mental health

"By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: she had her dream job as a radio producer at 'This American Life' and had won an Emmy. But behind her office door she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk. After years of questioning what was wrong with her, she was diagnosed with Complex PTSD--a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Stephanie's parents had abandoned her as a teenager after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd overcome her trauma, but her diagnosis illuminated the ways in which her past continued to threaten her health, her relationships, and her career. . . . In this . . . researched account, Stephanie interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. . . . Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma but you can learn to move with it"--Provided by publisher.

"A brilliant and poignant history of the friendship between two great war poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, alongside a narrative investigation of the origins of PTSD and the literary response to World War I. From the moment war broke out across Europe in 1914, the world entered a new, unparalleled era of modern warfare. Soldiers faced relentless machine gun shelling, incredible artillery power, flame throwers, and gas attacks. Within the first four months of the war, the British Army recorded the nervous collapse of ten percent of its officers; the loss of such manpower to mental illness--not to mention death and physical wounds--left the army unable to fill its ranks. Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen was twenty-four years old when he was admitted to the newly established Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatment of shell shock. A bourgeoning poet, trying to make sense of the terror he had witnessed, he read a collection of poems from a fellow officer, Siegfried Sassoon, and was impressed by his portrayal of the soldier's plight. One month later, Sassoon himself arrived at Craiglockhart, having refused to return to the front after being wounded during battle. Though Owen and Sassoon differed in age, class, education, and interests, both were outsiders--as soldiers unfit to fight, as gay men in a homophobic country, and as Britons unwilling to support a war likely to wipe out an entire generation of young men. But more than anything else, they shared a love of the English language, and its highest expression of poetry. As their friendship evolved over their months as patients at Craiglockhart, each encouraged the other in their work, in their personal reckonings with the morality of war, as well as in their treatment. Therapy provided Owen, Sassoon, and fellow patients with insights that allowed them to express themselves freely, and for the 28 months that Craiglockhart was in operation, it notably incubated the era's most significant developments in both psychiatry and poetry. Drawing on rich source materials, as well as Glass's own deep understanding of trauma and war, Soldiers Don't Go Mad tells, for the first time, the story of the soldiers and doctors who struggled with the effects of industrial warfare on the human psyche. Writing beyond the battlefields, to the psychiatric couch of Craiglockhart but also the literary salons, halls of power, and country houses, Glass charts the experiences of Owen and Sassoon, and of their fellow soldier-poets, alongside the greater literary response to modern warfare. As he investigates the roots of what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder, Glass brings historical bearing to how we must consider war's ravaging effects on mental health, and the ways in which creative work helps us come to terms with even the darkest of times."--.

Lech Blaine was just seventeen when he was in a crash that killed his best friends and changed his life. On an evening in 2009, seven teenage boys piled into a car to go to a party. They never arrived. The driver, who was not drunk or high, made a routine error and then overcorrected. The vehicle flew off the road. One passenger died on impact. Others were flung from the car. Lech walked away uninjured. In the aftermath, two more died in hospital and one was left disabled, in an incident that convulsed their rural community. Crippled by guilt, Lech turned to social media, cultivating a persona as the ultimate 'grateful survivor'. Over time, he spiralled into risk-taking and depression. His public bravado fell away as he tried to accept how an accident, one wretched error of youth and inexperience, had changed the trajectory of so many lives. How do we grieve in an age of social media? How does tragedy shape a community? And how does a boy on the cusp of manhood develop a sense of self when his world has exploded?.

"A searing memoir of reckoning and healing from an acclaimed journalist and former This American Life producer investigating the little-understood science behind Complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life. By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as a radio producer at This American Life and had won an Emmy. But behind her office door she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk. After years of questioning what was wrong with her, she was diagnosed with Complex PTSD-a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Stephanie's parents had abandoned her as a teenager after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd overcome her trauma, but her diagnosis illuminated the ways in which her past continued to threaten her health, her relationships, and her career. Finding few resources to help her heal, Stephanie set out to map her experience onto the scarce scientific research on C-PTSD. In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Stephanie interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies with the determination and curiosity of an award-winning journalist. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on a community, she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, and learns how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma-but you can learn to move with it, with grace and joy. Powerful, enlightening, and clarifying, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body-and one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma"--.

"A memoir of one woman's search to understand the land she farms-and her own experience with ADHD"--.

"A remarkable and unforgettable memoir from the first man with autism to attend Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, revealing what life is really like inside a world constructed for neurotypical minds while celebrating the many gifts of being different"--Provided by publisher.

"A . . . memoir that offers a new understanding of suicide as a distinct mental illness. As the sun lowered in the sky one Friday afternoon in April 2006, . . . author Donald Antrim found himself on the roof of his Brooklyn apartment building, afraid for his life. In this . . . memoir, Antrim vividly recounts what led him to the roof and what happened after he came back down: two hospitalizations, weeks of fruitless clinical trials, the terror of submitting to ECT--and the saving call from David Foster Wallace that convinced him to try it--as well as years of fitful recovery and setback . . . reframes suicide--whether in thought or action--as an illness in its own right, a unique consequence of trauma and personal isolation, rather than the choice of a depressed person"--Provided by publisher.

[The author] brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way. With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever . . . humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we're not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why [she] can never go back to the post office . . . leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way"--Amazon.com.

Recounts the experiences of Kristine Barnett and her autistic son, Jacob, in which, against the advice of developmental specialist, she pulled Jacob out of special ed and began to work with Jacob herself focusing on what he could do rather than what he couldn't, as they had done in special ed.

Chronicles the life of Adolf Hitler and discusses how his medical and mental history influenced his beliefs and behavior.