Saving Ben is the story of one family coping with autism told from the viewpoint of a father struggling to understand his sons strange behavior and rescue him from a downward spiral. Bens father Dan Burns puts the reader in the passengers seat as he struggles with medical service providers the school system extended family and his own limitations in his efforts to pull Ben out of his darkening world. Ben now 21 years old is a work in progress. The full force and fury of the autism storm ha...

When Jane Ryan discovers she's pregnant with twin girls, she faces a heart wrenching decision. On her own and unable to afford to care for both babies, she sees no choice but to keep one and give up the other for adoption. But fourteen years later, Jane's decision comes full circle."Family is everything." It's one of the first things Isabel, the twin Jane gave up, says when they unexpectedly meet. Without warning, she and her adoptive mother have moved to the town where Jane and he...

Marc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, decept...

A classic of psychology and eating disorders, now reissued with an important and perhaps controversial new afterword by the author, Wasted is New York Times bestselling author Marya Hornbacher's highly acclaimed memoir that chronicles her battle with anorexia and bulimia.Vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching, Wasted is the story of how Marya Hornbacher willingly embraced hunger, drugs, sex, and death—until a particularly horrifying bout with anorexia a...

A biography of the woman who has become a worldwide phenomenon and a hero of the autistic community.In this fascinating biography, Annette Wood delves deep into Temple Grandin’s life from childhood to adulthood. Wood tells of the trials and tribulations of the icon: the difficulties Grandin struggled with, and how she’s become a hero for the autistic community. She reveals what Temple has done since the acclaimed movie based on her life came out, where she is today...

John Vincent Dolan is a talented young forger with a proclivity for mathematics and drug addiction. In the face of his impending institutionalization, he continually reinvents himself to escape the legal and mental health authorities and to save himself from a life of incarceration. But running turns out to be costly. Vincents clients in the L.A. underworld lose patience, the hospital evaluator may not be fooled by his story, and the only person in as much danger as himself is the woman wh...

Bipolar Journals is a series of journal entries from a girl with Bipolar Disorder II. The entries explain what it is like to face stigmas of mental illness and derogatory images that the media paint in the minds of her peers. It describes how Bipolar Disorder disrupts her emotions and her functionality.Bipolar Journals is published anonymously by a girl who might just be in your community.

For thirty-two years Ken Steele lived with the devastating symptoms of schizophrenia, tortured by inner voices commanding him to kill himself, ravaged by the delusions of paranoia, barely surviving on the ragged edges of society. In this powerful and inspiring story, Steele tells the story of his hard-won recovery from schizophrenia and how activism and advocacy helped him regain his sanity and go on to give hope and support to so many others like him. His recovery began with a small but i...

A memoir of reinvention after a stroke at age thirty-three.Christine Hyung-Oak Lee woke up with a headache on the morning of December 31, 2006. By that afternoon, she saw the world—quite literally—upside down. By New Year's Day, she was unable to form a coherent sentence. And after hours in the ER, days in the hospital, and multiple questions and tests, her doctors informed her that she had had a stroke.For months afterward, Lee outsourced her memories to a journal, taking ...

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most recognizable structures to define a modern city. Yet, for author Kevin Hines the bridge is not merely a marker of a place or a time. Instead, the bridge marks the beginning of his remarkable story. At 19 years old, Kevin attempted to take his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge - a distance which took four seconds to fall. Recently diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, Kevin had begun to hear voices telling him he had to die, and days before...

“Boy Alone unlocks the heart and lets the emotions pour out: grief, despair, anger, love, devotion and wonder. Whether you are a parent or a sibling of someone with autism or just looking in from the outside through this rarely opened window into the complex life of a family coping with autism, you will never forget this book.” —Portia Iversen, Co-Founder of Cure Autism Now Foundation and author of Strange SonA Washington Post Book World Best Book of the YearIn this literar...

My daughter throws a temper tantrum every time I ask her to come to the bathroom, why is this happening? How do I start toilet training? These questions are a couple of many that parents have when introducing toilet training. This handbook outlines what we believe to be a successful plan for assisting you in toilet training your child. We go through step by step a plan of action, address issues that may arise and answer typical questions that you have as a parent. Our combined 30 years of ...