Flying with Paper Wings: Reflections on Living with Madness (updated edition)

Endorsements

Calm, clear, honest and it oh so gently lifts your soul until you unexpectedly find yourself gliding in the clouds before gently coming back to earth. And weaving in the rhapsody works a wonder and evinces deep hope.
—Jack Heath, CEO Philanthropy Australia, Former CEO SANE

Ultimately, it is Sandy’s insight into fighting the monster of psychosis that makes this book valuable to the many people …[who] have had to fight similar demons. Whether Sandy’s voices will ever be stilled is hard to say. She says of them: ‘It’s like a war of words between us. I hope it will be me who has the last word.’ With this book, that will outlive both her and them, I believe she has.
—Andrew Denton

Reviews

Reviews

It is a compelling story. Read the full review.
—Jim Cable, Independent Australia

Praise for the earlier edition

This personal story is gripping and terrible, as the narrator walks "through to the other side of a dark wood" and finds joy and stability in creativity. Poems on paper are her wings. The insights into the lives and treatment of people with such grave illnesses are so very valuable. The reader is privileged to look and listen, and to consider with great tenderness and understanding the author of this book, as well as others who suffer in similar ways.
— Carmel Bird, The Age

In her new book, author Sandy Jeffs asks the question: "What is more egocentric? Having a psychotic episode or writing a memoir?" This narrative of schizophrenic suffering falls into the terrain of "writing as therapy" but, thanks to Jeffs' skills as a writer, her insights, candour and wit, this becomes a strength rather than a weakness. There is enough discussion of the issues around mental illness and recovery to take Jeffs' autobiography far beyond the "me world" of insanity. Indeed, the reader has a sense of witnessing not merely a brave but a heroic journey.

A lucid, useful, and quite amazing story.
— Lesley Synge, The Courier Mail

Flying with Paper Wings is anything but a misery memoir. Glittering with black humour and without self-pity, it shifts other people's perceptions of mental distress beyond kindness, compassion, sympathy and fear into some deeper perception.

…Read this exceptional book. It takes you beyond your own narrow terror towards something that might be called insight.
— Helen Elliott - An insight to counter fear of the mentally ill. The Age.

Sandy Jeffs offers us all generous access to her heart and her head in this inside-out life. Art follows life, and emphatically so, in this important instance. This autobiography is a bitter-sweet adventure, leading you head-long through the dark and twisting labyrinths of interior torment, intersecting with the rocky terrain of exterior survival and into the light of hope beyond. It all keeps you reading keenly, but also draws you to sit by a series of tranquil reflective ponds which are well worth lingering over. Read the full review.
— Australasian Psychiatry. 2011;19(1) https://doi.org/10.3109/10398562.2010.515001

For those who haven’t already, I recommend reading Flying with Paper Wings and other accounts of lived experience within the mental health system. Such compelling stories are a constant reminder of the person behind the diagnosis, and the desperate need of each person to feel listened to and understood. Thanks to Sandy and others, whose lived experiences have given so much to our understanding and articulation of our profession.
— Brenda Happell Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Mental Health Nursing https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1447-0349.2012.00819.x

Compelling, heartbreaking and uplifting, Flying with Paper Wings offers an opportunity to walk in Sandy’s shoes. It offers insights into the personal life of a family, the mental health system – for better and worse, and the social stigma which comes with the tag “mentally ill”.
— Kath Gannaway, Upper Yarra Star Mail

In this book, Sandy Jeffs gives a strong voice to people who are misunderstood and often ignored. She makes some meaningful steps toward bridging a very big gap. Read the full review.
— Sam van Zweden