Mental Health Memoir

If you struggle with a highly sensitive personality, this memoir and collection of stories will help you heal and flourish. Benita A. Esposito is a licensed professional counselor and best-selling author with four decades of professional experience. Even smart high-achievers have themes on their hero’s journey to the authentic self, and these were hers. What unconsciously drew her to an emotionally distant relationship or an emotionally abusive relationship? Why did she feel so hurt when others judged her? Why was she so tired? What compelled her toward self actualization?

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) reveals himself in this autobiography, which is simultaneously an account of the early history of psychoanalysis, to have been an outsider from the start. This fascinating account describes the journey of a young, Jewish doctor setting out to find his way in the world of professional medicine, his relationships and collaborations, friendships made and lost and his investigations into cocaine, hypnosis and the cathartic method which contributed to the evolution of his conceptual framework and practices.

If it doesn’t kill you, it will only make you stronger. This is a very real truth if you can put strong suicidal thoughts in your past. My life has been a journey of understanding who I am because of my childhood being interfered with by a pedophile. The sad thing is I am not alone and there are many more people with worst experiences then mine. May my views on how to understand how emotional pain can affect how we react without knowing why, help you or someone you know, move forward.

Step inside the death chamber and behind the walls of Ohio’s death row. Bill Kimberlin, PsyD, invites the listener on an extensive and unbiased journey inside Ohio’s death row in Watch Me Die: Last Words from Death Row. You will see how these inmates think as Kimberlin not only spends time interviewing them, but also eats meals with them and, in some cases, is the last person to speak with them before they are executed.

In Never Enough, Pete is ready to face his pain, to deal with his past in healthier ways than he has previously. In his candid, raw, honest tone, Pete, released from reality, and very much a work-in-progress, shares the lessons he has learned, the good, the bad, the ugly, calling time on toxic positivity, the damaging impact of social media on our sense of self, the pressures of masculinity and the desire to remain relevant. Through owning his own s**t and refusing to let it own him, Pete hopes he will help empower others to do the same.

In this painfully moving memoir, take a firsthand look at anorexia through the eyes of a young girl. Even in kindergarten, Rachel Richards knows something isn't right. By leading us through her distorted thoughts, she shines a light on the experience and mystery of mental illness. As she grows up, unable to comprehend or communicate her inner trauma, Rachel lashes out, hurting herself, running away from home, and fighting her family. Restricting food gives her the control she craves. But after being hospitalized and force-fed, Rachel only retreats further into herself.

From Hadley Freeman, the bestselling author of House of Glass, comes her searing and powerful memoir about mental ill health and her experience with anorexia. This is how the Anorexia Speak worked in my head: ‘Boys like girls with curves on them’ – If you ever eat anything you will be mauled by thuggish boys with giant paws for hands. ‘Don’t you get hungry?’ – You are so strong and special, and I envy your strength and specialness. ‘Have you tried swimming? I find that really improves my appetite’ – You need to do more exercise.

Nile Wilson has always been one of life's winners; a charismatic young man with an Olympic bronze medal in the Horizontal Bar at just 21 years old. But after a serious neck injury, forcing him to retire early and miss taking part in the Tokyo Olympics, Nile's world fell apart. Swamped with depression, anxiety and addictive behaviours, his mental health went over a cliff. Over the past few years, Nile has had to face down his demons and accept his new reality, and this is the book he wish he'd been given before it all began.

Are you tired of juggling anxious thoughts and daily mishaps—like life’s one giant blooper reel? Meet your new playbook for mental health: Half Crazy, Fully Human by Felicity Hartwell. Backed by real psychological insights—and a hearty dose of humor—this book dares to ask: what if laughing at life’s chaos is the best way to conquer it? From playful strategies that tame those intrusive thoughts to reimagining every “failure” as your own comedic outtake, Felicity Hartwell shows how a little laughter and a lot of self-awareness can turn meltdown moments into stepping stones.

In ADHD and Me, he tells about the next 12 years as he learns to live with both the good and bad sides of life with ADHD. Blake's memoir offers, for the first time, a young person's account of what it's like to live and grow up with this common condition. Join Blake as he foils bullies, confronts unfair teachers, struggles with distraction and disorganization on exams, and goes sailing out-of-bounds and ends up with a boatload of spiders.

From New York Times best-selling author and blogger Heather B. Armstrong comes an honest and irreverent memoir - reminiscent of the New York Times best-seller Brain on Fire - about her experience as one of only a few people to participate in an experimental treatment for depression involving 10 rounds of a chemically induced coma approximating brain death.

Maude Julien's parents were fanatics who believed it was their sacred duty to turn her into the ultimate survivor - raising her in isolation and subjecting her to endless drills designed to "eliminate weakness." She endured a life without heat, hot water, adequate food, friendship, or any kind of affectionate treatment. But Maude's parents could not rule her inner life. Befriending the animals on the lonely estate as well as the characters in the novels she read in secret, young Maude nurtured in herself the compassion and love that her parents forbid as weak.

This Close to Happy is the rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression, written from a woman's perspective and informed by an acute understanding of the implications of this disease over a lifetime. Taking off from essays on depression she has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, Daphne Merkin casts her eye back to her beginnings to try to sort out the root causes of her affliction.

In 1985, 32-year-old David Brown seemed to have it all. A computer genius with a million-dollar business, married for the fifth time - most recently to a 23-year-old beauty, Linda, the mother of his new-born baby - he was the living emobodiment of a rich playboy. But the signs of the dream life's dark underside were already emerging - especially in Brown's penchant for divorcing his young wives as soon as they matured to full womanhood.

Solitude is the inspirational core for many writers, artists, and thinkers. Alone with our thoughts, we can make discoveries that matter not only to us but to others. To be solitary is not only to draw sustenance from being alone, but to know that our ultimate responsibility is not only to our partner or our own offspring, but to a larger community. Fenton Johnson's lyrical prose and searching sensibility explores what it means to choose to be solitary and celebrates the notion that solitude is a legitimate and dignified calling.

Sandra Allen did not know their uncle Bob very well. As a child, Sandy had been told Bob was “crazy”, that he had spent time in mental hospitals while growing up in Berkeley in the '60s and '70s. But Bob had lived a hermetic life in a remote part of California for longer than Sandy had been alive, and what little Sandy knew of him came from rare family reunions or odd, infrequent phone calls. Then in 2009, Bob mailed Sandy his autobiography.

This renowned journalist's classic Pulitzer Prize winning investigation of schizophrenia - now reissued with a new postscript - follows a flamboyant and fiercely intelligent young woman as she struggles in the throes of mental illness. "Sylvia Frumkin" was born in 1948 and began showing signs of schizophrenia in her teens. She spent the next seventeen years in and out of mental institutions. In 1978, reporter Susan Sheehan took an interest in her and, for more than two years, became immersed in her life.

Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.

In this first-person account of becoming the FBI's top serial-killer hunter and a member of a religious order in an attempt to discern the true nature of good and evil, Roger L. Depue searches for an understanding of how evil develops. Between Good and Evil is Depue's look back at a life spent apprehending criminals, especially serial killers, first as a small-town police chief, then an FBI-SWAT team member, Behavioral Sciences Unit chief, and a developer of revolutionary law enforcement programs.

Elliot Rodger considered himself to be intelligent, refined, handsome, fashionable, and charming. He spent years trying to be cool so women would like him. He thought if he just wore expensive and fashionable clothing, had a better car, or if he were rich, then women would throw themselves at him. In fact, he thought himself to be “The Supreme Gentleman”.