Our founder, Paul, was living a charmed life – until one moment changed everything.
Following on from a near-death experience, his life spiralled out of control and he was at a loss as to know why. Everything that had once been going so right was now going wrong. He felt that he’d ruined his life, and actually deserved to be miserable – even going as far as not eating because he wasn’t worthy of living. Overwhelming depression and anxiety were his constant companions. An eventual PTSD diagnosis (some 16 years later, after a chance conversation) explained the why, but not how to recover. So he set about analysing what was going wrong and how to alleviate the darkness. An unusual brush with suicide helped him realise that he’d reached rock bottom and nothing could be worse than where he already was, so he embarked on a journey to recapture his joy, one step at a time. Countless inspirationally kind people helped him along his way, back to a life he now truly loves.
He’s now compelled to share what he learned along the way, in the hope that we can all live a life we truly deserve, a life filled with love rather than fear.
A raw, reflective and deeply personal journey through trauma, perception, and the search for meaning, A SUFFERER’S GUIDE TO MENTAL HEALTH explores what it means to rebuild a life from the inside out. Through vivid real-life experiences—including childhood loss, heartbreak, a near-fatal diving accident, and long-term emotional aftermath—the author examines how the mind protects, distorts, and ultimately can be retrained to heal.
Pegasus Publishing (UK) – “A Sufferer’s Guide To Mental Health”
Each chapter tackles a core aspect of human experience: the inner critic, relationships, society, habits, faith, passion, and self-image, blending philosophy with lived reality. At its heart lies a powerful message about reconnecting with emotion after numbness, transforming suffering into understanding, and shifting from fear-driven thinking to conscious awareness.
This is not just a memoir, but a call to rethink how we approach mental health, community, and compassion. It challenges readers to question perception, rediscover purpose, and consider a more connected, kind, and purposeful way of living—both individually and collectively.