Katie Salidas: Book Therapy! Because sometimes we need an escape from reality.

Life can change in the blink of an eye and we can never truly be prepared for the twists and turns our paths take. I was riding the high of an excellent trip to Michigan, visiting friends, making new ones, and delivering a presentation that I had been planning for months. It was, hands down, the best working trip I have ever taken. But that all ended the moment I came home to the news that my brother had lost his longtime struggle with depression.

Right now I'm packing to go be with my family. We have all been affected in different ways by this news, and the best thing for us all is to be together to comfort each other during this time of sadness. Depression is a 300lb guerrilla on your chest. It is a pain that none of us can truly understand unless we have been through it. Mental health is a serious issue that often gets mocked or brushed aside as not being as important as cancer. But it is! It causes so many unnecessary and potentially preventable deaths each year.

Depression

25 million Americans suffer from depression each year.
Over 50 percent of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depression. If one includes alcoholics who are depressed, this figure rises to over 75 percent.
Depression affects nearly 5-8 percent of Americans ages 18 and over in a given year.
More Americans suffer from depression than coronary heart disease, cancer, and HIV/AIDS.
Depression is among the most treatable of psychiatric illnesses. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of people with depression respond positively to treatment, and almost all patients gain some relief from their symptoms. But first, depression has to be recognized.

According to the CDC
"Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. It was responsible for nearly 45,000 deaths in 2016, with approximately one death every 12 minutes."

As I work to process this most recent shocking and sad news of my brother's final battle with depression, I want to reach out to you, dear readers. I want you to know that mental health is so important. It's not weakness to reach out for help if you need it. Please don't let depression win. You are loved. You are important. You matter!!!

One of my own personal coping mechanisms during the dark times is reading. It's one of the reasons I became a writer as well. Escaping into fantasy is cathartic for me, especially when I get to play creator and work to solve my characters problems, or (on the days when I really need it) really giving a villain their well-deserved comeuppance. And as you are all reading this, I know you are readers too. So, rather than end this on a sad note, I'll end it with a choice selection of books from other authors that might be just the thing you need to escape your reality today.

$0.99 / or read via Kindle Unlimited

https://storyoriginapp.com/swaps/729b327a-9e48-11e9-936c-17b227e26fef

Yes, it’s a cliché but I did it.
I won the biggest lottery jackpot in Delaware’s history. I am a psychic after all. The money funded my dreams, a fabulous house in Rehoboth Beach in a gated community complete with clubhouse pool and best of all I opened up a cat rescue, Whisker Kisses. Life couldn’t be better.

$2.99
https://storyoriginapp.com/swaps/729de4f8-9992-11e9-ad10-5756655b7712
"Vampires, Immortals, Bacchae—they’re all the same. The name may change, but their appetites never do."