Schizophrenia Mental Illness

Professor of psychiatry Elyn R. Saks writes about her struggle with schizophrenia in this unflinching account of her mental illness. In The Center Cannot Hold, Saks draws readers into a nightmare world of medications, a misguided health-care system, and social stigmas. But she would not be defeated. With a strength and force of will that most can only imagine, Saks reclaimed her life and went on to achieve great success.

This is a personal story of generational trauma, a mother's debilitating paranoid schizophrenia and a daughter who was thrust into foster care, homelessness, drug addiction, and was sexually abused and neglected. This book Discovers the strength of the human spirit and the power of love that defies all odds, a story of resilience and hope. Beautifully written as a heartfelt memoir that invites readers to discover Lorie’s profound journey, The Voices We Couldn’t Hear is a transformative coming-of-age story that delves into poignant themes including abuse, mental illness, and the ...

A complete guide to living with Schizoaffective disorder, including information on the disorder, treatment options, medication, weight and health issues, relationships, self care and recovery. Written for patients by a patient, a direct first person account of all aspects of diagnosis and treatment for those who suffer from the disorder as well as loved ones and family.

“Living With Mental Illness” is an autobiography about my life and what I have been through, and the challenges I have faced living with Mental Illness. It is a book that explains how difficult life can be for a person diagnosed with a mental disorder and how unfair and unconstitutional the process of recovery is for a person that is forced to be in the system as a result. If you are, or you know someones who is suffering from mental health issues reading this book you will help you understand what they are going through because for many people mental illness is a mystery.

Moving, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting, Lori Schiller's memoir is a classic testimony to the ravages of mental illness and the power of perseverance and courage. At 17, Lori Schiller was the perfect child - the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit family. Six years later she made her first suicide attempt, then wandered the streets of New York City dressed in ragged clothes, tormenting voices crying out in her mind. Lori Schiller had entered the horrifying world of full-blown schizophrenia.

Since its first publication in 1983, Surviving Schizophrenia has become the standard reference book on the disease that has helped thousands of patients, their families, and mental health professionals alike. In clear language, this much-praised and important book describes the nature, causes, symptoms, treatment, and course of schizophrenia, and explores living with it from both the patient’s and the family’s point of view.

Schizophrenia has become a recognized psychotic disorder in modern day psychology and research has shown that one in 100 people suffer from this disease in some proportion or degree. It is a dreaded disease and comes as a near death blow to those who are diagnosed with this condition. This fear does not necessarily arise from the scary disease it actually is, but various misconceptions, myths, and misunderstanding that surround it. This disorder has been very thoroughly misunderstood and misrepresented.

On a highway in Houston, Texas, Sarah LaBrie’s mother was found screaming at passing cars, terrified she would be murdered by invisible assailants. The diagnosis of schizophrenia that followed compelled Sarah to rethink her childhood, marked at turns by violence and all-consuming closeness. Digging into the events that led to her mother’s break, Sarah traces her family history of mental illness, from the dysphoria that plagued her great-grandmother, a granddaughter of slaves, to her own experience with depression as a scholarship student at Brown.

Richard Carlson Jr. was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 21 years of age. His illness first manifested when he was an early adolescent. Modern psychiatry greatly failed Richard for over a decade. Then, after an incident involving the police, he truly understood that his diagnosis was real, and finally began the long process of recovery. Over 10 years later, his life is greatly improved. In the course of his treatment, Richard also recovered from depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and lethargy.

An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the “collected schizophrenias” but to those who wish to understand it as well.

She was carried off by law enforcement in a straitjacket. She was committed and institutionalized. She was carted off on a gurney by paramedics over 20 times with 10 visits ending in the ICU (intensive care unit). She lost her husband and caretaker. More than once, she was thought unfixable by society, family and the medical profession. Like Mother, Like Son tells the inspiring story of an ordinary mother and homemaker who overcame mental illness and loss to live her best life. With her indomitable spirit, she faced her end-of-life illnesses with strength, grace and a smile. Experience the ...

Flora is missing, and I have to find her. She won’t answer my calls, and I’m terrified that she doesn’t love me anymore. Maybe she’s ignoring me because I’m a creep. It’s probably not because she’s been abducted by lizards in suits; they only exist in my paranoid delusions. Probably. I have to warn you, I might not be the most reliable of narrators. If you come with me to look for Flora, you might help keep me sane. Or you might end up in my world instead. I warn you now, this book contains loud noises and flashing images which may upset you. It also leads down unpleasant ...

WINNER, 12th Annual National Indie Excellence® Awards Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) fried Emmett’s memories and shredded his normalcy. Haunted by lurid hallucinations but determined to put his life back together, he rambles along a dangerous precipice, balancing between the normal life that he craves and the murky sea of mental illness that colors his existence. "This book is amazing! It tells the story of a person with a serious mental illness in the most honest and straight-forward way possible, with no drama, and without glossing over the facts. I recommend this book to anyone who ...

Since publication in 1983, Surviving Schizophrenia has become the standard reference book on the disease and has helped thousands of patients, their families, and mental health professionals. In clear language, this much-praised and important book describes the nature, causes, symptoms, treatment, and course of schizophrenia and also explores living with it from both the patient's and the family's point of view. This new, completely updated sixth edition includes the latest research findings on what causes the disease, as well as information about the newest drugs for treatment.

This “incredibly captivating” (Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies) portrait of schizophrenia, the most malignant and mysterious mental illness, by renowned psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, interweaves cultural and scientific history with dramatic patient profiles and clinical experiences to impart a revolutionary message of hope. For the first time in history, we can effectively treat schizophrenia, limiting its disabling effects—and we’re on the verge of being able to prevent the disease’s onset entirely.

A little girl and her mother haunted by mental illness become entangled in the paranoia of the early 1990s Satanic Panic.

Vince Granata remembers standing in front of his suburban home in Connecticut the day his mother and father returned from the hospital with his three new siblings in tow. He had just finished scrawling their names in orange chalk on the driveway: Christopher, Timothy, and Elizabeth. Twenty-three years later, Vince was a thousand miles away when he received the news that would change his life - his younger brother, Tim, propelled by unchecked schizophrenia, had killed their mother in their childhood home.

Horribly abused as a child Jenny is adopted by a family that purposely and knowingly ignores her mental health needs and her schizoaffective Disorder. This is Jenny's story of what she endured and continues to endure.

The Bahamas is a 700-island nation off the coast of Florida, home to 400,000 inhabitants. I grew up there and lived a charmed life: we had a mansion on an acre of land with 270-degree ocean views, a maid, a gardener and a boat. I went to the best school on the island of Nassau, was skippering sunfish boats from the age of 7 and had a happy circle of friends. But I also had early signs of a mood disorder. When the offshore banking crisis of the late 1980s pushed us out of our idyllic paradise, my family and I relocated to Florida, a move that exacerbated my mood disorder at the start of high...

1972, BLACK RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN: Alicia Western, twenty years old, with forty thousand dollars in a plastic bag, admits herself to the hospital. A doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, Alicia has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and she does not want to talk about her brother, Bobby.