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The purpose of this paper is to provide a profile of Kayleigh Beard-Blackband.

Kayleigh provides a short biographical description of her life. She is then interviewed by Jerome.

Kayleigh achieved so much while under intense domestic and academic pressure. This gives her hope that she will be able to recover from recurrent depression.

Single case studies are of course only one person’s story. However, they can offer key personal insights and provide encouragement to others.

Kayleigh’s comments “It is easy to fall off the radar in mental health services”, suggest services need to ensure that all referrals are followed up.

Services need to offer individuals the help that they want. Many will have a preference for individual over group treatments. People should be offered a choice.

Kayleigh’s story is a remarkable account of survival and growth against all the odds.

The purpose of this paper is to review the 20 remarkable lives of student accounts published in this journal. These recovery narratives (RNs) are examined first in terms of whether they meet the five elements of the connectedness, hope, identity, meaning and empowerment (CHIME) model of recovery and then in terms of what makes each account remarkable.

Two Excel spreadsheets were created. One had each author’s name and the five elements of the CHIME model, the other the features of a remarkable life.

All 20 accounts fulfilled the criteria for the CHIME model, independently validating this model of recovery. Hence, each account showed evidence of connectedness, hope, identity, meaning and empowerment. A number of additional characteristics stood out from the accounts such as the importance of motherhood and of education.

All 20 accounts were only reviewed by the two authors, who may be subject to bias. To reduce this, the first author did the bulk of the ratings. This paper shows the importance of education for recovery.

Some 15/20 accounts reported problems with mental health services, mainly around waiting lists. Must mental health always remain a Cinderella service?

This is the first attempt to synthesise this particular set of recovery narratives, entitled remarkable lives. These accounts show the richness of the recovery journeys embarked on by many sufferers and these are just drawn from one University. Like the authors of these stories, we too as recovery specialists have much to learn from their inspiring accounts.