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Book Cover for: Everything Is Broken and Completely Fine: Mental Illness, Quitting Alcohol, and Living through Unprecedented Times, Miriam Verheyden

Everything Is Broken and Completely Fine: Mental Illness, Quitting Alcohol, and Living through Unprecedented Times

Miriam Verheyden

Miriam tried for most of her life to hide her mental illness. She hoped that if she pretended it didn't exist, nobody else would notice it either. That didn't happen.

Unexplainable rage attacks, persistent intrusive thoughts, and a recurring overwhelming despair are difficult to hide. Working as an x-ray technologist through COVID-19 contributed to her declining mental health. In a desperate attempt to numb the pain and cheer herself up she reached for what society endorses as the ultimate relaxant: wine.

Alcohol made her mental health significantly worse, increased her anxiety and caused severe self-loathing. Instead of solving her low mood, it contributed to it.


Everything Is Broken and Completely Fine takes you into the flawed brain of someone who's living with anxiety, depression, and PMDD. Set in the unprecedented times of a pandemic, natural disasters, and life's unavoidable ups and downs, this book explores what happens when denial turns into acceptance, grey-area drinking transforms into sobriety, and one woman finds herself where she's never been before - at peace.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Quarter Century Publishing
  • Publish Date: Jan 23rd, 2023
  • Pages: 234
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.53in - 0.77lb
  • EAN: 9781738173600
  • Categories: GeneralGeneralGeneral

Praise for this book

"I've shared this book with countless friends over the last week and all are zooming through it as quickly as I did. We're hungry for this. For someone to validate our experience with empathy, compassion, and a genuineness that is palpable through each page."


"The understanding of mental illness and its impact on the person and their surrounding relationships as well as their journey of acceptance, endurance and advancement is palpable."


"I read a lot of mental health books, and very few memoirs have been as captivating as this. As a therapist-in-training, this book somehow manages to capture the nuance of a number of crucial issues - therapy being beneficial but therapist fit being crucial, the importance (but limits) of antidepressants and neurotransmitter deficiency hypotheses, gray areas of mental illness and alcohol intake wherein one does not meet full criteria for a diagnosis but is still suffering, and job burnout."


"I have seldom felt so "schooled" on mental illness, in general, and depression in particular. You have shed so much light on such an often hidden and complex issue."


"Miriam's writing never ceases to be something I can really relate to. She is helping people by speaking openly about hard topics. It certainly makes me feel less alone."


"Such a great read! I have been reading Miriam's blog for years so this was like talking with an old friend. It is a very honest and heart-felt and hopeful discussion of mental illness and what it has been like to work in a pandemic healthcare setting. Great memoir!"