cover image Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes

Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes

Therese J. Borchard, . . Hachette/Center Street, $21.99 (258pp) ISBN 978-1-59995-156-0

After compiling several books of essays featuring other people's voices (I Like Being Catholic ), popular Beliefnet.com blogger Borchard lifts her own voice to tell her story. She's a mental health train wreck—recovering alcoholic, bipolar, a touch of obsessive-compulsive, highly sensitive and therefore easily overstimulated in places like Toys R Us, where mothers of young children are sentenced to go. Fortunately for Borchard's family and herself, too, this is a funny book that she lived to write, after six psychiatrists, 23 medication combinations and hospitalization. Borchard's gift and distinction is her humor, the golden rope out of the pit of despair and a tool for transforming hysteria into hysterical laughter. She does a good job of countering the you-are-what-you-think crowd who blame the mentally ill for their own illness. Some readers might find there's TMI (too much information), but the author's desire to be helpful is boundless. This self-help memoir offers hope, particularly for those with intractable depression. Even better, it offers levity. (Jan. 6)