About
A Perfect Walk lays out Paul’s life journey through mental illness, with two audiences in mind: youth who are battling mental health issues and adults who did not receive the mental health help they needed as a young person.
Paul M. Gallagher wrote a book on mental health!
As early as age four, Paul battled severe anxiety that morphed monstrously into anger and suicidal depression. If you have emotional and mental health issues that debilitate you a little — or a lot — Paul’s story will help you realize you are not alone. Many suffer similar battles. His story will also help you find the help you need.
A Perfect Walk lays out Paul’s harrowing life journey through mental illness, with two audiences in mind:
First, a segment of our youth, ages twelve to seventeen — “the crucial years”— are battling mental health issues including anger, anxiety, and depression. The goal is to help their parents, grandparents, guardians, pastors, teachers, coaches and other youth leaders recognize the signs of mental illness early in the life a child.
It is important that our nation’s youth have the courage and safe spaces to discuss truthfully their thought processes and feelings with those who are trustworthy before anger, anxiety and depression result in debilitation and harm. This will ultimately steal joy from them in everyday life and will also negatively impact others.
His second audience is adults who did not receive the mental health help they needed as a young person.
As an invaluable preventative offering, Paul shares with transparency and in-depth honesty his own life story, hoping to prevent youth and adults from making the same mistakes he did well into his adulthood.
His heart and mission are to help address anger, anxiety, depression, and other serious mental health issues, to help “nip ‘em in the bud”— before the concerns become debilitating.
A Perfect Walk offers sixty “life lessons” and very practical tips that will help you or a loved one who is struggling.
Paul is again a sports fanatic and recommends youth and adult sports participation, which facilitates respect, teamwork, communication, accountability, sportsmanship, lessons learned from winning (humbly with class) and losing (an opportunity to learn and improve), and most importantly to learn their identity in their Creator.
It is important that our nation’s youth have the courage and safe spaces to discuss truthfully their thought processes and feelings with those who are trustworthy before anger, anxiety and depression result in debilitation and harm. This will ultimately steal joy from them in everyday life and will also negatively impact others.
His second audience is adults who did not receive the mental health help they needed as a young person.
As an invaluable preventative offering, Paul shares with transparency and in-depth honesty his own life story, hoping to prevent youth and adults from making the same mistakes he did well into his adulthood.
His heart and mission are to help address anger, anxiety, depression, and other serious mental health issues, to help “nip ‘em in the bud”— before the concerns become debilitating.
REVIEWS
Honest – helpful & point toward what matters most
Verified Purchase
A beautifully raw and honest sharing. Amazingly helpful insights and authentic Biblical encouragement. A great resource! Paul shares in a selfless way to help others.
“One day at a time, one moment at a time, one prayer at a time, and sometimes one breath at a time. Break down the bigger picture that overwhelms you.”
“As we run toward the cross, we run away from the enemy.”
A powerful look at mental illness
Verified Purchase
Paul takes a brutally honest look at the challenges he has had in his life and presents what he has learned along the way. I believe this can be a helpful read for someone dealing with anxiety and depression because they may be able to identify with some of Paul’s struggles and take Paul’s advice for how to help their situation. Although I haven’t dealt with the challenges that Paul has, I found this to be a valuable read as a way to better empathize with someone with anxiety, OCD, and suicidal thoughts. Paul writes in a very plain spoken, engaging way that makes the content easy to read and relate to.
Inspiring and Motivational Book
Verified Purchase
This is a great read for someone battling anxiety and depression. It is relatable, and gives you different tools to conquer anxiety of your own. It is a very well written and inspiring book!
A gift of hope!
Verified Purchase
This deeply captivating book is a gift of hope for anyone struggling to address or combat severe anxiety issues, depression, and other serious mental health obstacles.
Paul Doesn’t Hold Back on How He’s Survived
Verified Purchase
A Perfect Walk by Paul M. Gallagher isn’t a book I’d typically read or review. Full disclosure, Paul and I are good friends and I’m always up for helping a friend out so I bought and read the book. With that said, I was along for the ride with Paul and was present at several of the situations he discusses in the book, all while never quite realizing what he was suffering through. Thus, this book will inevitably move me in very different ways than it may move the casual reader. I teared up at times reading this book wondering how I could’ve helped more or wondering how much I contributed negatively to Paul’s illness. Here’s the thing – THE BOOK WILL MOVE YOU!
Paul puts himself out there and opens up in a brutally honest way to give a full look into the mind of someone that suffers from mental illness. He shares stories of his thoughts about taking his own life and why he believed he could never actually do it. He explains how one particular incident in his life shaped his negatively. He addresses how he handled situations poorly and how bad decisions layered over one another making matters even worse.
The writing is deeply rooted in Paul’s faith. He discusses the treatment he received at multiple times in his life. He shares how family and friends helped him during his struggles. Most of all, he shares how coming to terms with his faith most helped him to battle his mental illness. In the book, Paul shares 60 life tips that helped him get to the point in his life that he’s at now. Most of these are rooted in Paul’s Christian faith.
This book is an eye-popping look into the mind of someone with mental illness, someone that I never suspected was anything more than over-competitive when we played organized sports together, or just easily annoyed when we’d be hanging out in social circles. It showed me that you never really know what someone else is dealing with at any given moment. Paul lays it all out for the world in A Perfect Walk.
You are not alone. You are not hopeless.
Verified Purchase
Paul provides a brutally honest and detailed look into his journey of life as he battled with mental illness. As someone who has also struggled with panic disorder and depression, many of the points he made in the book were relatable at a personal level. Everyone copes with mental illness differently, and every journey is unique. Whether you yourself are struggling with mental illness or know someone who is, this is a fantastic read to gain new perspectives and understanding of mental illness and how to work towards a healthy, stable life. Thank you, Paul, for sharing.