Disability Memoir

In April of 2004, the long downward spiraling of Amy Bingaman's mental illness could no longer be hidden or ignored much less written off as a side-product of a colorful and quirky character. With no family able to help and no resources, she was involuntarily locked up in the draconian, archaic labyrinth that is the Wyoming Mental Health System. Armed with only a pocket dictionary and any paper she could find to write on, Amy wrote not only as a journal but at times as her only coping mechanism to salvage what was left of a breaking mind in a love/hate relationship with her alter-ego.

Prize-winning journalist and the coauthor of smash New York Times best seller I Am Malala, Christina Lamb now tells the inspiring true story of another remarkable young hero: Nujeen Mustafa, a teenager born with cerebral palsy whose harrowing journey from war-ravaged Syria to Germany in a wheelchair is a breathtaking tale of fortitude, grit, and hope that lends a face to the greatest humanitarian issue of our time: the Syrian refugee crisis.

On paper, Coach Rob Mendez sounds like any other football coach on any other field across America: passionate, authoritative, knowledgeable. But he’s unlike any other coach you know - in fact, he’s probably unlike any other person you know. Born with an extraordinarily rare condition called tetra-Amelia syndrome, Rob has no arms or legs. He moves with the assistance of a custom-made, motorized wheelchair that he operates with his back and shoulders.

For over twenty years, Dara Baldwin has often been the only person of color in the room when significant disability policy decisions are made. Disenfranchisement of people of color and multi-marginalized communities within the disability rights community is not new and has left many inside the community feeling frustrated and unheard. In Demanding Solidarity, Baldwin candidly shares her journey to becoming a disability activist and policymaker in DC while critiquing the disability rights community.

I wrote this book because I wanted the world to know the story of my special needs son Lloyd C. Darby lll. Affectionately known as DJ, which stands for Darby Junior. When people triumph over their circumstances as my wife and I have, there are usually hidden lessons others can benefit from contained within the events. However, if we don’t share our stories with the world, no one will ever hear about them.

Her Name Was Lola is the story of Trish Ryan’s triumphant recovery from a stroke that should have killed her. She had a successful career in the entertainment industry for over 30 years until May 5th, 2017, when she suffered a severe stroke that changed her life forever. Living a very fast-paced life had not prepared her for when it all came to a grinding halt. Lost and confused with no roadmap to follow, she relied on her faith to show her the way to embrace what happened and move forward.

This is a very real and bloody look at the journey I made from 19 to 29. I will walk you through the icy halls of drug addiction and dealing, college in Santa Barbara (specifically Isla Vista), depression, suicide, and overdoses. The second part of the book I could only write just recently, as I was, by the Grace of God, able to live the life I knew I always should. Please come with me through the very real and honest look at what it was like to be a young man in the 2010s and how through a million close calls, I finally found life.

This book chronicles the journey of Eritrean-born Joseph Woldu. As a child refugee, he found himself having to adapt to changes of place, language, and customs; then as a man forced to relearn much of the same after involvement in a disastrous accident two days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. What makes Joseph's story so incredible is not that he survived change and tragedy, but how he continually found the strength to improve himself and his circumstances. His story reflects the importance good relationships play in our lives.

A profoundly beautiful memoir about disability, difference, and living as a vulnerable body. Jan Grue had just become a father when he inherited a stack of his childhood medical records. Following a diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three, the raft of doctors' notes, clinical descriptions and case histories defined his body as defective and his future as bleak and limited. They conjured a childhood nothing like the one he remembered, that failed to anticipate the life he lived now. "I Live a Life Like Yours" is Grue's beautiful, groundbreaking search for a literary language that could better tell his story.

Tiffani, the author, becomes an intimate friend as you speaks to you about her deepest thoughts, fears, and worries. Her love, strength, honesty, and determination to care for her family at all costs is inspiring.

Half a world away from home in 1976, 18-year old Anne B. