Poppy / 30 June 2025 / Categories: Books, Non-fiction, Useful Guides

The Mind Detective by Shirley Yanez cured my depression

A simple education into the workings of your mind

I just got back after the wedding. That is mine and Reggie’s not Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos. If we’d known we have picked a different weekend and wouldn’t have honeymooned in Venice. So back to work and back to reality. Where we went and stayed I’ll be snooping about later.I did download the free book available on here as a FREE download Take Care of Yoursef for a change” by writer Shirley Yanez (I know strange reading for your honeymoon but hey what can I say I am into self development these days) and it was a great follow up to her book published in August 2019 The Mind Detective which changed a lot for me and cured my depression. A big claim I know but absolutely true. Don’t get me wrong it was no quick fix but with absolute dedication and perseverance a bit like anyone who successfully loses weight and keeps it off anything is possible when it comes to

the power of your own mind. I am living proof.

I spent more time than usual on social media this last week after all the build up to the big day and in doing so discovered writer and columnist Hannah J Betts, she was openly sharing her journey with anti depressants on social media and it shocked me. Had mental health medication become so normalised taking a snap of your blister pack of your Escitalopram for Instagram become a thing. I am not judging, the point of the post she was not ashamed or embarrassed they were helping her but I thought how great for the pharmaceutical industry to have this kind of marketing from a respected journalist. I’d never heard of a serotonin inhancer or “happy pill”. I used the power of AI to tell me what they were and I went on the read a little bit more about her. I read an article in the Daily Mail about her quitting alcohol journey. I could relate. I gave up drinking too a few years ago. But then it got me thinking was giving up drinking the reason she now felt the need for her serotonin enhancer, Escitolopram a class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

I suffered and endured a life changing experience which caused me to address my drinking. Sure I was depressed, low, I now explain this as deep rooted unhappiness not a clinical illness because I have managed to lift myself up, it took a lot of daily action “the work” described in Shirley Yanez’s book “the mind detective” which like the bestselling book “The secret” I recommend everyone should read because it all

Made sense to me. Inspite of the hole left by my kamachazi life choices I now have the genuine ability to feel joy and happiness most days. I am able to smile inside. I am able to acknowledge when I con myself, I am able to laugh at my mistakes, I am way more humble, no longer as shallow as I once was. But the most important part I don’t feel like a fake anymore, putting on a show or a front. Some people call it wearing a mask. I am not scared and shaking all the time, symptoms people attribute to drinking but when you stop drinking those symptoms don’t go away on there own you have to do some work.

Reading Shirley Yanez’s book the Mind Detective, gave me so many light bulb moments, about why I was the way I was, living in my ego, believing my outer shell, my book read smarts my knowledge to be stronger and better than it was. I discovered I was fake, a complete fraud I didn’t know myself because the reality of who I was really wasn’t really worth knowing. I now don’t beat myself up for this. I was no different from most other people bumbling through, painting a smile on pretending to be happy, a glass of wine always there to help me get through.

Reading The Mind Detective changed everything. It’s a book you have to go back to because this

kind of self development doesn’t happen over night but take my advice, if you want to discover the real secret to personal inner fulfilment and find out why the path you are on just isn’t working out for you, pick yourself up a copy. It’ll be the best £10.00 you’ve ever spent.

I am not suggesting anyone taking prescribed medication that is helping them should stop; I am not a doctor but changing the way I thought and actively changing the language I used when speaking to myself in my head, my thoughts had a profound effect on how I felt about my life in the longer term. “What you resist will persist” Carl Jung I have found to be true in real life when it comes to my own mental health and my sobriety. It’s my grandmother’s hand in the picture in case you think I’ve suddenly aged over night.