Remember This When You're Sad

Mental health books aren't really my cup of tea. Any that I've attempted to read in the past have seemed too prescriptive, and too narrow to do anything other than trigger me and make me feel as though I'm not doing enough to help my mental health. They always seem to focus on the way to make things better, rather than acknowledging that different things can negatively impact your mental health, and that there are many different disorders that have many different impacts.
This is where Maggy Van Eijk's Remember This When You're Sad comes in. She was kind enough to offer to send it to me, and when I read the blurb, and saw that Megan aka the Bodyposipanda had endorsed it, I couldn't say no. 
I'm someone that loves reading a good doorstop kinda book when it's fiction, but looking at a 300 odd page mental health based non fiction book saps the life from me. Anything that tackles mental health issues is going to be a little draining, and a full book is something that just seems too much for me. But, Remember This When You're Sad was filled with little sketches and lists that completely broke the text up, making it feel a lot less intense, which is exactly what I needed. It honestly reminded me a little of a Horrible Histories book (did anyone else seem to have hundreds of these as a kid??). When things got a little intense Maggy popped in a handy list of things to remember, or interspersed the text with a few pictures, or told an anecdote to give you time to digest what you'd just read.

I absolutely adored this book. It moved away from the idea of a 'prescriptive' mental health book that tells you how to fix your problems to one that explores issues. As you move through the book, you move through different parts of the body - the skin to talk about self harm, the heart to talk about love, etc. I found this so easy to dip in and out of, or binge read before bed. I've folded down the corners of a good fifty pages filled with my favourite quotes and lists and sections, and here's just a few of them to show you how fab this book is:

If you're struggling at the moment, and (like me), you're feeling a bit disheartened and sick of the other mental health books out there, then I would 100% recommend this. I'm so gutted that I've finished it, and if Maggy brought another book out in the future I'd be first in line to pick it up.
*Although a product in this post was sent to me for the purpose of a review, all thoughts and opinions are my own* Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube | Facebook