What if our notion of what makes us happy is the very thing that’s making us so sad? Ten years on from first writing about her own experiences of mental illness, Bryony Gordon still receives messages about the effect it has on people. Now perimenopausal and well into the next stage of her life, parenting an almost-adolescent, just what has that help – and that connection with other unwell people – taught Bryony about herself, and the society we live in? What has she learned, and why have her views on mental health changed so radically? After coming out the other side of the biggest trauma of our living memory – a global pandemic – existing in a state of perma-crisis has now become our new normal. From burnout and binge eating, to living with fluctuating hormones and the endless battle to stay sober, Bryony begins to question whether she got mental illness wrong in the first place.