Are we there yet?

I created various pictures and poems between the mid 1980s and 2010(ish) as part of my journey of healing and recovery from depression. The story behind the pictures is now available in my book Are We There Yet?

If you have bought the book and have come to this page for the pdf of poems and pictures – THANK YOU for buying it. I hope you enjoy reading my story and find it helpful.

Here’s the pdf

IT TOOK A WHILE TO GET PUBLISHED….. BUT NOW I CAN SAY I AM AN AUTHOR!

The draft was sent off to various publishers and I had a few rejections but I did eventually receive an offer from one publisher and after a few weeks of considering it, I accepted. This was a big step that took a long time to be ready to take.

I asked a ‘friend’ on Facebook to look at both the poems and pictures plus the back story to see what she thought from a professional point of view. She is one of those friends who I have never met in person, so I can be sure that she would not write anything unduly flattering. I was then brave enough to ask if she would write a testimonial to go on my CV when submitting it to publishers. I’ve taken her name out to protect her privacy – but this is what she wrote:

I have been a Consultant Psychotherapist for many years. I was, until last year, a Senior Psychotherapist at a Mental Health Hospital and now work in full-time private practice in Central London. Before then I have had a thriving private practice in New York, and so I think it is fair to say that over the decades I have become somewhat familiar with the journeys people make towards emotional wellness from very dark, difficult, life-threatening places. 

When Elizabeth asked me to read “Are we there yet?” I initially agreed out of a sense of duty, because she is a remarkable person, and I wanted to encourage her. But as I entered her world of poetry and pictures I became utterly absorbed, and my heart, hardened by the stories of thousands of patients, was engaged and deeply moved. Here is a woman who has the courage and the sheer talent to make explicit what most people can only begin to utter or imagine.  I believe this work must be taken seriously, and published. It is at once a unique, personal insight into depression and the struggle for recovery, and at the same time it has universality: it speaks to everyone who has experienced such a struggle, and to those of us who seek to help.

Elizabeth combines cartography with art, and the contours she charts are at once recognisable and beautiful.  I cannot recommend it too highly: were it to be made publicly available I feel sure it would find a place not only on the curricula of psychotherapy training institutions, but would be recommended to patients and carers as exceptional bibliotherapy.

Her words are so affirming of this project of mine. And they encouraged me to continue on this road to being published.

The poems and see the pictures are available as a pdf – I hope the download button works.

The poem below appears in the introduction.

I am recovering – but am I getting better?