Out of the Crazywoods is the riveting and insightful story of Abenaki poet Cheryl Savageau’s late-life diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Without sensationalizing, she takes the reader inside the experience of a rapid-cycling variant of the disorder, providing a lens through which to understand it and a road map for navigating the illness. The structure of her story—impressionistic, fragmented—is an embodiment of the bipolar experience and a way of perceiving the world. Out of the Crazywoods takes the reader into the euphoria of mania as well as its ugly, agitated rage and into “the lying down of desire” that is depression. Savageau articulates the joy of being consort to a god and the terror of being chased by witchcraft, the sound of voices that are always chattering in your head, the smell of wet ashes that invades your home, the perception that people are moving in slow motion and death lurks at every turnpike, and the feeling of being loved by the universe and despised by everyone you’ve ever known. Central to the journey out of the Crazywoods is the sensitive child who becomes a poet and writer who finds clarity in her art and a reason to heal in her grandchildren. Her journey reveals the stigma and the social, personal, and economic consequences of the illness but reminds us that the disease is not the person. Grounded in Abenaki culture, Savageau questions cultural definitions of madness and charts a path to recovery through a combination of medications, psychotherapy, and ceremony.

Out of the Crazywoods is the riveting and insightful story of Abenaki poet Cheryl Savageau's late-life diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Without sensationalizing, she takes the reader inside the experience of a rapid-cycling variant of the disorder, providing a lens through which to understand it and a road map for navigating the illness. The structure of her story--impressionistic, fragmented--is an embodiment of the bipolar experience and a way of perceiving the world. Out of the Crazywoods takes the reader into the euphoria of mania as well as its ugly, agitated rage and into "the lying down of desire" that is depression. Savageau articulates the joy of being consort to a god and the terror of being chased by witchcraft, the sound of voices that are always chattering in your head, the smell of wet ashes that invades your home, the perception that people are moving in slow motion and death lurks at every turnpike, and the feeling of being loved by the universe and despised by everyone you've ever known. Central to the journey out of the Crazywoods is the sensitive child who becomes a poet and writer who finds clarity in her art and a reason to heal in her grandchildren. Her journey reveals the stigma and the social, personal, and economic consequences of the illness but reminds us that the disease is not the person. Grounded in Abenaki culture, Savageau questions cultural definitions of madness and charts a path to recovery through a combination of medications, psychotherapy, and ceremony.

Revised and updated, Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder is a groundbreaking, comprehensive program to help those with bipolar disorder—and those who care about them—gain permanent control over their lives. Most people diagnosed with bipolar disorder are sent home with the name of a doctor and multiple prescriptions. However, few people with bipolar disorder are able to find long-term stability with medications alone. Bipolar disorder researcher and expert Julie A. Fast, who was diagnosed with the illness at age thirty-one, and specialist John Preston, PsyD, offer the pioneering Take Charge program used around the world to help readers promote stability, reduce mood swings, increase work ability, decrease health care costs, and improve relationships. The book guides those with bipolar disorder and their loved ones toward a comprehensive personal treatment plan by incorporating: Medications and bipolar-safe supplements Lifestyle changes that help manage bipolar symptoms naturally Behavior modifications that reduce and prevent symptoms Guidelines on assembling an effective support team By helping readers gather powerful strategies, Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder delivers a dynamic program to treat this difficult but ultimately manageable illness.

Postindian Aesthetics is a collection of critical, cutting-edge essays on Indigenous writers who are creatively and powerfully contributing to a thriving Indigenous literary aesthetic. This book argues for a literary canon that includes Indigenous literature that resists colonizing stereotypes of what has been and often still is expected in art produced by American Indians. The works featured are inventive and current, and the writers covered are visionaries who are boldly redefining Indigenous literary aesthetics. The artists covered include Orlando White, LeAnne Howe, Stephen Graham Jones, Deborah Miranda, Heid E. Erdrich, Sherwin Bitsui, and many others. Postindian Aesthetics is expansive and comprehensive with essays by many of today’s leading Indigenous studies scholars. Organized thematically into four sections, the topics in this book include working-class and labor politics, queer embodiment, national and tribal narratives, and new directions in Indigenous literatures. By urging readers to think beyond the more popularized Indigenous literary canon, the essays in this book open up a new world of possibilities for understanding the contemporary Indigenous experience. The volume showcases thought-provoking scholarship about literature written by important contemporary Indigenous authors who are inspiring critical acclaim and offers new ways to think about the Indigenous literary canon and encourages instructors to broaden the scope of works taught in literature courses more broadly. ContributorsEric Gary Anderson Ellen L. Arnold Debra K. S. Barker Laura J. Beard Esther G. Belin Jeff Berglund Sherwin Bitsui Frank Buffalo Hyde Jeremy M. Carnes Gabriel S. Estrada Stephanie Fitzgerald Jane Haladay Connie A. Jacobs Daniel Heath Justice Virginia Kennedy Denise Low Molly McGlennen Dean Rader Kenneth M. Roemer Susan Scarberry-García Siobhan Senier Kirstin L. Squint Robert Warrior

Jacqueline Saper, named after Jacqueline Kennedy, was born in Tehran to Iranian and British parents. At eighteen she witnessed the civil unrest of the 1979 Iranian revolution and continued to live in the Islamic Republic during its most volatile times, including the Iran-Iraq War. In a deeply intimate and personal story, Saper recounts her privileged childhood in prerevolutionary Iran and how she gradually became aware of the paradoxes in her life and community--primarily the disparate religions and cultures. In 1979 under the Ayatollah regime, Iran became increasingly unfamiliar and hostile to Saper. Seemingly overnight she went from living a carefree life of wearing miniskirts and attending high school to listening to fanatic diatribes, forced to wear the hijab, and hiding in the basement as Iraqi bombs fell over the city. She eventually fled to the United States in 1987 with her husband and children after, in part, witnessing her six-year-old daughter's indoctrination into radical Islamic politics at school. At the heart of Saper's story is a harrowing and instructive tale of how extremist ideologies seized a Westernized, affluent country and transformed it into a fundamentalist Islamic society.

*Notable Books For Children - Smithsonian* *Skipping Stones Book Award for Exceptional Multicultural and Nature/Ecology Books* *Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year (Prose - Children's Literature)* *Wordcraft Circle Mentor of the Year* Although Jeannie loves her lakeside neighborhood, her feelings are hurt by her schoolmates who live in fancier homes and call her a Lake Rat. When she confides her troubles to her grandfather, he tells her about his own childhood experiences with teasing. As the story unfolds, the grandfather shares a traditional Seneca story that helps Jeannie to find strength in her Native identity and a new appreciation for the different roles that animals play in nature. This is a quiet book that celebrates family and place and the teachings of Native people. Muskrat Will Be Swimming is based on a real incident in Cheryl Savageau's life. Muskrat Will Be Swimming will help inspire classroom conversations about: Teasing and bullying Storytelling traditions and customs in Native and non-Native families The Seneca creation story and creation stories in general Traditions of the Sky Woman in Native stories Contemporary Native American families and building connections to tribal identity Native identity and mixed-blood ancestry Significance of dreams in Native culture The role of animals as teachers in Abenaki culture Animals of the forest The Abenaki view towards the natural environment The value of experiences in the natural world for children's growth F&P Text Level R

"This book centers on story as a means of making disability available for noticing. The framework of signs of disability forwarded in this book is drawn from the author's lived experience of disability and deafness as well as rhetoric, feminist materialist scholarship, and critical disability studies"--