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The collected schizophrenias : essays
by Esmé Weijun Wang
The award-wining author of The Border of Paradise presents a collection of evocative essays on mental illness that build on her own experiences with schizoaffective disorder while examining the vulnerabilities of institutionalization, PTSD and Lyme disease.
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Darkness visible : a memoir of madness
by 1925-2006 Styron, William
In a candid and moving memoir, the author of Sophie's Choice chronicles his descent into depression, discussing not only the anguish of his own experience and recovery but also how others can find help.
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Heart berries : a memoir
by Terese Marie Mailhot
"Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father-an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist-who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame. Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world."
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My age of anxiety : fear, hope, dread, and the search for peace of mind
by Scott Stossel
The author recounts his lifelong battle with anxiety, showing the many manifestations of the disorder as well as the countless treatments that have been developed to counteract it, and provides a history of the efforts to understand this common form of mental illness.
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Shadows in the sun : healing from depression and finding the light within
by Gayathri Ramprasad
The author discusses the mental illness she suffered from a young age and the treatment she received only after she left India and became a mother for the first time in the United States, describing her emotional recovery and spiritual awakening and her role as an advocate for the mentally ill.
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Wasted : a memoir of anorexia and bulimia
by 1974- Hornbacher, Marya
"A classic of psychology and eating disorders, now reissued with an important and perhaps controversial new afterword by the author, Wasted is New York Times bestselling author Marya Hornbacher's highly acclaimed memoir that chronicles her battle with anorexia and bulimia. Vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching, Wasted is the story of how Marya Hornbacher willingly embraced hunger, drugs, sex, and death--until a particularly horrifying bout with anorexia and bulimia in college forever ended the romanceof wasting away. In this updated edition, Hornbacher, an authority in the field of eating disorders, argues that recovery is not only possible, it is necessary. But the journey is not easy or guaranteed. With a new ending to her story that adds a contemporary edge, Wasted continues to be timely and relevant"
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The Man Who Couldn't Stop : OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought
by David Adam
Drawing on the latest research on the brain as well as historical accounts of patients and their treatments, an accomplished science writer shares his 20-year battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and his unflinchingly honest attempt to understand the condition and his experiences. Includes notes and references.
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Hunger : a memoir of (my) body
by Roxane Gay
The popular Tumblr blogger and best-selling author of Bad Feminist explores the devastating act of violence that triggered her personal challenges with food and body image, sharing advice for caring for oneself and eating in healthful and satisfying ways. 1
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I'm telling the truth, but I'm lying : essays
by Bassey Ikpi
A deeply personal collection of essays by the Nigerian-American writer and creator of #NoShameDay explores how her childhood move from Nigeria to Oklahoma was complicated by Bipolar II and anxiety disorders. Original.
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Still : A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood
by Emma Hansen
“Still is one of those rare books that catches you up and does not let you go. With grace, courage, and honesty, Emma Hansen adds an important voice to this tragic and too-often silenced subject. I loved this book.” —Beth Powning, author of Shadow Child: An Apprenticeship in Love and Loss A moving, candid account of one woman’s experience with stillbirth. Emma Hansen is 39 weeks and 6 days pregnant when she feels her baby go quiet inside of her. At the hospital, her worst fears are confirmed: doctors explain that her baby has died, and she will need to deliver him, still. Hansen gives birth to her son, Reid, amidst an avalanche of grief. Nine days later, she publishes a candid essay on her website sharing photos from the delivery room. Much to her surprise, her essay goes viral, sparking positive reactions around the world. Still shares what comes next: a struggle with grief and confusion alongside a desire to better understand stillbirth, which is experienced by more than two million women annually, but rarely talked about in public. At once honest, brave, and uplifting, Still is about one woman’s search for her own definition of motherhood, even as she faces one of life’s greatest challenges: learning to live after loss.
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Long walk out of the woods : a physician's story of addiction, depression, hope, and recovery
by Adam B. Hill
"A pediatric oncologist and palliative care physician, Dr. Adam B. Hill, suffers stress and disillusionment with the culture of medicine, leading to alcoholism, depression and suicidal thoughts. Then while in recovery from active addiction, he loses a mentor to suicide, revealing the extent of the burnout epidemic in the medical field. By sharing his harrowing story, Dr. Hill shows how this problem manifests, considers ways to address it, and confronts commonplace attitudes regarding self-care, recovery/treatment, empathy, and vulnerability amongst medical practitioners. His book is a road map for better practices at a time when doctors around the world are struggling in silence"
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Lit : a memoir
by Mary Karr
The author reveals how, shortly after giving birth to a child she adored, she drank herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide before a spiritual awakening led her to sobriety.
