Book Review: Out Of The Madhouse

Michael Maitland suffered from clinical depression, anxiety, and anorexia so severe that it landed him in the emergency room with a collapsed lung. In his new book, Out Of The Madhouse: An Insider’s Guide To Managing Depression and Anxiety, which he co-wrote with his father, Michael takes us inside his journey – through journal entries – from suicidal to recovery. “I can’t really believe how I managed to get this bad. At university (2007-2010), I slowly started to notice I didn’t feel right. I began staying in more, not seeing people, and struggling with how I felt about myself. As my self-esteem dropped, so did my confidence and happiness, and I had quite a short temper at times,” writes Michael. As his father Ian searches for answers, he looks back over the years. “With the benefit of hindsight, I can see his oh-so-slow decline – inch by inch at a time – from when he left to go to university in 2007 through to when he collapsed in October 2012: a long, long time – five years. For a while it was so slow that we didn’t notice it. We were blind for almost all of it,” writes Ian. Yet spotting depression is not all that straightforward. It can be messy, manipulative, devious, and rarely fits into a neat checklist. “Michael, for a long time, did not realize he was depressed…It took him years – not months – to realize he was actually suffering from depression,” Ian writes. Upon reflection, Ian realizes that he could have done many things...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Anorexia Anxiety Book Reviews Depression Treatment managing anxiety Managing Depression out of the madhouse Source Type: news