Mackay mum’s candid ‘warts and all’ memoir
"I THOUGHT that if I put a pillow over Lauren's head to quiet her, just for a minute … I didn't want to hurt her, I just needed her to stop screaming for a moment."
Habana mum Melissa Gorrie said her daughter Lauren was a beautiful baby, but born with an undiagnosed disability, she spent years struggling to cope as her mother.
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Lauren also suffered with colic and would scream her "little lungs out" in pain, Mrs Gorrie said.
She said her daughter still does not have a diagnosis 20 years later.
"She's in a wheelchair so she's unable to walk, she's non-verbal so she doesn't talk and she needs help with most things like personal care but she's so happy," Mrs Gorrie said.
Mrs Gorrie now wanted to help other families find that joy and acceptance with her book titled No Labels No Limits.
It is a "warts and all", no "gloss(ing) over the shi**y stuff" memoir about raising Lauren and her older sister all the while dealing with her own post-partum depression.
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Mrs Gorrie said it was meeting her husband Matt when Lauren was three years old that changed her outlook on life.
"The first half of the book is very raw and the stuff that I'm dealing with and the second half is how I've turned it all around and am in a really good place," she said.
The book is available to read via Amazon Kindle or signed copies can be purchased at www.melgorrie.com
If you are a parent struggling with mental health, you can access telephone support, information and services from organisations including Beyond Blue, White Cloud Foundation, Gidget, PANDA and COPE.
