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This Book Could Save Your Life: Breaking the silence around the mental health emergency
‘What’s sort of funny when something horrific happens is that nothing happens to the rest of the world. The cars still drive, the planes still fly…everything just continues. And that’s probably the best gift we have. Because, for the most part, there’s no right or wrong way to do things – life becomes whatever you make it.’
This book has been written for you.
In 2018, Ben’s world collapsed around him when he unexpectedly lost his brother to suicide. In the raw aftermath of this tragedy, Ben found the strength to learn, educate and campaign about mental health. He also wrote this book as a reminder that in despair you can always find hope. It’s packed with advice and practical takeaways.
So read it, remember it and pass it on – it could save your life.
This book has been written for you.
In 2018, Ben’s world collapsed around him when he unexpectedly lost his brother to suicide. In the raw aftermath of this tragedy, Ben found the strength to learn, educate and campaign about mental health. He also wrote this book as a reminder that in despair you can always find hope. It’s packed with advice and practical takeaways.
So read it, remember it and pass it on – it could save your life.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published November 15, 2022
20 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 21, 2024
One young man's journey through grief following the suicide of his younger brother. Also, it shines a light on the woeful investment and priority given to Mental Health services in this country.
September 29, 2024
5⭐️
A heartbreakingly powerful mental health must-read! 💚
⚠️ Trigger Warning: this review contains references to suicide and mental health.
With September being home to Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, I just had to read this non-fiction book that harbours harrowing statistics, crushes stigma and educates readers.
Ben’s world collapsed in 2018 when his younger brother Sam died by suicide at the age of 15. In the raw aftermath of this tragedy, Ben found strength to learn, educate and campaign about mental health.
He wrote this book as a reminder that in despair you can always find hope.
If you’re going to read any non-fiction book this year, then it MUST be this book. Ben provides an honest and frank account of his experiences after loosing his brother and the grief and burnout he experienced.
The book is split into sections, mirroring the progress Ben has made as a mental health campaigner and was potently touching, informative and eye-opening.
Ben is not slamming mental health workers, but instead criticises the systems they work for. This book acts as a catalyst for change and reformation of the scaffolding for mental health, eduction and higher education systems.
Despite being a tough read, especially as I have my own mental health struggles, Ben really breaks down the taboo and emphasises the need for us all to have these ugly conversations as it really does save lives. Especially for Men!
The UK is in a MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCY and this book is a huge wake up call, encouraging us to open up the mental health conversation.
There is no rule book for mental health and this book tackles this perfectly, providing tips, educational points and allows us to open the conversation ourselves.
Thank you Ben for your raw accounts and making yourself vulnerable in these pages. I loved the slight humour woven throughout to really emphasise this book and its incredibly important message.
I will be thinking about this book for a very long time. 💚
🚨This book is currently £2.93 on Amazon in the UK!
A heartbreakingly powerful mental health must-read! 💚
⚠️ Trigger Warning: this review contains references to suicide and mental health.
With September being home to Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, I just had to read this non-fiction book that harbours harrowing statistics, crushes stigma and educates readers.
Ben’s world collapsed in 2018 when his younger brother Sam died by suicide at the age of 15. In the raw aftermath of this tragedy, Ben found strength to learn, educate and campaign about mental health.
He wrote this book as a reminder that in despair you can always find hope.
If you’re going to read any non-fiction book this year, then it MUST be this book. Ben provides an honest and frank account of his experiences after loosing his brother and the grief and burnout he experienced.
The book is split into sections, mirroring the progress Ben has made as a mental health campaigner and was potently touching, informative and eye-opening.
Ben is not slamming mental health workers, but instead criticises the systems they work for. This book acts as a catalyst for change and reformation of the scaffolding for mental health, eduction and higher education systems.
Despite being a tough read, especially as I have my own mental health struggles, Ben really breaks down the taboo and emphasises the need for us all to have these ugly conversations as it really does save lives. Especially for Men!
The UK is in a MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCY and this book is a huge wake up call, encouraging us to open up the mental health conversation.
There is no rule book for mental health and this book tackles this perfectly, providing tips, educational points and allows us to open the conversation ourselves.
Thank you Ben for your raw accounts and making yourself vulnerable in these pages. I loved the slight humour woven throughout to really emphasise this book and its incredibly important message.
