"My suicidal tendencies don't fit the normal pattern of mental illness." - Abigail Thorn

Kellan Fluckiger was destined for greatness. Nothing less can be expected of someone with an IQ of 160. True enough, Kellan had a successful career as a senior executive and even managed to land a contract with the Queen of England.

But behind closed doors, Kellan was suffering. Kellan grew up in an abusive environment where his parents beat him up every single day. Unaware of the reasons behind the violence, Kellan believed himself to be worthless. To cope with life's cruelty, he turned to drugs at the tender age of 13. This continued through out his life and his personal life felt its effects. Among those are his three divorces and multiple suicide attempts.

Today, Kellan talks about his experience as a person with high-functioning depression to shed light on the different faces of depression.

On February 23, 1996, Jeff Romig’s father died by suicide. Driven, hardworking and successful, until that moment, there was no sign of the inner turmoil he was experiencing – turmoil Jeff was also feeling, at 18 ears old.

Jeff has worked to impact the lives of thousands prior to the release of his memoir, Don’t F*cking Kill Yourself: a story documenting his own struggles with anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, offering two potentially life-saving ideas: we can reduce the stigma around suicide by sharing our stories, and we can push through our darkest moments by connecting our minds with the passions, people and experiences that define the best parts of our lives.

A key point in Jeff’s memoir is that trauma is a constant – and we, the humans, are the variable. Dealing with trauma is a journey, not something we can just get over, and sometimes you deal with it in several aspects and forms in your life.

If you or someone you love is dealing with suicidal ideation, you are not alone and there is help.

Crisis Text Line – text HELLO to 741741 and speak with a trained crisis counselor

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

It’s hardly newsworthy when a man walks out on his family. But it’s rather unusual for a mother to walk out, leaving the father to bring up their sixteen-year-old daughter—and downright scandalous for said Irish Catholic mother to move into the house next door to start a new life with a bunch of hot male students at the age of sixty-one.

No one can accuse Diane Danvers Simmons of telling a familiar story. Instead she offers a wickedly witty, candid, irreverent, British coming-of-age story with a fresh take on maternal abandonment, albeit next door.

In My Mother Next Door she shares the life lessons learned growing up in the revolutionary 1970s while her narcissistic mother charted her own unfathomable course to independence and freedom.

After living in America for decades and becoming a mother herself, Diane journeys back through the madness of her early years, coming to terms with a comical, painful family history, but also celebrating the strength and humor it has given her to face the absurdity of life.

In trying to understand what drove her mother to become the woman next door, Diane discovers new respect, love, and even forgiveness: the root of our humanity.

An instinctual pull as old as time - a grandmother wanting to hold her newborn grandchild begins Tina Fumo's unbelievable ordeal.

She travels to a small town in Canada to be with her family and, two days later, suffers the most traumatic event of her life.

The 'authorities' have apprehended their newborn, two-week old baby girl and Tina and her family embark on the most stressful ordeal of their lives.

Tina's book, Fancy Prison, chronicles their story, the trauma of their friend Suzanne and others who suffer the most shattering experience of their lives...their children are taken and placed into the care of strangers.

OCD isn't a matter of being fastidious, or obsessive about certain things. It is a desperately distressing condition in which sufferers eg. feel that if they don't do something in a certain way, something terrible will happen, or are plagued by very distressing intrusive thoughts which they can't shift. These are only two symptoms, there are others.

Suffers will normally have to build extra time into their day to perform rituals (such as touching or checking things over and over), or excessive handwashing or washing of objects because of contamination fears, and tend not to socialize with others as a result.

The bizarre, very odd nature of OCD worries and behaviors makes it next to impossible for sufferers to reach out for help.

OCD cannot be tackled with a ‘common sense’ or logical approach – this usually makes it worse. It is therefore a very difficult thing for family and friends to understand.

Helena Tarrant suffered from long term debilitating OCD and anxiety. She recovered
via Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and self-developed strategies.

As an OCD advocate, Helena works independently and in association with several charities to dispel the myths and stigma surrounding OCD and anxiety, and to help sufferers and supporters.

After battling her way through IBS, hypothyroidism, anxiety, hormonal imbalances, and skin issues... Laura Martin found herself with an unhealthy relationship with food and knew there had to be a better way.

After many failed attempts and lessons learned, she came up with the F.R.E.E. method that put her symptoms into remission without following restrictive diets or fancy supplement regimes. And yes, that nutrition routine now includes pizza without running to the bathroom.

Although gut-health has been the sexy term of the season, its often overwhelming and confusing. One topic that is overlooked is that your gut is home to 90% of your serotonin (your happy hormone!), so in order to heal the brain you have you heal the gut and vice versa.

The year was 2020, the world was on lockdown, and 27-year-old American Olivia Swindler found herself alone in her apartment in France.

She had just gone through a traumatic breakup, and both of her roommates were stuck in America, so she was forced to spend 3 months living alone. During that time Olivia learned that her house makes a TON of noises in the night. She learned that she is the roommate who never does dishes. And she wrote a book.
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Someone told Olivia, as we entered into lockdown and her soul was grieving from the breakup of an abusive relationship, that at the end of every loss there is a moment of creativity, don't miss it. So she wrote 1,000 words every day. Most of them were not beautiful, but 65,000 of them pieced together to become the story of Eleanor Quinn.

Olivia Swindler’s debut novel, Cynthia Starts a Band (October 19, 2021, Morgan James Fiction), tells the story of a young girl who decides to start over in Seattle with a new identity and purpose for herself. It’s a novel about discovering who you are when no one is looking, and summoning the courage to be honest with yourself and the world. Cynthia Starts a Band embraces the values of family, empowerment, and healing while also subtly drawing on the #metoo movement.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, even those who have never struggled with mental health have found themselves reeling, looking for answers they don't know how to find.

For Christians, especially those who've despaired of help from a church that has too often stigmatized poor mental health as a lack of faith, the way forward can be particularly difficult to see.

Jonathon Seidl aims to fix that. Having fought his own way through crippling anxiety, life-altering OCD, and suicidal thoughts, he knows the value of concrete advice grounded in strong biblical truth.

Going through terrible trauma and depression herself, Katherine James looked for a book that could help her to become her own hero...but could not find such a book.

So, she wrote it herself. As she wrote her book, she realised there is indeed a practical way of getting through trauma, by taking this Hero's journey of self-discovery.

The Story of Hope is especially relevant to these unpredictable times, where our lives and dreams have become locked down. It guides those locked in despair from what feels like a grey, empty existence to a place of colour and confidence: the life we are meant to lead. It is always darkest before dawn, but our own story of hope lies just over the horizon. If the hero of The Story of Hope overcame incredible hardship to find hers, then so can we.

The use of meditation as a technique to achieve a state of mindfulness and deeper learning is a very powerful transformational tool. Once in that state of mindfulness, your learning potential becomes vastly increased, allowing you to then be guided by the impactful techniques of positive emotions, guided imagery, affirmations and more to reprogram your sub-conscious.

Aside from relaxation, meditation can help you focus and improve specific aspects of your life such as changing habits, overcoming trauma, and getting rid of negative thinking and replacing them with positive ones.

Jeff Griswold grew up learning about the powerful benefits of meditation thanks to his father. Joining the family business, Jeff has helped to create an app with some 150 different meditations that cover a vast span of self-help.

Jeff shares his story, the power of meditation, and how the WiseGuide App can help listeners transform their lives.

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