In Bloom, Not Broken

Author Katie Houghton makes her debut in this raw, honest memoir about surviving life when living seems no longer an option. Houghton revisits her past and looks beyond to her future as a person living with mental illness, sharing with the reader a message of hope driven by sheer audacity. Through personal writings spanning years, Ms. Houghton invites us into the mind of a troubled young woman navigating through the hostile, barren landscape of depression entirely by feel, driven by her insatiable will to survive no matter the obstacles in her way.

As the author guides the reader through her journey, she offers candid self-examinations of her actions, behaviors, and experiences against the backdrop of a tumultuous childhood and adolescence marked by family upheaval and undiagnosed mental illness. In detailing her subsequent experiences with self-harm and substance abuse, the author offers a compassionate perspective on life lived in spite of adversity before her eventual redemption through mental health treatment. Inspiring and thought-provoking, advocates, treatment professionals, and general readers alike will be moved by Ms. Houghton's perseverance despite the rabidity of her personal demons.