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Owen's book is a memoir of his journey to recovery from major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Now he lives a much happier, more productive life. He has risen above being committed to a locked-down hospital psychiatric ward during a major depressive episode at age 18. He speaks to how psychotherapy helped process deeply buried feelings from his youth. He reveals how losing his dear mother at age ten and other family trauma led to a spiral downward during his teen years. He speaks of how he learned to better connect with his emotions, to feel comfortable in his own skin, and to see negative messages from others as being more about them than himself.
The title, "Rising Above Fog," comes from a winter experience hiking. After reaching his destination, he turned around to see a bowl full of suds below. Civilization in the valley below was masked with the gunky fog of a temperature inversion. He contemplated about how when he was down in it, he didn't realize how ugly and polluted the air was. But now that he was above it in the clear mountain air and sunshine, he could see it for what it was. Since this experience, he's thought of it as a metaphor of his mental health journey.
