Author aims to help others through adversity

Linda LaRouche is someone who's faced a lot of adversity in her life, but has come out smiling on the other side.

“I've always felt like I've been swimming against the stream my whole life, but I'm a strong swimmer,” she said.

LaRouche met her first husband at the age of 15, and ended up becoming a teenage mother. Her husband was diagnosed with leukemia while still in his 20s, and died when he was just 32.

At the age of 30, LaRouche became a widow with two children still in grade school. She remarried and became the stepmother to two more children.

With encouragement from her second husband, LaRouche went back to school, and ended up becoming an early childhood educator.

But all that had happened in her life caught up to her at the age of 41, when she experienced burnout.

“I had to let go of the superwoman syndrome and learn to live in a slower pace,” LaRouche said.

Today, at the age of 52, she said she's in a good place, enjoying her kids, stepkids and two grandchildren — she also has one more on the way — while still working part-time in her field.

LaRouche recently self-published a book based on her life — entitled “Surviving Me: An Outsider's Story” — under the pen name Tina Calabria.

She said it was her experience with burnout that inspired her to write the book, as she'd gone to the bookstore to try to find a book that could help her, and couldn't find one.

“So I stood in the aisle and said 'I'm going to write that book,'” LaRouche said.

She said she wants to encourage other women facing adversities to keep a positive attitude and work to make changes in their lives.

“Fake it until you make it,” LaRouche said. “I wanted to be a kinder, gentler person, and I became that person. I faked that person, and all of a sudden my brain realized it.”

“Surviving Me: An Outsider's Story” costs $17, and is available at Coles or online at Indigo. LaRouche said she also has a book signing slated for 1-3 p.m. Feb. 7 at Chapters. For more information, visit www.survivingme.net.