Glorious Rock Bottom: 'A shocking story told with heart and hope. You won't be able to put it down.' Dolly Alderton

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It’s having an affinity with someone. If people have an affinity with you through your book, that’s amazing. That’s so much what I felt like I had with Emma Forrest, with Matt Haig… all of these authors. I thought the reunion between Jess and Barb was a bit rushed, and it felt like there could have been more apologising Jess's side and reluctance to accept from Barb's side. It felt like she got off relatively easy for the things she did, no matter the motive. The Serena thing being left unfinished is fine as she really only was there to show how much Barb grew throughout the book. The rest being left unfinished is completely fine as we know the most important parts. That being Barb and Jess have made up, her mother supports her (shown by her smiling as she finishes her story and goes to cut the rest of her hair off), Zel is still as kind as ever and the most important thing is that Barb's mindset is completely different and we know that she isn't going to fall into the same traps that she did before. Sturges, Fiona (17 June 2016). "Anxiety for Beginners by Eleanor Morgan and Mad Girl by Bryony Gordon – review". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 5 April 2017. Gordon, Bryony (24 April 2011). "How the other half lives". The Daily Telegraph. London . Retrieved 11 July 2014.

A modern take on the Rapunzel story, focusing on our societal obsession with appearance and how social media impacts the lives of teens.We then finally, finally get the reveal of what caused Jess and Barb to stop being friends. They were going to create a YouTube channel together but because of their ages, they needed permission from their guardians. Jess's dad had allowed her to, but when Barb asked Sorcha she basically ranted about how Jess is nothing and that the channel she was going to create was going to be done without Jess and managed by Sorcha. But what was hidden behind this, and had been hinted at in a previous scene where after the month-long break she only had one person message her and it is someone who had the same picture up on their account as the one of her mother which is when we learn that her mother isn't dead but gave her up because of drugs. It was obviously something that hit close to home with Jess so the only thing she could think is that Barb was lying to her to get close to her or gain sympathy points or something like that, which even her father wasn't suspecting but she was hurt. Doesn't excuse her actions though. I don’t think it glamorises it. She ends up committing suicide. What your teacher said about ‘girls’: it’s a way of boxing us up again, isn’t it? What I think is that she [Plath] made it very clear to girls like us that you didn’t just have to be good girls who became wives, and that it was normal to have all of these feelings. You summed it up perfectly there: “girls like you.” Most women are girls like us. I think it gives voice to that. I should know, having been one of them. It’s not a surprise to me, then, that I hear this resistance, over and over, when people get in touch to ask for advice on how to deal with a mental health issue. Time and time again, they have done therapy, but it didn’t quite work for me. They have thought about going on antidepressants, but pills aren’t really my thing. They have considered going to a 12-step meeting for their alcohol problem, but I’ve heard it’s a bit like a cult, and I’m not into cults. It is why loved ones of ill people can find us so very frustrating to deal with. Mental illness closes your mind I remember drifting off knowing that I had seen the man I was going to marry (Robbie) and that everything was going to be OK, netball A team or no netball A team. And this is the last time I remember life without darkness in my brain.

You founded Mental Health Mates in 2016 so that people would feel less alone and be able to talk to each other. Do you think the stigma around mental health has lessened and that we have begun to have more open conversations about it? Bryony Gordon – Telegraph Blogs". Blogs.telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014 . Retrieved 11 July 2014. Heartburn isn’t strictly a book about depression. It’s a book about heartbreak and failing marriage and all that stuff. But what I really like about it is that it is really very funny—horrible things are happening to her, but it’s very funny—and it is really important to find humour in the bleakest of moments, wherever possible. Certainly, when I was writing Mad Girl, I didn’t want it to be a misery memoir. There’s a hundred billion misery memoirs out there, but what I wanted this to be was an upbeat book about depression, and it’s perfectly possible to do that.Well, next on your books on depression list comes Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. That goes to the other extreme, doesn’t it? Behind it of course is the tragedy of what happened to Sylvia Plath. I called my book Mad Girl partly for her poem ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’, which is also the inscription: Hundreds and hundreds of Telegraph readers wrote to me with their well wishes, but most importantly their stories. All of them were putting their hands up and saying “me too!” – if not OCD, then some other form of mental illness. I realised then how completely and utterly normal it was to feel weird. I know. You can’t have five books about depression and not mention The Bell Jar. I first read it when I was a teenager. Bryony Gordon and running partner Jada Sezer pose before running the London marathon in 2018. Photograph: Tim P Whitby/Getty Images

It was so chef's kiss when this book caters to lots of issues such as self-esteem towards ourselves, and how social media & technology give huge leaps for disabilities. The show of content marketing works behind the scenes caught me as I didn't expect that. Aside from her condition, she was being pressured by the unstable link with her aunt and a broken friendship. It was steadily constructed to connect the issues so that it's also on par with Barb's personal problem. I wrote a book of my experiences, Mad Girl (“It’s going to be an upbeat book about depression!” I told my editor cheerfully,
before promptly suffering another breakdown.) In the depths of despair once more, I started running, albeit briefly, just until I looked like I had been in the glare of a
nuclear bomb. I had started to hide my toothbrush under my pillow instead of keeping it in the bathroom because I was terrified I would pass my illness to my family. I stopped holding my baby brother, or playing with my annoying little sister, because as annoying as she was I did not want her to die. It was one thing living with the possibility of being ill yourself, quite another with the possibility you might have condemned someone you love to the same fate. Goulding suggests finding out what support your local authority can offer. “They often have a range of services and provisions available for children who might have special educational needs,” she adds. “It is possible this young person would also be eligible for an Educational Health Care Plan, which helps those with special educational needs and their families to get extra support. Families or young people themselves, if they are over 16, can ask for an assessment for one of these plans through the local authority.” Like me, our boiler is old, clapped out and very erratic. I need to protect it from draughts to keep its pilot light going. Now, boilers only work when the pilot light is on, and humans aren’t that different, really.Gordon, Bryony (5 June 2008). "There is no shame in dropping out of university". The Daily Telegraph. London . Retrieved 11 July 2014. So it was a really necessary process, and I feel now a lot further down the path of self-knowledge, or self-care, because of it. I’m not fully there.