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14 reviews for:
This Book Could Save Your Life: Breaking the Silence Around the Mental Health Emergency
Ben West
4.13 AVERAGE
14 reviews for:
This Book Could Save Your Life: Breaking the Silence Around the Mental Health Emergency
Ben West
4.13 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
TW: mentions of mental illness and suicide
This book was exceptionally well written, composed and insightful. I do find it somewhat difficult to write a review for a book like this but I honestly have nothing bad to say. I wouldn’t say I loved it per se but I love the impact it had and continues to have on me (and hopefully others). I knew of Ben West’s story for a long time and have since supported much of his tireless commendable work with generating change in how we think/talk about mental health and wanted to support him with this book. It was certainly a difficult read in some parts and I ugly cried many many times. But I was only reading about these harrowing self-proclaimed horror stories, not experiencing them. And every suicide story has the right to be shared, heard, understood and prevented from happening ever again. It’s hard to read for sure but is necessary. The book follows Ben from talking about his childhood (these parts hit me the hardest, I just couldn’t stop thinking about what Sam could have done, achieved and the person he’d of became - an artist, a musician, anything?) to his brother Sam’s suicide, the aftermath discussing themes of grief and the different ways of experiencing it - I.e. there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - and then Ben’s campaigning journey. Many statistics and shocking discoveries are mentioned specifically in government policies, education from primary school to university, healthcare and in our personal lives.
There are many many take aways from this book but for me personally it was ‘feelings have to be felt to be freed… just by acknowledging the feelings, they’ll be easier to deal with because you’ll start understanding why you feel that way and stop beating yourself up for it’ and he used this analogy of filling up balloons with our feelings we don’t want to talk - or merely think - about and how our balloons will constantly get bigger and bigger until… POP! And then what? Additional points made is that change is so so necessary if we want to not only reduce the number of suicides but to eradicate that number - less is simply not good enough. And he goes on to mention many ways to help generate change from big national-level petitions to huge organisations to a simple text to your friend for a catch up. If anyone feels better from reading this book, he’s happy and so am I.
In the final thoughts passage, I believe Ben perfectly summarised this book’s impact for me ‘I hope you found it helpful, informative, moving, relatable, funny in parts, and potentially even a little motivational (fingers crossed). I know things got pretty dark in places, but those places matter and talking about them is the only way of ensuring meaningful change. I hope you found some laughter among the sadness though - I always try to and, most of the time, it really helps.’ This was all so true and I truly believe Ben is an exceptional writer. Read this quote for example ‘We find solutions to the mental health crisis not by focusing on what we already do, but by constantly looking for where we can do more.’ And the fact he thought it would be surprising to write a book!? I am truly dumbfounded because this was so exceptionally well written and flowed amazingly.
I can keep praising and praising this book because I was impacted so much. I do personally deal with mental health issues that have unfortunately been getting worse and struggling to find a way through so certain self-help elements I do hope to take on board. But also, like millions and millions of others I know people who too struggle with their mental health and I hope to become a better friend and support service for them. I also want to continue understanding more about different conditions, ways to help and fighting for change be it holding the government or education services accountable for their inaction to just letting others know I am here for them. Thank you for reading and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to literally everyone.
This book was exceptionally well written, composed and insightful. I do find it somewhat difficult to write a review for a book like this but I honestly have nothing bad to say. I wouldn’t say I loved it per se but I love the impact it had and continues to have on me (and hopefully others). I knew of Ben West’s story for a long time and have since supported much of his tireless commendable work with generating change in how we think/talk about mental health and wanted to support him with this book. It was certainly a difficult read in some parts and I ugly cried many many times. But I was only reading about these harrowing self-proclaimed horror stories, not experiencing them. And every suicide story has the right to be shared, heard, understood and prevented from happening ever again. It’s hard to read for sure but is necessary. The book follows Ben from talking about his childhood (these parts hit me the hardest, I just couldn’t stop thinking about what Sam could have done, achieved and the person he’d of became - an artist, a musician, anything?) to his brother Sam’s suicide, the aftermath discussing themes of grief and the different ways of experiencing it - I.e. there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - and then Ben’s campaigning journey. Many statistics and shocking discoveries are mentioned specifically in government policies, education from primary school to university, healthcare and in our personal lives.
There are many many take aways from this book but for me personally it was ‘feelings have to be felt to be freed… just by acknowledging the feelings, they’ll be easier to deal with because you’ll start understanding why you feel that way and stop beating yourself up for it’ and he used this analogy of filling up balloons with our feelings we don’t want to talk - or merely think - about and how our balloons will constantly get bigger and bigger until… POP! And then what? Additional points made is that change is so so necessary if we want to not only reduce the number of suicides but to eradicate that number - less is simply not good enough. And he goes on to mention many ways to help generate change from big national-level petitions to huge organisations to a simple text to your friend for a catch up. If anyone feels better from reading this book, he’s happy and so am I.
In the final thoughts passage, I believe Ben perfectly summarised this book’s impact for me ‘I hope you found it helpful, informative, moving, relatable, funny in parts, and potentially even a little motivational (fingers crossed). I know things got pretty dark in places, but those places matter and talking about them is the only way of ensuring meaningful change. I hope you found some laughter among the sadness though - I always try to and, most of the time, it really helps.’ This was all so true and I truly believe Ben is an exceptional writer. Read this quote for example ‘We find solutions to the mental health crisis not by focusing on what we already do, but by constantly looking for where we can do more.’ And the fact he thought it would be surprising to write a book!? I am truly dumbfounded because this was so exceptionally well written and flowed amazingly.
I can keep praising and praising this book because I was impacted so much. I do personally deal with mental health issues that have unfortunately been getting worse and struggling to find a way through so certain self-help elements I do hope to take on board. But also, like millions and millions of others I know people who too struggle with their mental health and I hope to become a better friend and support service for them. I also want to continue understanding more about different conditions, ways to help and fighting for change be it holding the government or education services accountable for their inaction to just letting others know I am here for them. Thank you for reading and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to literally everyone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced