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Depressed Paranoid Schizophrenic Maniac: A Sane Person's Experience with Mental Illness

by Michelle Cann

124 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-1756; ISBN 1-4120-6845-2; US$15.50, C$19.38, EUR12.59, £8.73

The true story of a young lawyer whose faith in God is tested as she battles an illness that infiltrated her mind, manipulated her thoughts and rendered her world unrecognizable.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

This is the inspiring true story of a young women's spiritual journey and her courageous battle against mental illness. It describes her spiritual awakening as a young child, and goes on to detail her educational pursuits, both at home and abroad, which culminate in her becoming qualified as a lawyer. While the narrative does allude to the considerable amount of time she has spent furthering her studies overseas, it also offers brief glimpses into the unique culture of her Island home. After her return home from Bar School in London, she enjoys a promising legal career until she is suddenly victimized by a disturbing ordeal that begins in her workplace and seems to hound her wherever she goes. This distressing incident is followed by a slow, insidious decline into paranoia, as a result of which she is given a frightening diagnosis. She is left to struggle through a slow, difficult recovery process, but she eventually experiences a complete return to health and well-being, and sets out to pursue a new career goal. Only a few months into her new career, she suffers a relapse of her illness, which this time has a surprising and unexpected outward manifestation of symptoms. Detailed descriptions of her thoughts illustrate the suspicion inherent in her extreme paranoia, and the creative expansiveness arising out of her acute mania. Soon after she begins to experience healing and recovery from her relapse, she is confronted with a startling and bewildering insight that only her faith in God allows her to reconcile.

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About the Author

Michelle was born and raised in Bermuda where she lived with her parents and older brother. She developed a passion for reading as a young child, which she constantly indulged. At the age of 17 she left Bermuda to be educated overseas, first in Canada where she earned a B.A. in Psychology and English Literature, and later in England where she qualified as an attorney. She returned home to practice law for eight years before earning a diploma in Embalming and Funeral Directing in the United States. She is currently single and lives with her dog Max. This is her first book.

In her book, Michelle tried to shed light on what it feels like for a previously healthy person to be unexpectedly afflicted with mental illness. She hopes that her book will demystify mental illness for those who have, up to this point, had no familiarity with it. She also hopes that her book will cause readers to examine and question any pre-conceived notions that they might have held in the past about people with mental illness. She would be tremendously grateful if the book plays even a small role in helping to erode the stigma that still surrounds mental illness, because that stigma even now causes many people to suffer with their illness in shame and silence.

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Excerpts

I was not always a figure shrouded in controversy. I lived a very normal quiet existence up until the moment the gossip began. There was nothing in my early life that would foreshadow what as to come. When it came, it took me completely by surprise.

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Catalogue Information

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