Living with the Neighbors

Living with the Neighbors is a memoir of the author's journey through severe mental illness and recovery. It is an intimate portrayal of what it is like to live with this condition, beginning her recovery at a peer-run, farmhouse retreat located in the Green Mountains of Vermont. There, the natural landscape and writing poetry becomes a source of healing. The author's trauma-induced auditory hallucinations that she has come to call "the neighbors," are one of the central symptoms that she shares with readers so they can understand what it is like to live with such an affliction.

Overwhelmed and institutionalized by dark and self-destructive voices, the author learns to overcome her auditory hallucinations by calling them "the neighbors." The other weapon she uses to reclaim her self-worth is writing and gifting others with her poetry. Living with the Neighbors is a hybrid memoir of prose and poetry that traces the author's journey through severe mental illness and into recovery. This intimate portrayal of what it is like to live with this condition, begins at a peer-run, farmhouse retreat located in the Green Mountains of Vermont where nature, a river, and her poetry become sources of healing. Here is a book full of inspiration for anyone who struggles with self-esteem issues, shame, and self-doubt. The author's battle with post-traumatic stress (PTSD) resulting from sexual assault lies at the root cause of her hearing voices. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men will experience sexual violence that includes physical contact at some point in their lives, leaving the victim feeling scared, angry, guilty, anxious, and sad. In some cases, it leads to madness. In Jodi's case, it led to an invasion of her consciousness by incredibly angry and life-threatening audio-hallucinations in the form of men's voices. Jodi dubbed them" the neighbors" to divide and protect her mind from their chaos. They led her to suicide attempts and electro-shock therapy as a cure. Living with the Neighbors is a trial by fire, a tempering, and a resistance to seeming external forces that sought to destroy her. Jodi Girouard's memoir of prose and her vivid poetry tell a story of pain, suffering, acceptance, determination, and eventual success that soars above the typical range of recovery stories. Her peaks and valleys of depression and redemption are phenomenal and written like an adventure tale.

Jodi Girouard is a native Vermonter who has been writing stories since she could hold a pencil. She is a wife, a mother, a writer, and a survivor of mental illness. She has previously published two collections of her poetry: "Body Language; a woman's voice" and "Faces in the Crowd." A recent essay, ""Within the Fields of Possibilities" is included in the 2019 edition of "Much Madness." She has won several writing contests and her poetry is featured in the July 2019 edition of "Wordgathering." Jodi has lived with mental illness for most of her life and is active in starting conversations that aim to reduce the stigma associated with such illness. She is a motivational speaker helping to raise awareness through openness about the symptoms many people face. In addition, Jodi speaks about her spiritual life which also helps heal. Recovery is a daily action, fighting severe mental illness with a team approach, medication, and therapy. She writes about it in much of her poetry which she shares on her website at JodiGirouard.com.