Susan Kelly thought that she had the same childhood as her friends, but their mums didn’t take them to view corpses. By the age of 21 Susan had experienced more contact with death than many people do in a lifetime.

Susan was an anxious child and combined with negative life experience she was

ill-equipped to manage, she later developed schizophrenia. She spent 24 years under NHS mental health services, with almost ten of those as an in-patient, sectioned under the Mental Health Act. She was stalked, her baby died, her brother died, she married an alcoholic drug addict, and not surprisingly her mind broke.

Read Susan’s story of the years she lost to mental illness, but also of the life she has gained since. It is a story of hope, demonstrating that out of adversity a person can learn to love and be loved again.