Beyond Blue

October 26, 2009
After compiling several books of essays featuring other people's voices (I Like Being Catholic
), popular Beliefnet.com blogger Borchard lifts her own voice to tell her story. She's a mental health train wreck—recovering alcoholic, bipolar, a touch of obsessive-compulsive, highly sensitive and therefore easily overstimulated in places like Toys R Us, where mothers of young children are sentenced to go. Fortunately for Borchard's family and herself, too, this is a funny book that she lived to write, after six psychiatrists, 23 medication combinations and hospitalization. Borchard's gift and distinction is her humor, the golden rope out of the pit of despair and a tool for transforming hysteria into hysterical laughter. She does a good job of countering the you-are-what-you-think crowd who blame the mentally ill for their own illness. Some readers might find there's TMI (too much information), but the author's desire to be helpful is boundless. This self-help memoir offers hope, particularly for those with intractable depression. Even better, it offers levity.

November 15, 2009
More than a firsthand account of depression, this book is a tour through the haunted thoughts of a person wracked by the disease. Borchard, a blogger on Beliefnet.com and self-described whackjob, provides a blow-by-blow account of her descent into the throes of depression and anxiety attacks and the devastating effects on her life and, ultimately, her survival. At times, she leans on the wisdom of philosophers, historians, and politicians and weaves them into her narrative. Borchard's book could serve as a welcome companion for anyone enduring the disease, but it may not provide help or treatment options for those sufferers. Her illness spills across the pages in a stream-of-consciousness style that's at best not for everyone.

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