Dooks pens self-help book

“When you get better, can you build a snowman with me?”

That was the question Jamie Dooks’ then six-year-old daughter asked him one February evening in 2012.

“I will never forget how it felt when those words registered with my consciousness,” Dooks, an Elmwood native, writes on his blog.

“It felt like a mushroom cloud of emotion erupted inside me. And in this moment, it felt as though my heart broke in two… I realized I was sick and that I truly needed help.”

Dooks has a condition called major depressive disorder or what is commonly known as depression. Six years later, after 13 months of counselling and years dedicated to coping, healing and “crushing” his stigma of depression, he has reached a milestone with his mental health journey by the release of his self-help book, “A ‘Deep Well’ Perspective for Healing in Depression”. The book is now available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats.

“For those who have never experienced a mental illness like depression there is no construct of words that could fully capture what it’s like to exist in that proverbial ‘dark place’,” said Dooks, who has become a strong advocate for mental health and eliminating the crushing stigma that comes with such an illness.

In addition to his book, Dooks spreads the message of hope by blogging at stigmacrush.com, and speaking publicly, through his “Laughing in the Face of Stigma” speaking series, which promotes “healing with heart, humour and hope.”

In his professional life, Dooks is a volunteer member of the federal government’s National Speakers Bureau for Mental Health.