A visit from Rachael

My blip shows Rob and I today with our friend Rachael. We got to know Rachael when we took over a book shop in 2006 and Rachael was the Saturday girl and a part time employee there. She left us after the first year to go to uni but we have always kept in touch. Rachael is an author now and her latest book “A Mind Like Mine” comes out next week. She showed us an advance copy of this stigma-busting collection of biographies of some of the great people from history who have lived with mental health conditions.
 
I didn’t know that Charles Darwin experienced anxiety and Florence Nightingale lived with PTSD. The book talks about Van Gogh, Ada Lovelace and Freddie Flintoff amongst other many successful people with brilliant minds and talents who have lived or are living with mental health disorders.
 
The biographies in this book show that you can't always tell what a person is going through, and that mental health conditions can and do impact people from all walks of life. I’ve already ordered a copy and look forward to reading it in more detail next week.