What Doesn’t Kill You: Fifteen Stories of Survival

Published in 2020
208 pages

epub


Elitsa Dermendzhiyska is a writer and social entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology, research and mental health. Her creative nonfiction aims to distil the science and stories behind our deepest struggles.

What is this book about?
An explorer spends a decade preparing for an expedition to the South Pole; what happens when you live for a goal, but once it’s been accomplished, you discover it’s not enough? A successful broadcast journalist ends up broke, drunk and sleeping rough; what makes alcohol so hard to resist despite its ruinous consequences? A teenage girl tries to disappear by starving herself; what is this force that compels so many women to reduce their size so drastically?

In this essay collection, writers share the struggles that have shaped their lives – loss, depression, addiction, anxiety, trauma, identity and others. But as they take you on a journey to the darkest recesses of their mind, the authors grapple with challenges that haunt us all.