Jo's Hidden SecretsThere was nothing unusual about the day it happened. Seven-year-old Jo was racing after her older sister when she fell and cracked her head on a railway sleeper.

From that moment on, her world and the world of all those around her changed. The fall had caused her to develop epilepsy.

Jo tells us her story - how she coped as a child and how it has affected her as an adult. But epilepsy is but one of her problems.

Here are battles against mental illness, eating disorders, domestic abuse in different forms, challenges at work and all the PTSD that goes with it on top of desperate poverty, inadequate housing and oppressive debt. But it isn't just a tale of a series of destructive episodes or perpetual trauma.

In the midst of the darkness, Jo discovers people who care. She finds care through the NHS and a plethora of local and national charities, all of which are listed at the end of the book.

Jo is not an English superstar, just a woman who writes an authentic, heart-felt account of what it's like from the inside. Her writing has been edited to conform to English grammar and spelling but nothing is taken from her own voice as she gives her first person account of her day-to-day struggles and triumphs.

Although in receipt of charitable care herself, Jo works long hours to raise funds for all her charities. Jo's Hidden Secrets is essential reading for anyone who wants to go deeper in trying to understand what it is like for someone with such a multiplicity of problems.

Emma-Louise has written this not only as a way to cope herself, but to bring hope to other people going through similar traumas. Helping others and winning their appreciation is her best medicine.

She has found a way though the darkness and she wants others to find it too. Emma-Louise James is a pseudonym.

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