title: Bloodletting: A Memoir of Secrets, Self-Harm, and Survival
author:  Victoria Leatham 
description: Leatham begins her painful, emotional memoir with her realization, in her late teens, that she was depressed. As her friends and family dismissed her feelings as temporary, she discovered that "harming myself really did make me feel better." The irresistible urge to cut herself led to a life of medication, stays in psychiatric hospitals (she was diagnosed with a form of bipolar disorder) and more self-destructive behavior, including eating disorders, abusive relationships and frequent career hopping. Just as Leatham would start to feel settled in a new city in her native Australia, or one she recently returned to, the compulsion to cut would begin again, resulting in a hospital stay followed by a move to a different locale. More than 12 years after she began her self-harm, she started a program of cognitive behavioral therapy, and although she initially resisted it, she found that "[s]omething had at last shifted and made it possible for me to begin to protect myself." Leatham's searing memoir will resonate with young women struggling with similar problems, as well as those who care about them. <i>(Mar.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: Contents
  Copyright
  One
  Two
  Three
  Four
  Five
  Six
  My Submission to the Doctor
  Taken by the Oligarch
  Collaring Laura
  Afterword
  
  Copyright @ 2016 Alex Carlsbad All rights reserved.
  No part of this text may be reproduced, in part or in full, without
  express written consent from the author, except by a reviewer who
  may quote short passages in a review. All characters depicted are
  above the age of eighteen. This is a work of fiction and in no way
  condones acts of violence, sexual or otherwise.
  Adult Reading Material
  The material contained within this book is for mature audiences
  only. It contains graphic sexual content. It is intended only for
  those aged 18 and above. This book does not portray sexual
  intercourse between blood relatives.
  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or places, events
  or locales is purely coincidental.
  
  1.
  Loud applause echoed in the room but Jenny didn’t dare look up. She
  remained demurely kneeling on the floor, her ears still burning with shame.
  During the