My book is unique in today's book market on the subject of depression & the taking of antidepressants. Why is that? Because I am writing from the perspective of one who is actually taking antidepressants, and has done so for a long time. It's my personal story, not a professional take on the subject. I have no medical training whatsoever. However, my book has been vetted by two psychotherapists and a psychiatrist, to be sure that it is not misleading in any way. I am a mother of four and a grandmother of five, and my struggle was a journey of twenty-seven years. I'm definitely not handing out a ten point recipe for success. I want people to feel understood, able to hold their heads up and walk tall. It's like a conversation with the reader. Aimed at people who struggle with depression &/or medication in any way, and those who wish to understand them or have to live with them! I have written for anyone who is in that situation, but, being a Christian, I do look at the vexed question of healing & the struggle that produced in me. Several friends and family members read it who are not Christians & told me that they really liked it in spite of "the parts that could have annoyed them" as one person put it. I wrote my book in response to a number of people who have told me conspiratorially "I take antidepressants too" like it was some guilty secret. I have had numerous occasions to share snippets in conversations or even sermons, but I felt it would be helpful to put it all down in one piece. I wrote for the sheer joy of writing, & to be a help to others. As Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel says: "No-one is as capable of gratitude as the one who has emerged from the shadows. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, and every hour a gift. Not to share them would be to betray them." I write from an understanding of the personal challenges of long-term medication and the fall-out on family relationships and personal identity. Thank God for antidepressants is about such questions as... -How did I get here? -Where does depression come from? -To take, or not to take anti-depressants? -Why do people treat me differently? -Do the meds make me a different person? -Which side-effects can I live with, or not? -What about Psychotherapy? -Am I a second class citizen? -Where is God in all that? -What do we tell the children? My book is about finding hope, joy and peace in spite of still taking antidepressants.
About the Author: Born in England, in 1952, Jane Maire left with her mother for Ghana, to join her father, at the age of 7 months. Educated in two boarding schools, she then went up to Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, in 1970 to do what was then called a Joint Honours degree in Spanish, French and Linguistics. After working two years in a department store, and doing a diploma in theology, in 1977, she joined Wycliffe Bible Translators UK, where she met her Swiss husband while training for this work. They left together for Côte d'Ivoire in January 1979. They spent 15 really happy years there, in spite of her experiencing depression, & it's in Abidjan that each of their four children took their first steps in life! Jane then worked for Wycliffe Switzerland until her retirement in August 2016. Jane battled with depression & eventually the need to take antidepressants long term for over twenty-seven years. To her great surprise, she found myself on a journey to joy. Her five grandchildren are of course part of that, whether they be thousands of miles away down under and in Ivory Coast, or just up the mountain from her home in Switzerland.