love lay down beside me and we wept
Description
love lay down beside me and we wept is Helen Murray Taylor’s lyrical memoir of devastating mental illness.
Helen Murray Taylor was finding her feet as a young doctor and trying to maintain some semblance of a life in the shadow of a punishing schedule when she witnessed a horrific road traffic accident. The impact of this fatal collision caught Helen off guard and had terrible repercussions. Both her career and her mental health took a battering. After a succession of other distressing events left Helen emotionally shattered and seriously depressed, she was admitted to a psychiatric ward and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. At her lowest, she almost succeeded in taking her own life. love lay down beside me and we wept sprang from these difficult times, from Helen’s months on the ward and the psychological upheaval of being restrained against her will, and from the challenge of being a doctor turned patient, but also from the moments of pure comedy and unexpected comradeship that she encountered there.
This is a profoundly moving and masterful account of one woman's physical and psychological breakdown, it's a tribute to the love that supported her through it, and it's an offering to the reader who might find comfort or understanding in this story.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.