Daddy Issues: A Memoir

Carrie Cantwell grew up with an unstable father who suffered from manic depression. His emotional absence left her wounded and yearning for his affection. To make matters worse, she struggled with inexplicable mood swings of her own. As a child, she was hyperactive and attention-seeking. By her twenties she was engaging in reckless behavior to quiet her inner demons. When Carrie was 24, her father died by suicide, and she was hit with her first major depressive episode. When she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, her heart sank. It felt like a death sentence. At age 38 and in a failing, abusive marriage, she tried to end her own life. Once discharged from an inpatient institution, she promised herself she'd never go back. Carrie made the same mistake her father had, but she'd gotten a second chance at life. She vowed not to squander it. She began a long journey of recovery by finally coming to terms with her daddy issues and the severity of her own mental illness.

Carrie exposes a runaway roller coaster of emotions through brutally honest, raw recounting of soaring highs and crushing lows. Through powerful scenes of self-destruction and recovery, she invites readers into her turbulent and fragile inner world. Daddy Issues: A Memoir is a story of forgiveness and absolution, about how mental illness tore apart a father and daughter but was ultimately the very thing that brought them together.