Int Opp: Ricky Gervais "Comes Out"...But Not of the Closet

HERNDON, VA, April 21, 2011 (Press-News.org) People who know him weren't surprised when Ricky Gervais "came out." But instead of emerging from the closet (though many say *that's* only a matter of time), he emerged, hands sparkling clean, from the (metaphorical) washroom.

The stigma surrounding mental illness is on par--if not greater--than homosexuality. So what's it like living with a mental illness in the very public eye?

Ask Simon and Schuster's new "star" author, Traci Foust.

Growing up in the 1970s with an anxiety disorder that was only later diagnosed as obsessive compulsive lent a strange, disquieting edge to San Francisco author Foust's childhood, as she re-creates it in this moving memoir. Chapters proceed through Foust's childhood chronologically, from age eight, when her parents broke up and she moved with her mother, older brother, and sister into a South San Jose (Bay area) apartment complex, and she could indulge her microbe fears and hypochondria. As a child Foust could not master the intractability of numbers, but excelled in spelling and English; she lied frequently, insisted on systematic ways of organizing her things, and had morbid concerns about safety and hygiene. Inexplicable actions, such as locking her best friend in a hot car, then running away, prompted visits to psychologists, who first diagnosed Foust as schizophrenic; later in high school she found comfort in NyQuil and antihistamines, coming gradually to the realization that the compulsions waxed and waned depending on levels of stress. Foust pokes fun at her own sense of self-pity and describes the lack of empathy in others, giving readers an intimate look at OCD from the inside.

To request a copy of Nowhere Near Normal or book an interview with Ms. Foust, contact Allen Media Strategies Alyssa Joy at 703-589-8960.

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Contact: Alyssa Joy
703-589-8960
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