Mental Health Awareness Month ~ Book Fundraiser

Fund Information

The Keith Milano Memorial Fund was established to help raise awareness about the devastating and deadly disease that is mental illness. Keith’s spirit and laughter is kept alive through our efforts to increase awareness about mental illness and to raise money for education and imperative research. Keith often struggled with society’s perception of mental illness. Our hope is that by having the strength to say that Keith was “Bipolar” we can strip away the stigma and help others to be more open about their disease. www.keithmilano.org
The Keith Milano Memorial Fund benefits the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). www.afsp.org

Donating Authors

A. Meredith Walters ~ Reclaiming the Sand

Alison Bailey ~ Past Imperfect

Amy Harmon ~ Making Faces

Ann Lister ~ Rock Gods Series - Fall for Me, Take Want you Want, Make you Mine

Beverly Preston ~ No More Wasted Time

Brenda Rothert ~ Fire on Ice Series - Bound, Captive and Edge

Cassia Leo ~ Black Box

Zoey Foster ~ Her Love Ran Crimson

Harper Sloan ~ Corp Security Series - Axel, Cage, Beck and Uncaged

Kathryn Perez ~ Therapy

Jade C. Jamison ~ Bullet series- Bullet, Rock Bottom, Feverish, Fully Automatic and Old House

K. Bromberg ~ Fueled (Driven Series book 2)

Katy Evans ~ Remy

Lainey Reese ~ Full Catalog - Table for Three, Damaged Goods, Innocence Defied, Before the Dawn

Lauren Blakely ~ Full Catalog - Caught Up In Love Series (Caught Up in Us, Pretending He's Mine, Trophy Husband,Playing with her Heart)

No Regrets Series (The Start of Us, The Thrill of It, Every Second With You)
Seductive Night Series (First Night, Night after Night, After this Night)
Far Too Tempting

M. Leighton ~ All the Pretty Lies

Mia Sheridan ~ The Sign of Love Series - (Leo, Leo’s Chance, Stinger, Archer’s Voice)

Nicole Edwards ~ Club Destiny Series Club Destiny Series (Conviction, Temptation, Addicted, Seduction, Infatuation, Captivated, Devotion, Perception, Entrusted)

River Jaymes ~ The Boyfriend Mandate

Sawyer Bennett ~ Make it Double (Last Call book 2)

SJD Peterson ~ Guards of Folsom series - Pup, Tag Team, Pony and Roped

Susan Mac Nicol ~ Worth Keeping and Saving Alexander

Violet Duke ~ Nice Girl to Love trilogy and Nice Guy to Love spin-off

My Story ~ Sarah

My baby sister, Hannah, was bi-polar, type 2. BP2 is characterized my longer and deeper periods of depression, the manic periods of a person suffering from BP2 are short (sometimes a few days and others only a few minutes) and are not as 'high' as those experienced by people with a BP1 diagnosis (think Britney Spears). Hannah didn't have many highs. She was a completely characteristic BP2 sufferer.

Hannah was 14 the first time that her depression got so bad that she tried to end her life by taking all of the pills in the medicine cabinet.  Luckily, she told our mom and was taken in to get her stomach pumped.  That was only the first of many attempts however.  She did a couple of stints in a mental health facility and we thought that she was really getting better.  But, like many people in her situation she absolutely hated how she felt on her meds and would frequently go off of them.  And then it was back to square one.

Despite having a great support system of family, friends, counselors and  doctors, Hannah lost her battle with depression when she was only 20.  Today, April 30, would have been her 25th birthday.  There is not a day that goes by that I don't wonder how much different life would be with her still in it.  I wonder what her babies would have looked like.  I wonder if she would be my boys' favorite aunt.  I wonder what she would have thought of my fourth baby.  See, she was the fourth of four sisters and I want to know if he would have been more special to her for that reason, knowing what it is like to be the baby in a family of six.

At first I was so mad at her.  I couldn't believe how incredibly selfish she was.  And then I had my first bout of serious depression.  And I understood.  There is nothing quite as horrific as feeling like you are only making everyone else miserable with your own existence.  Luckily for me though, I have an amazing husband who was able to see how bad I was spiraling and made me get help.  And I didn't have near the diagnosis she did.  I was only depressed and with some hard work and the right therapy I was able to pull myself out of the darkest pit I had experienced.  I think that pit was only the tip of the iceberg of what she experienced every day.

Our society has stigmatized mental disorders so much that she didn't think that she could talk to other people about it.  Sure, she had her counselors, but she needed more.  It wasn't something that we talked about.  We didn't tell people about Hannah's problems because of how they might look at us.  And that is the real problem.  We need to be able to have an open dialogue about mental health and the steps that are needed to cope with it.  If being able to talk openly about this very serious problem saves one life then it is all worth it.  If we, as a society can be open about cancer or AIDS or any other physical illness we should be able to speak as openly about mental disease in all of it's forms.  That is what I strive for, a society where mental disorders aren't hidden behind closed doors and only talked about in private.  If we are all able to openly acknowledge our problems then we will have that many more people in our corner helping us fight.

So, please consider donating, buying a book, or spreading the word.  It may not seem like much to you, but it may just save a life.