Description

By Anne-Louise Lowrey

ISBN: 978-1-84991-951-7
Published: 2013
Pages: 72
Key Themes: Schizo-affective Disorder, Mental Health, Diary, Poetry

Author Biography

Anne-Louise Lowrey was born in Edinburgh in 1965 and has lived there nearly all her life. She has had quite a lot of contact with the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Morningside and had several admittances during her twenties.

She was diagnosed with Schizo-affective psychosis, aged twenty two and although she managed to resume some sort of participation in society, it has been a recurring condition that has led her on a circular path, returning later in life to her earlier inspirations and values.

It was really in her forties, after a period of working and studying, she was under a lot of stress, and her illness returned with frightening force. She had to leave both and only managed to avoid hospital, by attending Redhall garden, a SAMH or Scottish Association for Mental Health project. It was here that she rediscovered and deepened her love of nature and became inspired to write as a therapeutic hobby. She is ardent about mental health awareness as a general modern societal concern, as well as taking a keen interest in therapies and strategies for coping with specific diagnoses, including her own schizo-affective disorder.

Description

This collection is a kind of mood diary of about one year when she was undergoing treatment for anxiety and depression, working in the garden, revisiting her practice of meditation and learning to be at one with the outdoors, human nature and consequently herself.