clinical Medicine. In her final year she became so ill with bipolar disorder that she was in hospital (first as a day patient, then an inpatient, and eventually a sectioned inpatient). During that year and a half she attempted suicide over 300 times, dying twice, only to be revived. She finally, at the age of 28 got a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the correct medication, and has been mostly fine ever since. She later wrote up her PhD thesis and published her results.