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Heavy : an American memoir
by Kiese Laymon
An essayist and novelist explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.
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Blackout : remembering the things I drank to forget
by Sarah Hepola
In an unflinchingly honest memoir that is both hilarious and heartbreaking, the author shares her journey to sobriety, a new adventure she never wanted, after her drinking--which she once believed gave her confidence, intimacy and creativity--led to blackouts that drained her spirit and destroyed her life.
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Monkey mind : a memoir of anxiety
by 1977- Smith, Daniel B.
The author of Muses, Madmen, and Prophets shares affirming, personal insights into the experiences of anxiety in today's world, evocatively describing its painful coherence and absurdities while sharing the stories of sufferers to illustrate anxiety's intellectual history and influence.
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Down Came the Rain
by Brooke Shields
In a thought-provoking memoir, the actress speaks out candidly about her experience with crippling postpartum depression, reflecting on her struggle with the debilitating condition, her use of talk therapy and medication to treat the problem, and its impact on her family, new baby, and friends.
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Lights on, rats out : a memoir
by Cree LeFavour
A young college graduate one year into her increasingly obsessive treatment with a psychiatrist begins to organize her days around a compulsion to harm herself with lit cigarettes. By the James Beard Award-nominated author of Fish.
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The noonday demon : an atlas of depression
by 1963- Solomon, Andrew
The award-winning author of A Stone Boat offers a deeply personal look at depression in which he draws on his own battle with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, researchers, doctors, and others to assess the vast complexities of the disease, its causes and symptoms, available therapies, and impact on society.
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My Body Is a Book of Rules
by Elissa Washuta
"A candid, autobiographical scrapbook from a young woman navigating manic depression.…A fever dream of darkly personal memories and musings from the shadowy corners of sexual violence and mental illness." —Kirkus Review As Elissa Washuta makes the transition from college kid to independent adult, she finds herself overwhelmed by the calamities piling up in her brain. When her mood-stabilizing medications aren’t threatening her life, they’re shoving her from depression to mania and back in the space of an hour. Her crisis of American Indian identity bleeds into other areas of self-doubt; mental illness, sexual trauma, ethnic identity, and independence become intertwined. Sifting through the scraps of her past in seventeen formally inventive chapters, Washuta aligns the strictures of her Catholic school education with Cosmopolitan’s mandates for womanhood, views memories through the distorting lens of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and contrasts her bipolar highs and lows with those of Britney Spears and Kurt Cobain. Built on the bones of fundamental identity questions as contorted by a distressed brain, My Body Is a Book of Rules pulls no punches in its self-deprecating and ferocious look at human fallibility. This debut memoir from the independent publisher Red Hen Press isn't for the faint of heart. Washuta's honest and lyrical language as well as her subject matter — her struggles with bipolar disorder and coping with the effects of rape — will gut you, but it's the rawness of this work that makes it worth reading. Washuta's form, including revised psychiatrists' notes, annotated research papers on the use of the term "hooking up," summaries of prescription medications, and a Match.com profile, is inventive and invites the reader into the author's chaotic brain. The book perfectly articulates the difficulties navigating the path toward adulthood while coping with trauma and mental illness. —Melissa Duclos for Bustle
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What my bones know : a memoir of healing from complex trauma
by Stephanie Foo
Drawing on interviews with scientists and psychologists, and trying a variety of innovative therapies, the author, diagnosed with Complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously—investigates the little-understood science behind this disorder that has shaped her life.
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A history of scars : a memoir
by Laura Lee
This series of essays explores themes such as intimacy, sexuality, trauma, and mental illness, including the author’s grief about being separated from her mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s in a Korean nursing home.
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Reasons to stay alive
by 1975- Haig, Matt
In a moving and entirely relatable account, an internationally best-selling author shares his struggle with depression and, helping those who are confused or daunted by the illness, reveals how he was able to triumph over the disease on order to live again.
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