A Promise of Hope : The Astonishing True Story of a Woman Afflicted with Bipolar Disorder and the Miraculous Treatment That Cured Her

Some children inherit the family nose. Autumn Stringam and her brother Joseph inherited bipolar disorder, a severe mental illness that led to the suicides of their mother and grandfather. Autumn, at 22, was in a psychiatric hospital on suicide watch; Joseph, at 15, was prone to violent episodes so terrifying that his family members feared for their lives. But after Autumn and her brother began taking a nutritional supplement developed by their father—and based, incredibly, on a formula given to aggressive hogs—their symptoms disappeared. Today they both lead normal, productive lives.

A Promise of Hope chronicles Stringam’s personal flight from madness to wellness. The true story moves from a kitchen table in Alberta to the offices of a distinguished Harvard psychiatrist, to the labs of a skeptical medical establishment. Now updated with a new afterword, A Promise of Hope is a powerful call for a new understanding of a mental illness that affects thousands of Canadians.