(Char) Emily Writes

  My name is Charlotte, I’m 23 years old and I have been diagnosed with depression, bulimia nervosa and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).   Reaching Out   When I was just ten years old, I started turning to food for comfort. It was my way of dealing with my dreadful home life. Fast-forward four years, after gaining a lot of weight due to binge-eating, I started restricting my food intake. Even though I wanted to lose weight, my eating disorder wasn’t some sort of diet. It was a way I could finally have some control over something in my life. This started a long cycle of restricting and then binging and purging. I also started self-harming at the age of 14 and was diagnosed with depression. School forced me into counselling which I hated. I didn’t get on with my counsellor and was made to feel that everything I was going through (poor home life, losing a friend to suicide, etc) was my fault. My GP prescribed me with anti-depressants and suggested pulling me out of s...

Poor mental health can make reading difficult. It's like facing a mental barrier that you can't force your way through. One minute you're reading four books a month, the next you're struggling to even get one in... hence me throwing in August and September together.    Despite all that, I have managed to finish three books in the last couple of months. One, I started in July, one at the beginning of August and another that I finished in a week. That last one was Twilight, which I ended up writing about because it was a comfort for me. During a difficult time, I could find familiarity in a book.    Today, I'm talking about three very different books. I always like to switch up my genres, I'm not one for sticking to a single genre. All have given me comfort in different ways. That's the beautiful thing about books, when you're feeling low, they call you into their arms and hold you tight.  A Gripping Detective Story: She Lies in Wait     A gripping dete...