This Fragile Life PDF Download

Author: Charlotte Pierce-Baker
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613741111
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Charlotte Pierce-Baker did everything right when raising her son, providing not only emotional support but the best education possible. At age twenty-five, he was pursuing a postgraduate degree and seemingly in control of his life. She never imagined her high-achieving son would wind up handcuffed, dirty, and in jail. The moving story of an African American family facing the challenge of bipolar disorder, This Fragile Life provides insight into mental disorders as well as family dynamics. Pierce-Baker traces the evolution of her son's illness and, in looking back, realizes she mistook warning signs for typical child and teen behavior. Hospitalizations, calls in the night, alcohol and drug relapses, pleas for money, and continuous disputes, her son's journey was long, arduous, and almost fatal. This Fragile Life weaves a fascinating story of mental illness, race, family, the drive of African Americans to succeed, and a mother's love for her son.

Author: Melody Moezzi
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1583335501
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
With candor and humor, a manic-depressive Iranian-American Muslim woman chronicles her experiences with both clinical and cultural bipolarity. Born to Persian parents at the height of the Islamic Revolution and raised amid a vibrant, loving, and gossipy Iranian diaspora in the American heartland, Melody Moezzi was bound for a bipolar life. At 18, she began battling a severe physical illness, and her community stepped up, filling her hospital rooms with roses, lilies and hyacinths. But when she attempted suicide and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, there were no flowers. Despite several stays in psychiatric hospitals, bombarded with tranquilizers, mood-stabilizers, and anti-psychotics, she was encouraged to keep her illness a secret—by both her family and an increasingly callous and indifferent medical establishment. Refusing to be ashamed or silenced, Moezzi became an outspoken advocate, determined to fight the stigma surrounding mental illness and reclaim her life along the way. Both an irreverent memoir and a rousing call to action, Haldol and Hyacinths is the moving story of a woman who refused to become a victim. Moezzi reports from the frontlines of an invisible world, as seen through a unique and fascinating cultural lens. A powerful, funny, and moving narrative, Haldol and Hyacinths is a tribute to the healing power of hope and humor.

Author: Richard Day Gore
Publisher: LaChance Publishing LLC
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Summary: You'll go inside the challenges of bipolar disorder, through dozens of true stories written by those with the disorder and by those whose lives have been touched by the disease.

Author: Michelle Dickinson-Moravek
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780988826274
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Breaking Into My Life chronicles the impact that growing up with a mentally-ill mother had on author Michelle Dickinson-Moravek. The years of having to stay home from school to care for her mother while coping with her instability and periodic abuse would compromise Michelle's adult life until she finally realized that she had to do more than simply come to terms. She had to reclaim herself along with the life she deserved.

Author: Michael W. Otto
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199843740
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Living with Bipolar Disorder is designed to help patients and their families develop the skills they need to be good consumers of treatment and to become expert partners in the management of this challenging disorder. Drawing on research documenting the strength of combining drug treatments with behavioral interventions for fighting bipolar disorder, the authors of this book take a skill-based, family-and-friends approach to managing the ups and downs commonly experienced with bipolar disorder. Readers will learn how to better recognize mood shifts before they happen, minimize their impact, and move on with their lives. Family members will learn how to recognize potential problems, provide encouragement, practice new coping skills, and understand what a loved one is going through. Living with Bipolar Disorder provides worksheets and forms to help readers reinforce skills and practices learned in therapy, as well as useful information about the details of living with bipolar disorder, advice on the best ways to avoid relapses, and strategies for anticipating problems. In this new edition, the authors have expanded the text to reflect the newest advances in research on the management of bipolar disorder, adding the latest in drug information, advice on selecting a therapist, a discussion of the challenges of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood with bipolar, managing stress, improving relationship and communication skills both with the family and with one's clinician, and more. Living with Bipolar Disorder offers a wealth of effective strategies to reduce the likelihood of episodes of depression or mania and maximize the enjoyment of life.

Author: Kay Redfield Jamison
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307498484
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply powerful memoir about bipolar illness that has both transformed and saved lives—with a new preface by the author. Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide. Here Jamison examines bipolar illness from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and the cruel allure that at times prompted her to resist taking medication.

Author: James Delaney
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1326440888
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 117

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Book Description
I suffered from bipolar for 5 years and 8 months. I don't suffer from it anymore. I have experienced the death of family members and I had to watch my loved ones battling cancer. Experiencing bipolar was worse. Bipolar was 50 times worse than any other tragedy I have ever experienced. And what's worse is that it was completely invisible. No one knew I had it. I didn't even know I had it. How can a person have a mental illness for years and his or her closest friends can't tell? How can somebody be mentally ill and they don't even know? What is it like to have bipolar? This book is my personal account of my illness. I will tell you how I got it, how it affected my life, what I tried to do to combat it, and how I beat it.

Author: Emily Martin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691141061
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Bipolar Expeditions' is an ethnographic inquiry into mania and depression in their American cultural and historical contexts. The text explores the complex darkness and stigma associated with those deemed 'mad.

Author: Cara Aiken
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 0857003879
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Bipolar disorder can be a devastating illness, seriously affecting not only the person with bipolar but also their children, partner, parents, family and friends. While most people are familiar with the terms 'manic depressive' and 'bipolar disorder', there remains a lack of real understanding about the illness and many sufferers and their families can feel helpless, alone and misunderstood. Family Experiences of Bipolar Disorder is a personal and honest account of bipolar disorder. The author Cara Aiken has lived with bipolar for 10 years, and in this book she gathers together her experiences and those of a host of contributors to portray the reality of the illness and its impact on family life. Their children give open and frank accounts of their lives with a bipolar parent, and partners and close family members explain how it has affected them. The book also features important facts and figures related to bipolar which are contributed by leading experts. This moving and insightful book will provide an invaluable source of guidance, advice and support to people with bipolar disorder and their families, as well as an insight for professionals into the reality of life with the illness.

Author: Liam Gildea
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
If you are living with bipolar illness or have a family member with the illness, this book may prove to be of some help. Whilst living with a mental health condition can be extremely difficult it can be a great teacher. By the end of the book you will realise that no mental illness defines you as a person. You're on the cusp of a life worth living, it's just a matter of making the next right step.