I will be thinking about this book for a very long time. 💚
🚨This book is currently £2.93 on Amazon in the UK!
June 22, 2022
TW: mentions of mental illness and suicide
This book was exceptionally well written, composed and insightful. I do find it somewhat difficult to write a review for a book like this but I honestly have nothing bad to say. I wouldn’t say I loved it per se but I love the impact it had and continues to have on me (and hopefully others). I knew of Ben West’s story for a long time and have since supported much of his tireless commendable work with generating change in how we think/talk about mental health and wanted to support him with this book. It was certainly a difficult read in some parts and I ugly cried many many times. But I was only reading about these harrowing self-proclaimed horror stories, not experiencing them. And every suicide story has the right to be shared, heard, understood and prevented from happening ever again. It’s hard to read for sure but is necessary. The book follows Ben from talking about his childhood (these parts hit me the hardest, I just couldn’t stop thinking about what Sam could have done, achieved and the person he’d of became - an artist, a musician, anything?) to his brother Sam’s suicide, the aftermath discussing themes of grief and the different ways of experiencing it - I.e. there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - and then Ben’s campaigning journey. Many statistics and shocking discoveries are mentioned specifically in government policies, education from primary school to university, healthcare and in our personal lives.
There are many many take aways from this book but for me personally it was ‘feelings have to be felt to be freed… just by acknowledging the feelings, they’ll be easier to deal with because you’ll start understanding why you feel that way and stop beating yourself up for it’ and he used this analogy of filling up balloons with our feelings we don’t want to talk - or merely think - about and how our balloons will constantly get bigger and bigger until… POP! And then what? Additional points made is that change is so so necessary if we want to not only reduce the number of suicides but to eradicate that number - less is simply not good enough. And he goes on to mention many ways to help generate change from big national-level petitions to huge organisations to a simple text to your friend for a catch up. If anyone feels better from reading this book, he’s happy and so am I.
In the final thoughts passage, I believe Ben perfectly summarised this book’s impact for me ‘I hope you
found it helpful, informative, moving, relatable, funny in
parts, and potentially even a little motivational (fingers
crossed). I know things got pretty dark in places, but those
places matter and talking about them is the only way of ensuring meaningful change. I hope you found some laughter among the sadness though - I always try to and, most of the time, it really helps.’ This was all so true and I truly believe Ben is an exceptional writer. Read this quote for example ‘We find solutions to the mental health crisis not by focusing on what we already do, but by constantly looking for where we can do more.’ And the fact he thought it would be surprising to write a book!? I am truly dumbfounded because this was so exceptionally well written and flowed amazingly.
I can keep praising and praising this book because I was impacted so much. I do personally deal with mental health issues that have unfortunately been getting worse and struggling to find a way through so certain self-help elements I do hope to take on board. But also, like millions and millions of others I know people who too struggle with their mental health and I hope to become a better friend and support service for them. I also want to continue understanding more about different conditions, ways to help and fighting for change be it holding the government or education services accountable for their inaction to just letting others know I am here for them. Thank you for reading and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to literally everyone.
This book was exceptionally well written, composed and insightful. I do find it somewhat difficult to write a review for a book like this but I honestly have nothing bad to say. I wouldn’t say I loved it per se but I love the impact it had and continues to have on me (and hopefully others). I knew of Ben West’s story for a long time and have since supported much of his tireless commendable work with generating change in how we think/talk about mental health and wanted to support him with this book. It was certainly a difficult read in some parts and I ugly cried many many times. But I was only reading about these harrowing self-proclaimed horror stories, not experiencing them. And every suicide story has the right to be shared, heard, understood and prevented from happening ever again. It’s hard to read for sure but is necessary. The book follows Ben from talking about his childhood (these parts hit me the hardest, I just couldn’t stop thinking about what Sam could have done, achieved and the person he’d of became - an artist, a musician, anything?) to his brother Sam’s suicide, the aftermath discussing themes of grief and the different ways of experiencing it - I.e. there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ - and then Ben’s campaigning journey. Many statistics and shocking discoveries are mentioned specifically in government policies, education from primary school to university, healthcare and in our personal lives.
There are many many take aways from this book but for me personally it was ‘feelings have to be felt to be freed… just by acknowledging the feelings, they’ll be easier to deal with because you’ll start understanding why you feel that way and stop beating yourself up for it’ and he used this analogy of filling up balloons with our feelings we don’t want to talk - or merely think - about and how our balloons will constantly get bigger and bigger until… POP! And then what? Additional points made is that change is so so necessary if we want to not only reduce the number of suicides but to eradicate that number - less is simply not good enough. And he goes on to mention many ways to help generate change from big national-level petitions to huge organisations to a simple text to your friend for a catch up. If anyone feels better from reading this book, he’s happy and so am I.
In the final thoughts passage, I believe Ben perfectly summarised this book’s impact for me ‘I hope you
found it helpful, informative, moving, relatable, funny in
parts, and potentially even a little motivational (fingers
crossed). I know things got pretty dark in places, but those
places matter and talking about them is the only way of ensuring meaningful change. I hope you found some laughter among the sadness though - I always try to and, most of the time, it really helps.’ This was all so true and I truly believe Ben is an exceptional writer. Read this quote for example ‘We find solutions to the mental health crisis not by focusing on what we already do, but by constantly looking for where we can do more.’ And the fact he thought it would be surprising to write a book!? I am truly dumbfounded because this was so exceptionally well written and flowed amazingly.
I can keep praising and praising this book because I was impacted so much. I do personally deal with mental health issues that have unfortunately been getting worse and struggling to find a way through so certain self-help elements I do hope to take on board. But also, like millions and millions of others I know people who too struggle with their mental health and I hope to become a better friend and support service for them. I also want to continue understanding more about different conditions, ways to help and fighting for change be it holding the government or education services accountable for their inaction to just letting others know I am here for them. Thank you for reading and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to literally everyone.
January 20, 2025
I came across Ben after listening to a podcast where he discussed the suicide of his younger brother.
They were both teenagers when Sam died and Ben talks very movingly in this book not just about his brothers mental health struggles, but also his attempts to save his life when they found him along with his tireless campaigning to get mental health properly addressed in schools and universities.
Ben was crippled with trauma as he argued with Sam in the lead up to his death. He blamed himself but really, as a young man himself, he had little idea what Sam was going through.
As bleak as this book sounds it’s also carries a lot of hope and Ben’s humour shines throughout. I wish Ben and his family all the best with moving forward in what must feel like impossible circumstances.
They were both teenagers when Sam died and Ben talks very movingly in this book not just about his brothers mental health struggles, but also his attempts to save his life when they found him along with his tireless campaigning to get mental health properly addressed in schools and universities.
Ben was crippled with trauma as he argued with Sam in the lead up to his death. He blamed himself but really, as a young man himself, he had little idea what Sam was going through.
As bleak as this book sounds it’s also carries a lot of hope and Ben’s humour shines throughout. I wish Ben and his family all the best with moving forward in what must feel like impossible circumstances.
May 22, 2022
I heard Ben telling his story on Radio 2 at the start of mental health awareness week and was inspired to buy his book. If you or anyone you know is struggling with their mental health, or if you simply want to be better informed, then do read it. Honest, heartbreaking and hard hitting.
January 28, 2023
Great book tackling a challenging topic. The author approaches the subject with sensitivity, with a clear and easy to absorb conversational manner and includes a smattering of humour as he shares his lived experience and knowledge on the mental health emergency we currently face.
July 16, 2022
Everyone needs to read this!
August 13, 2022
Ben’s story is so sad but uplifting and inspirational.
April 25, 2023
Phenomenal book with a great outline for what you can do to help create change!
July 15, 2023
Written and read (as an audiobook) by the author himself - This Book Could Save Your Life - is a deeply personal and honest account of losing his younger brother to suicide when both were under 18 years old. Ben’s eventual compassion for himself, his desire to help other and relentless campaigning is all bravely shared.
June 7, 2022
This book is a great mix of memoir (quite personal), talking about mental health, and tips for how we ourselves can make a difference. Ben West is open and personal, and wrote/tells his story in an easy way, so that everyone can get something out of this book.
December 29, 2022
{Audiobook} I cannot recommend this book enough!!!! Listening to it as an audiobook read by Ben West himself was incredibly moving, inspiring and important. I agreed with basically every word out of his mouth, and it was amazing to know and understand and be heard in so many ways, and what an important message that no one is alone <3
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews