mental health

Traci Foust provides a memoir of her childhood, in which she outlines her struggles with OCD and the problems it caused. Foust details the "treatments" she thought would help until she finally managed find real help as an adult and return to the path of normalcy.

Science and health reporter Andrea Petersen discusses what it is like to live with anxiety.

"The author shares his experiences of a late Asperger's diagnosis and a lifetime of not quite fitting in..."--NoveList.

"A heart-wrenching, yet hopeful, memoir of a young marriage that is redefined by mental illness and affirms the power of love. Mark and Giulia's life together began as a storybook romance. The fell in love at eighteen, married at twenty-four, and were living their dream life in San Francisco. When Giulia was twenty-seven, she suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break that landed her in the psych ward for nearly a month. One day she was vibrant and well-adjusted; the next she was delusional and suicidal, convinced that she was the devil and that her loved ones were not safe. All she wanted was to die. Eventually, Giulia fully recovered, and the couple had a son. But, soon after Jonas was born, Giulia had another breakdown, and then a third a few years after that. Pushed to the edge of the abyss, everything the couple had once taken for granted was upended. A story of the fragility of the mind, and the tenacity of the human spirit, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is, above all, a love story that raises profound questions: How do we care for the people we love? What and who do we live for? Breathtaking in its candor, radiant with compassion, and written with dazzling lyricism, Lukach's is an intensely personal odyssey through the harrowing years of his wife's mental illness, anchored by an abiding devotion to family that will affirm readers' faith in the power of love"--.

Anand Prahlad was born on a former plantation in Virginia in 1954. This memoir, vividly internal, powerfully lyric, and brilliantly impressionistic, is his story.

"Tyler and I inch toward the Green Room, in line with blow-dried TV anchors and stuffy columnists. He's practicing his handshake and hello: "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President." When the couple in front of us steps forward for their picture, my teenager with sky-blue eyes and a soft heart looks up at me and says, "I hope I don't let you down, Dad." What kind of father raises a son to worry about embarrassing his dad? I want to tell Tyler not to worry, that he'd never let me down. That there's nothing wrong with being different. That I actually am proud of what makes him special. But we are next in line to meet the president of the United States in a room filled with fellow strivers, and all I can think about is the real possibility that Tyler might embarrass himself. Or, God forbid, me. LOVE THAT BOY is a uniquely personal story about the causes and costs of outsized parental expectations. What we want for our children--popularity, normalcy, achievement, genius--and what they truly need--grit, empathy, character--are explored by National Journal's Ron Fournier, who weaves his extraordinary journey to acceptance around the latest research on childhood development and stories of other loving-but-struggling parents"--.

After five major concussions, NFL tight-end Ben Utecht of the Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals is losing his memories. This is his powerful and emotional love letter to his wife and daughters?whom he someday may not recognize?and an inspiring message for all to live every moment fully.

A memoir of Barry Yourgrau, who takes control of his disorderly apartment and life, while exploring the wider world of collecting, clutter, and extreme hoarding.

The story of an adoptive father's search for the truth about his teenage daughter's suicide. Early one Tuesday morning John Brooks went to his teenage daughter's room to make sure she was getting up for school and found her room dark and "neater than usual." Casey was gone but he found a note: The car is parked at the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm sorry. Several hours later a security video was found that showed Casey stepping off the bridge. Brooks spent months after Casey's suicide trying to understand what led his seventeen-year-old daughter to take her life. He examines Casey's journey from her abandonment at birth in Poland, to the orphanage where she lived for the first fourteen months of her life, to her adoption and life with John and his wife Erika in Northern California. He talked to Casey's friends, teachers, doctors, therapists, and other parents. He came to realize that Casey might have been helped if someone had recognized that she'd likely suffered an attachment disorder from her infancy--an affliction common among children who've been orphaned, neglected, and abused. This emotional deprivation in early childhood, from the lack of a secure attachment to a primary caregiver, can lead to a wide range of serious behavioral issues later in life. John's hope is that Casey's story, and what he discovered since her death, will help others.

All during her childhood, Emily felt different from other kids. Between therapist visits, sudden uncontrollable bursts of anger, and unexplained episodes of dizziness and loss of coordination, things were always worse for her. For years, her only escape was through the stories she'd craft about herself and the world around her. But it wasn't until a near-fatal accident at twelve years of age that Emily and her family discover the truth: a grapefruit sized benign brain tumor at the base of her skull. In turns candid, angry, and beautiful, Emily Wing Smith's memoir chronicles her struggles with both mental and physical disabilities during her childhood and the means by which she coped with it all---writing.