Book Sarah to Speak About
Mental Health Recovery
Award-winning author | Mental health thought leader
Keynote speaker who gives transformative, evidence-based talks about mental health recovery
Thought leader who’s shared her story and insights on NPR, Forbes, Oprah Daily, The Los Angeles Times, Salon, WGN Morning News, and elsewhere
Certified Mental Health Peer Recovery Specialist
Keynote
Cured:
Is Recovery from Mental Illness Possible?
Sarah Fay (Ph.D., M.A., M.F.A.) wows audiences with her inspiring story of a full recovery from mental illness. Her keynotes are immersive, emotional, transformative experiences. Sarah sparkles with authenticity, humor, and intelligence as she draws on her twenty-five years of lived experience with mental illness and her training as a certified Mental Health Peer Recovery Specialist to empower those suffering from mental health conditions to heal. Audiences are captivated by how she weaves her recovery journey with data and concrete strategies.
She’s given life-changing talks at universities, colleges, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and community mental health centers across the country.
Her goal is to change how audiences think about mental illness by sharing the hope of recovery.
In this gripping talk, Sarah Fay shares her experience of a full recovery from serious mental illness. She was one of those “hopeless” cases: twenty-five years in the mental health system, six different diagnoses, nearly a dozen different medications, and unable to live independently.
Her life changed with one word: Google. That’s right, Google. Her psychiatrist told her about a patient who’d fully recovered and gone on to become an executive at Google.
Recovery? No one recovers from mental illness or any psychiatric diagnosis. Anorexia, bipolar disorder, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia, etc.—those are forever.
Turns out that’s not the case. To psychiatrists, mental health recovery is the moment when a person who’s experienced debilitating mental and emotional suffering is no longer disabled by it. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) defines recovery as “a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.”
For Sarah, recovery required a complete shift in her understanding of the world, her treatment, and herself. It was incredibly difficult and full of wrong turns and setbacks, but she did it.
This talk explores the various definitions of recovery, the data on recovery, what mental health recovery looks like, and how we work toward it. It’s especially well-suited to high school, college, and university students—who are experiencing a mental health crisis and often given no hope— and women—who are the largest users of mental healthcare services in the country.
Learning points:
What mental health recovery looks and how it differs for each person
Why we think psychiatric diagnoses are lifelong and the data on mental health recovery
The difficulty in terminology—are we “cured,” recovered, well, better?
Personal versus clinical recovery
Concrete tools and resources for mental health recovery
Crafting mental health narratives
How to find support
How to guide others—particularly children and young people—in their journeys toward recovery
How to create work, education, and living environments that foster recovery
More about Sarah:
Sarah writes for many publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Time, and The Paris Review, where she was an advisory editor. She’s the recipient of the Hopwood Award for Literature, as well as grants and fellowships from Yaddo, the Mellon Foundation, and the MacDowell Colony, among others. She’s currently on the faculty at DePaul University and Northwestern University.
As a Certified Mental Health Peer Recovery Specialist, Sarah helps others move toward healing. Her second memoir is currently being serialized: Cured: How One Woman Fully Healed from Serious Mental Illness and Discovered the Secret to Mental Health tells the story of Sarah’s full recovery from serious mental illness and how recovery is possible for everyone.
Her debut memoir Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses is an Apple Best Books pick that The New York Times hailed as “a fiery manifesto of a memoir.” It’s been featured in mindbodygreen, Thrive Global, Lit Hub, Psychology Today, and more.
She lives in Chicago with her cats, Siddhartha (a.k.a. Sweets) and Baby Theo.
Diamond, audience member, On Our Own of Maryland Conference
“Awesome! Thanks for keeping the human side of our mental health journeys at the forefront of your messages!”
Rowan, moderator, On Our Own of Maryland Conference
