Customer Reviews

Writing Out the Storm

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Rebecca Merriman writes from the heart. She tells us that manic-depression is both an exhilirating and frightening roller coaster ride type of mental illness. It affords its suffereres with an oversized dose of happiness, confidence, and risk-taking only to plunge them into the depths of darkness and despair. Merriman writes with a "no holds barred" approach, opening the door to this mystifying disorder from which so many people suffer.

Drawing from her journals, Merriman shows through her writing how words helped put her manic depressive world in order, especially after her psychotic breaks and subsequent hospitalizations.

For anyone suffering from manic depression or who knows someone touched by this discorder, this book is an easy-to-read and enjoyable story of what can be a devastating, and sometimes deadly, illness. It offers hope by showing, from first hand experience, how the medications and counseling available today to manage it can help people live healthy lives.

Carol Smucker, RN, PhD

If there is any book that shows how keeping a journal can save your life, it is WRITING OUT THE STORM. Yes, it's a hard one to read, yet Rebecca Mitchell Merriman's enthusiasm for life & her attention to detail shine through. Yes, it is full of the angst & turmoil of mental illness, yet embedded in each & every chapter are the kernels of redemption & surcease, until she can no longer control her illness.

That Rebecca Mitchell Merriman survived to tell her tale, with a lot of help from the steady companionship of her husband & their feline offspring, is undoubtedly the result of her untutored discipline at writing out her storm & the restorative power of spirit. She has gone through her trial by fire & lived to tell of it.

Very well done, both for the book & the mental disease survived!

Rebecca's book helped me to better understand the manic-depressive people in my life. The journal style gave (me)the reader a day to day view of life as a manic-depressive person. Her story is insightful, honest,heart wrenching, but also uplifting.

Rebecca's story helped me to understand that being manic-depressive is an illness, but that a ill person can still determine a path of health for their life.