With Love and Theft: A Memoir of Mental Illness, writer Jocelyn Patten delivers a powerful blow to the stigma surrounding all forms of mental illness. You will see yourself or your loved ones in its pages, no matter the disorder. Love and Theft powerfully illustrates several mental illnesses, while tracing Patten's own battle with the lesser known schizoaffective disorder. The story begins innocently enough with a high school fear of public speaking, and picks up horrors as it rolls through her life. With this book, you will embark on a profound journey through states and stages of a terrifying illness, and all the casualties it knocks down over the years. Yet, Patten's memoir is written with dignity, grace, and even humour. And with all she has lived through, the ending is not as dire as one would imagine. Hope blooms, even blossoms

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