Disability Biography

Blindness in the 1950s was a social stigma. Stephen's mother wanted a normal life for him, so he fought desperately to uphold the illusion of sight. For a child frantic to fit in, each day was an exhausting pretence. He managed to ride a bike, when even reading involved pressing his nose to the page and painfully forcing his eyes to concentrate. Head up, he strode through a carefully memorized labyrinth of streets, hoping to fool passers-by that he could actually see.

In this fascinating historical adventure, broadcaster and author Selina Mills takes us on a journey through the history of blindness in Western Culture to discover that blindness is not so dark after all. Inspired by her own experience of losing her sight as she forged a successful journalistic career, Life Unseen takes us through a personal and unsentimental historical quest through the lives, stories and achievements of blind people—as well as those sighted people who sought to patronize, demonize and fix them.

Junius Wilson (1908-2001) spent 76 years at a state mental hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina, including 6 in the criminal ward. He had never been declared insane by a medical professional or found guilty of any criminal charge. But he was deaf and Black in the Jim Crow South. Unspeakable is the story of his life.

The author describes in detail all the insanity, disturbing behaviors, oppressive symptoms, and various feeling associated with the mental battles within her own mind. The author suffers from clinical depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and borderline personality disorder. She struggles with suicidal thoughts and attempts, self-mutilating behaviors, mania, paranoia, anxiety, and psychosis with intense hallucinations of all five of her senses, and multiple delusions, including the belief that she is the "second-coming of Christ".

Love for a Deaf Rebel introduces listeners to a vivacious Canadian woman who was born into a silent world and with the foundation for schizophrenia. With pathos and nostalgia, the author recounts his roller-coaster ride with Pearl, a vivacious deaf maverick, who, unknown to him, had paranoid schizophrenia. We follow their encounters through actual notes written before Derrick learns sign language; we go on their motorcycle ride to Mexico and Guatemala; we watch as the happy couple moves to Bowen Island, a British Columbia community with just three paved roads.

In "You're Not Doing It Right," Ellen Patnaude bravely opens the door to the haunting reality of Lewy body dementia (LBD) and unravels its profound impact on families. One of the most common types of dementia after Alzheimer's disease, LBD is marked by fluctuations in cognition, hallucinations, and motor symptoms. The journey begins with subtle warnings of small changes in her mother's behavior that worry Patnaude's father, but go unnoticed by the author and her sibling.

From being a little girl in a village in China with polio to a tech executive at Apple, Libo Cao Meyers has had quite a journey in life—a journey steeped in rich family legacy and powered by determination, growth, and love. Over the years and the miles, she’s embraced her differences and has allowed no one—including herself—to set limitations on what she’s able to accomplish. But just because she’s been successful doesn’t mean it’s been easy. Not by a long shot.

Quadriplegics simply do not walk again - yet millions watched as Chris Norton defied incredible odds and took step by impossible step across his graduation stage. With his fiancée, Emily, by his side, those unbelievable steps became the start of an extraordinary journey for them both. Told from both of their unique perspectives, this moving story invites you to find, as Chris and Emily have, that God can transform our lowest points into life's greatest gifts.

Andrew, 8, is autistic and bilingual. He speaks English and Chicken. With words limited by autism, Andrew lives in a fantastic world where chickens talk and superheroes come alive. But when he tells his pet chicken Frightful that his body is trying to kill him, it launches Andrew's family and an entire medical community into a decade-long quest for answers. This beautiful, fierce, and refreshingly honest memoir takes listeners on a mother's journey through the complex landscape of modern medicine to discover the healing bond between a boy and Frightful, the chicken who saves them all.

Darlene was a small-town single mother from Arkansas. Bert was a small-town preacher’s son from Oklahoma. Polio crippled both of them as teenagers. When their paths crossed at a rehab center in 1952, these young adults questioned how anything good could come from this crippling virus. Bert’s faith in the Biblical passage of Romans 8:28 gave him hope that “Polio was not good, but God would bring good out of it.” Darlene’s journey to the rehab center was “the one way for God to get me in the right place at the right time.”

