Everything Begins with Asking for Help

Book excerpt: A mental health manual for the modern age. An honest guide to depression and anxiety, from rock bottom to recovery, from someone who has been through it and come out the other side. Everything Begins with Asking for Help is a frank, insightful and thought-provoking book on mental health, drawing on the author's own experience of a severe mental breakdown and sharing the recovery tools he has developed in partnership with various medical professionals and mental health experts. Kevin shares his own story to give the book a vital human element, explaining how his fast-paced life in Berlin as a successful magazine journalist was brought to a sudden halt by a major depressive episode. In this dark time, Kevin reached out to friends for help and it was that act - asking for help - that set him on the long road to recovery. Building on this narrative, Kevin leads the reader through the stages of asking for help, learning to listen, the physical, emotional and mental elements of recovery, and how to maintain stable mental health at home and at work. Written with warmth, honesty and compassion, this is is a valuable resource for anyone who needs help and doesn't know where to begin.