First published 2019
Heather B. Armstrong had battled depression for years, writing about it on her popular blog dooce alongside posts about motherhood and pop culture. In 2016, she faced the worst episode of her life. Suicidal thoughts consumed her mornings. The darkness threatened everything she valued. Traditional treatments had failed. She made a desperate choice to become the third person ever to try an experimental procedure. Doctors would use propofol anesthesia to stop all brain activity for fifteen minutes, creating a state like death, then revive her. She would endure this ten times over a month. The process challenged her family and tested her resolve. Armstrong documents the eighteen months of torment that led to this decision and the clinical trial that followed. She writes with brutal honesty about her mental illness and the scientific gamble that changed her life. The treatment worked. She has not experienced suicidal depression since.
Genres: mental-health, medical, biography-memoir
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: overcoming-adversity, personal-journey
271 pages · Kindle Edition · Gallery Books
Content warnings: depression, suicidal-ideation, suicide