The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery
Title | The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery PDF eBook |
Author | Mary Cregan |
Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Total Pages | 256 |
Release | 2019-03-19 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1324001739 |
A graceful and penetrating memoir interweaving the author’s descent into depression with a medical and cultural history of this illness. At the age of twenty-seven, married, living in New York, and working in book design, Mary Cregan gives birth to her first child, a daughter she names Anna. But it’s apparent that something is terribly wrong, and two days later, Anna dies—plunging Cregan into suicidal despair. Decades later, sustained by her work, a second marriage, and a son, Cregan reflects on this pivotal experience and attempts to make sense of it. She weaves together literature and research with details from her own ordeal—and the still visible scar of her suicide attempt—while also considering her life as part of the larger history of our understanding of depression. In fearless, candid prose, Cregan examines her psychotherapy alongside early treatments of melancholia, weighs the benefits of shock treatment against its terrifying pop culture depictions, explores the controversy around antidepressants and how little we know about them—even as she acknowledges that the medication saved her life—and sifts through the history of the hospital where her recovery began. Perceptive, intimate, and elegantly written, The Scar vividly depicts the pain and ongoing stigma of clinical depression, giving greater insight into its management and offering hope for those who are suffering.
Unraveling
Title | Unraveling PDF eBook |
Author | M. F. Alvarez |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
Total Pages | 231 |
Release | 2023-10-09 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN | 1000982424 |
Unraveling: An Autoethnography of Suicide and Renewal is an autoethnographic story that explores the intricate relationship among trauma, marginality, and mental health. It follows Mike Alvarez, a precocious gay teenager from an immigrant Filipino family, who loses his grip on reality as he succumbs to so-called mental illness. Divided into two parts, the first half of the book uses evocative storytelling and in-the-moment narration to capture the slow descent into anxiety, paranoia, depression, and suicidality, as experienced by the author during young adulthood. The second half of the book critically reflects upon the story through a series of analytic chapters. In these chapters, the author considers the role of narrative in cultivating empathy for the mentally ill, the psychiatric-industrial complex’s obstruction of that empathy, and the moral dilemmas autoethnographers face when writing about self, other, and the social world. This book will be suitable for scholars in the social sciences, communication studies, and healthcare, who study and use autoethnography in their research. It will also be of value to those interested in firsthand accounts of madness, as told by members of marginalized communities.
Between Jesus and the Black Dog
Title | Between Jesus and the Black Dog PDF eBook |
Author | Michael Rothery |
Publisher | Wipf and Stock Publishers |
Total Pages | 106 |
Release | 2021-07-20 |
Genre | Self-Help |
ISBN | 1666701386 |
Christians have a special worldview affecting how they experience depression, the “common cold” afflicting our emotional well-being, and that is the focus of this short book. In it, Christians and the important people in their support networks will read about the good news and the bad, the blessings and pitfalls that a Christian faith brings to the problem of managing depressions. The book is hopeful without being simplistic, and it is steadfast in its commitment to the goal of human flourishing in a problematic world.
Scar Tissue
Title | Scar Tissue PDF eBook |
Author | Anthony Kiedis |
Publisher | Hachette Books |
Total Pages | 547 |
Release | 2004-10-01 |
Genre | Music |
ISBN | 1401381766 |
In this "vivid and inspiring" New York Times bestseller (Newsweek), the Red Hot Chili Peppers' lead singer and songwriter shares a searingly honest account of life in the rock scene's fast lane—from the darkness into the light. In 1983, four self-described "knuckleheads" burst out of the mosh-pitted mosaic of the neo-punk rock scene in L.A. with their own unique brand of cosmic hardcore mayhem funk. Over twenty years later, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, against all odds, have become one of the most successful bands in the world. Though the band has gone through many incarnations, Anthony Kiedis, the group's lyricist and dynamic lead singer, has been there for the whole roller-coaster ride. In Scar Tissue, Kiedis delivers a compelling life story from a man "in love with everything"—the darkness, the death, the disease. Even his descent into drug addiction was a part of that journey, another element transformed into art. Whether he's honoring the influence of the beautiful, strong women who have been his muses or remembering the roaring crowds of Woodstock and the Dalai Lama's humble compound, Kiedis shares a compelling story about the price of success and excess. Scar Tissue is a story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption—a story that could only have come out of the world of rock.
The Body Keeps the Score
Title | The Body Keeps the Score PDF eBook |
Author | Bessel A. Van der Kolk |
Publisher | Penguin Books |
Total Pages | 466 |
Release | 2015-09-08 |
Genre | Medical |
ISBN | 0143127748 |
Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.
The Scar That Won't Heal
Title | The Scar That Won't Heal PDF eBook |
Author | Patricia Worby |
Publisher | Createspace Independent Publishing Platform |
Total Pages | 220 |
Release | 2015-10-04 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781517558925 |
We live in a world where the numbers of people suffering anxiety, and various unexplained chronic pain and fatigue syndromes is increasing year on year to the point where they are threatening the health systems of many developed countries. This groundbreaking book, written by a clinician and researcher, demystifies the many and varied symptoms of stress, trauma and unresolved emotion in the mind and body. Based on years of practice as a therapist and scientific researcher, it describes the latest research on the stress response and how it interacts with a sensitised brain. With an understanding of how a paleolithic brain became trapped in a 21st century body, we can see how our evolutionary survival strategies of implicit memory in the emotional brain have maladapted to a life full of chronic stress. Anything that triggers the same emotion in later life then fills us with anxiety and/ or chronic pain which defies a purely physical explanation. My belief, born out of study of the scientific literature, is that the problems are not just physical they are emotional too. In particular, by an appreciation of how any experience, if it occurs during a state of helplessness, can be considered trauma, we begin to appreciate how many and varied such experiences are. They include bereavement, difficult birth, accidents, surgery, poor parental attachment, bullying and abuse. The fact that they are common means that very few people escape a childhood without some of these experiences but it is the interaction with particular sensitive personality styles that determines whether traumatic memory formation becomes encoded and whether they become triggered into chronic symptoms occur in later life. I lift the lid on how the mind creates the symptoms largely through the down-regulation of the energy producing mitochondria in your cells. I show the fascinating truth behind this amazingly ancient process, meant to protect us when our stresses were very different to the ones we have today. Many books have been written on this subject from either a scientific or clinical point of view but this book aims to explain it all to an intelligent reader with examples from my own life and the experience of my clients in a way that unifies theory and practice towards a new understanding of chronic illness. By giving you information as to how you got this way I also show you, with practical examples, how to overcome these issues using a variety of new techniques of energy psychology and somatic therapies to help you change these subconscious programmes and move on with your life.
One Friday in April: A Story of Suicide and Survival
Title | One Friday in April: A Story of Suicide and Survival PDF eBook |
Author | Donald Antrim |
Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Total Pages | 144 |
Release | 2021-10-12 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1324005572 |
One of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 One of BuzzFeed's Best Books of 2021 One of Vulture's Best Books of 2021 Named one of the Most Anticipated of Books of 2021 by the Los Angeles Times, Literary Hub, and The Millions A searing and brave 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, acclaimed author Donald Antrim found himself on the roof of his Brooklyn apartment building, afraid for his life. In this moving 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. Through a clear and haunting reckoning with the author’s own story, One Friday in April confronts the limits of our understanding of suicide. Donald Antrim’s personal insights reframe suicide—whether in thought or in action—as an illness in its own right, a unique consequence of trauma and personal isolation, rather than the choice of a depressed person. A necessary companion to William Styron’s classic? Darkness Visible, this profound, insightful work sheds light on the tragedy and mystery of suicide, offering solace that may save lives.