At a time when we are all more rudderless than ever, we look for the very best teachers and mentors to guide us. In Fully Alive, an unusual and gripping memoir, Timothy Shriver shows how his teachers have been the world's most forgotten minority: people with intellectual disabilities. In these pages we meet the individuals who helped him come of age and find a deeper and more meaningful way to see the world.

2020 was a hard year for everyone. In this journal, learn how one woman experienced the pandemic while also having to deal with the effects of having bipolar disorder. From the book: "Truth is best expressed as silence. Words are our creations. They come and go, live and die. They are incapable of expressing what is real. This has been a journal of a false identity assuming itself to be real. From this new vantage point, I see how I am creating this story. Today I start a new chapter. Or maybe it is just a page. Even if I could just cobble together a sentence. Make it meaningful!"

Bill Rush lived with a significant disability of quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He did not have use of his arms, hands, or voice. Society’s prejudices proved to be a greater obstacle than his disability in attaining his first life goal of completing college. Rush chronicled his extraordinary life from childhood until graduation from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln in Journey Out of Silence, first published in 1986. This second edition brings back into print Bill's original chronicle. It also contains an introduction to Our Life Our Way, the sequel.

A unique self-help memoir subliminally written from the perspective of a first time mom with undiagnosed Adhd, raised in Saint Louis, Missouri. She studied her experiences and those around her to recognize and identify, unhealthy patterns in society. Motherhood illuminated the struggles and weight that women have been thanklessly carrying for centuries. Producing emotionally unstable and traumatized children that become adults and spread their pain and grief among society.

A sudden rise in opioid addicts coinciding with a sudden drop in legally available opioids, created a desperation for prescription drugs never seen before in this country. Physicians shut down their previous practice of repeated refills, once the death toll was too high to ignore. As hospitals and rehab facilities instituted drug testing and CORI checks to ensure employees were clean, one health-care option stood alone as a place to easily obtain painkillers. That place was home health care.

For 20 years, Lisa Murphy, Jeff Murphy, and a group of volunteers traveled the world with the Mobility Project, delivering mobility to the poorest people on the planet. They helped tens of thousands of disabled poor to gain mobility and hope. The disabled received wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches from the United States, items they never would have been able to afford. Like Simon of Cyrene, we helped people carry their cross of disability. From the hot tropical jungles of Costa Rica, Thailand, and São Tomé to the deserts of Afghanistan, the disabled poor got a new chance at life.

Sarah’s story is one for any parent; it is not just about the highs and lows of having a child with additional needs, but also simply as a mum of three. She talks candidly about coming to terms with the decision to move Oscar to a SEN (Special Educational Needs) school, another big milestone in Oscar’s young life. Whilst Sarah may have found herself on a different path to the one she’d imagined for herself, it has not been a bad one. There is sadness, certainly; and there have been struggles along the way; but there has been so much laughter and happiness, too.

David Aguilar was born missing part of one arm, a small detail that seemed to define his life and limit people’s ideas of who he was and who he could be. But in this funny and heartfelt memoir, David proves that he can throw out the rulebook and people’s expectations and maybe even make a difference in the world—and all with a sense of humor.

Embark on a powerful and inspirational journey with Dawn Green as she battles against the odds in a 35-year-long quest to uncover the truth behind her mysterious and life-threatening health issues. This gripping memoir takes listeners through the highs and lows of an extraordinary life marked by persistence, resilience, and unwavering hope. The book opens with the author's early years, when she first realized that her health was beginning to decline. In succession, a series of perplexing symptoms began to plague her.

In less than sixty days, published author and family chiropractor Kristi Hellenbrand would suddenly lose the ability to walk. The brightest doctors would not be able to figure out why. Part memoir, part research thesis, the author reveals with raw honesty her journey through Lyme Disease and the seemingly impossible passage to rediscovering wellness. In 2020, a sudden and mysterious illness - said to not exist in Georgia - took everything from her. This is the story of the deep, dark place where only grief takes you, but also the story of how she saves her own life.