KIM GARTHWAITE

I’m the founder of DETAIL — Don’t Ever Think All Is Lost — a name that came from exactly that place: thinking it was.

I was a mental health nurse, until my own mental health broke down after the birth of my children, in a way I couldn’t outrun or mask anymore. What started as a short stay in a psychiatric unit became nearly a year of admissions, taking 18 daily medications, shock treatment, and given a bleak label: treatment-resistant.

My doctors told me I was fighting a battle I would lose, and recovery wasn’t likely. I was handed a future without hope and expected to just accept it. For eight long years, hope seemed out of reach.

Of nearly a decade of trying everything the system could throw at me, I finally started throwing things back. I turned to the science behind holistic care — not the woo-woo stuff, but real, grounded ways to support a struggling brain: nutrition, movement, therapeutic yoga, herbs, conversation, and connection.

Now, I’m a Clinical Nutritionist, Herbal Therapist, Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher, and author of Potatoes & Other Criteria, a memoir that includes raw personal storytelling and actual notes from my health records.

DETAIL exists because I needed it to. I couldn’t find a place that mixed evidence-based mental health strategies with real talk, humour, and honesty — so I built one. I built DETAIL because people that are struggling need more than inspirational quotes and breathing apps. They need real tools, real stories, and a reason to believe that healing is possible — even if it’s messy and slow.

When I’m not writing, speaking, or running community events, I’m usually walking in nature, singing off-key to loud music, lifting weights, stalking birds (in a totally non-creepy way), or patting every dog in a 2km radius..