an amateur's guide to staying alive

We live in a culture where we are under constant pressure to do, to improve, to optimise. Wellness is aspirational but commodified, and our quest to be 'well' can come at a personal cost. In an amateur's guide to staying alive, Scottee offers a quieter, more honest alternative: what if we let go of the idea of getting better and instead learn to hold ourselves with more softness?

This book looks at how we think about mental health - politically, culturally and medically - and the stories we tell ourselves about our brains. It asks what 'normal' really means, who it serves and what might become possible if we stopped trying so hard to perform it.

Drawing on Scottee's own lived experience alongside the voices of mental health professionals, friends and family, this is not a promise of recovery, nor a set of instructions for how we might be fixed. It is a companion for surviving for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by their own mind, and an invitation to let go of stifling normality and make peace with life's uncertainties.