Author Kim Hodges will be visiting Moree Community Library on Friday, May 24 to discuss her second memoir, Girl over the Edge.
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In the follow up to her incredibly successful debut memoir Girl on the Edge (2016), Girl Over the Edge is Kim Hodges' raw memoir, detailing her lived experience of mental illness over 5 years.
When Kim Hodges' psychologist suggests she has depression, she immediately recoils from the idea - she is a mother, a wife, a functional human being.
But it is the only diagnosis that explains the days she can barely lift her heavy limbs out of bed, the sick feeling that moves across her body and brain, the alcohol use, and the colour that one day evaporated and literally left her world grey.
Kim documents her five-year road to recovery in her second memoir, which included six hospital stays, multiple trips to the emergency department and innumerable appointments with health professionals.
"This memoir captures the denial, stigma and shame I have in my own mind about mental illness; the debilitating physical and mental agony of the illness; engagements with health professionals, and facing my own mortality," Ms Hodges said.
However, her greatest achievement was the ability to overcome that denial, shame and stigma she felt.
"If you break your leg you get it fixed, if you have diabetes you watch your diet and take medication. If you suffer from mental illness you need to access treatment from health professionals," she said.
'After many hospitalisations and as I wrote my memoir Girl Over the Edge, I came to realise that people who experience mental illness are everyday people.
"I am a mother, had worked at a university and am now an author but I was debilitated by mental illness to the point of being unable to function."
"In her raw and personal account Kim Hodges details how her mood disorder stripped her bare and articulates what has kept her going," The Black Dog Institute founder Professor Gordon Parker said about the book.
"The reader will be struck by her honesty and authenticity."
Ms Hodges will be at Moree Community Library from 10.30am on Friday, May 24. Anyone interested in attending must book in advance by phoning the library on 02 6757 3374.
Additionally, she will also be visiting Mungindi Library at 10am on May 27, Lightning Ridge Library and Walgett Library on May 28 at 10am and 2pm, respectively, before finishing at Brewarrina Library at 1pm on May 29.