Girl Over The Edge is about Ms Hodges’ experience with mental illness.

With statistics as high as one in five people in Australia experiencing mental illness, this is a real health issue.

Ms Hodges said that men living in rural communities are particularly susceptible to higher levels of mental illness due to isolation and difficulty accessing services. 

"If you break your leg, you get it fixed. If you have diabetes, you watch your diet and take medication. If you suffer from mental illness, you need to access treatment from health professionals.

"Girl Over The Edge answers many questions including have you ever wondered what happens in a mental health unit in a public hospital? What an episode of severe depression feels like? Or considered what it is like to lose your rational mind to insanity?

"After many hospitalisations and as I wrote my memoir Girl Over The Edge, I came to realise that people who experience mental illness are everyday people. 

"I am a mother, had worked at a university and am now an author, but I was debilitated by mental illness to the point of being unable to function. 

"It is a myth that all people with mental illness are homeless, alcoholics or drug addicts and a risk in society.

"Those people who experience mental illness are parents, teenagers, women and men, mothers and fathers."

Girl Over The Edge was released on May 1 and is available from bookshops or go online to Booktopia, Australia's largest online bookshop.