Title: To dance across the heavens
First published: 2007
Description: This book is about one woman’s diary account of her life and relationships while coping with a serious mental illness - Bipolar Disorder. It makes for compelling reading detailing a particular period of intense mental instability.  It is also a reflection on the author’s life as a whole, the principal relationships that were integral to her life and the impact they had upon her formative and later years.

Via her diary, the author is able to explore her feelings, to put to paper the intensity of her emotions felt at particular times, to capture the ‘now’ of her being. Her entries faithfully recorded the pain and the elation of the individual moments. There were times for her of extreme darkness when suicide was contemplated and times of — that fine madness — driving her mind to ecstatic heights and filling her with dangerous notions that death could be challenged by impetuous acts of irrational behaviour.

Whilst the content of her writings are intense, the author’s wonderful sense of humour filters throughout the pages. This book opens a window into the mind of someone living with a mental illness in a creative and enjoyable style. It is an intimate account of what it is like to experience mental illness. A must read for people with a mental illness, their family, friends health professionals and anyone with an interest in mental health.

To Dance Across the Heavens is a book about mental illness, but more importantly it is a book about acceptance of self. With this acceptance comes the realization that one is no longer suffering from a mental illness but one is living with it. And that knowledge opens up a who1e new world.

This is the story of a journey, of redemption and renewal, showing that recovery, whatever you perceive that to be, is possible.
Subjects: Bipolar Disorder, Postpartum depression, Mental illness, Depression in women, Biography
Places: Australia
People: Alvina Hill
Time periods: Diary account set over a three year period.
LC classification: RC464.H55 A3 2007