The raw, honest account of living with bipolar disorder that nobody talks about — but everyone needs to read.
it’S NOT ME, IT’S MY HEAD
About The Author
JO OVERY
Jo Overy is a writer, mental health advocate, and — most importantly — someone who has lived it. For over two decades, she has navigated the unpredictable reality of bipolar disorder: the medication changes, the dark episodes, the manic highs, the devastating lows, and everything in between.
What started as a personal letter to her family — a way to help the people she loved understand why she sometimes disappears into her own world — became something far more powerful. Jo’s writing is unapologetically real, at times funny, and always deeply human. She doesn’t speak about bipolar disorder. She speaks from inside it.
Through her work, Jo is committed to dismantling the stigma that still surrounds mental illness — one brutally honest page at a time.
About The Author
A Story of Survival Strength and hope
It’s Not Me, It’s My Head takes you inside the mind of someone living with bipolar disorder — not a clinical textbook version, but the real, unfiltered, daily experience. From the depths of depression to the relentless search for stability, Jo writes with a courage and honesty that is rare and utterly compelling.
Through raw personal stories, Jo pulls back the curtain on what bipolar disorder actually does to a person — to their relationships, their confidence, their parenting, their sense of self. She talks about the psychiatrist appointments that feel like lifelines, the medications that expire like sell-by dates, the mornings she wakes up not knowing which version of herself would show up that day.
This is a book for anyone who has ever felt misunderstood. For every person with bipolar disorder who has been told to ‘pull yourself together.’ For every family member who doesn’t know what to say. For every friend who wants to help but doesn’t know how. This is your guide — written not from a consultation room, but from the bedroom, the kitchen floor, and the long drive home from yet another psychiatrist appointment.
A story of resilience, hope, and the strength to keep moving forward.
BOOK CONTENT
WHAT’s INSIDE
01 Help
Chapter 1: Help!
Where it all begins — Jo’s candid account of the moment she decided to write everything down. The psychiatrist appointments. The tissues. The drive home. And the quiet, stubborn hope that tomorrow might just be better.
02 BIPOLAR & ME
Chapter 2: Bipolar & Me
A deeply personal exploration of what it actually feels like to live inside a bipolar mind — the guilt, the paranoia, the grief of the mother she wanted to be, and the fierce love for her son that never wavered, even when everything else did.
03 BIPOLAR DISORDER: WHAT, WHY AND HOW?
03 BIPOLAR DISORDER: WHAT, WHY AND HOW?
The facts, the symptoms, and the realities — filtered through Jo’s own lived experience. Yes, there’s swearing. Yes, there’s dark humour. And yes, it will make you see this illness in a completely different way.
04 WHAT'S THE TRIGGER?
Chapter 4: What’s the Trigger?
The question everyone asks — and the one Jo can never fully answer. An honest look at the signs, the warnings, the bedroom door closing, and what it’s really like when ‘my head’ arrives unannounced and refuses to leave.
05 ANXIETY — BIPOLAR DISORDER'S BEST FRIEND
Chapter 5: Anxiety — Bipolar Disorder’s Best Friend
The uninvited companion that rides shotgun with every episode. Cancelled plans, avoided parties, the supermarket 20 miles away — and a surprisingly relatable coping mechanism involving a pair of glasses.
06 COPING WITH ADDED INGREDIENTS
Chapter 6: Coping with Added Ingredients
Memory. Routine. Obsessive behaviours. Impulsive spending. Jo explores the less-talked-about layers of bipolar disorder — and the personal strategies that have helped her reclaim a sense of control.
07 SOMEONE LIKE ME
Chapter 7: Someone Like Me
The chapter about hitting rock bottom and the three weeks spent in a mental health hospital that changed everything. And the strange, terrifying, ultimately hopeful moment of walking back out into the world.
08 IN RETROSPECT
Chapter 8: In Retrospect
A look back. What Jo has learned, what she’s accepted, and why she refuses to let bipolar become her entire identity. ‘I am a person. I am a mum, a wife, a daughter, a sister. Please do not just associate me with being bipolar.’
09 WHY ARE YOU DEPRESSED?
Chapter 9: Why Are You Depressed?
The question that makes Jo want to scream — and why the people asking it aren’t necessarily wrong to be confused. A sharp, funny, fiercely honest take on the assumptions people make about mental illness.
10 A LETTER TO MY FELLOW MENTAL HEALTH FRIENDS
Chapter 10: A Letter to My Fellow Mental Health Friends
The chapter written directly to you — if you are bipolar, or love someone who is. A rallying cry. A warm hand on the shoulder. And a reminder that the show must, and will, go on.
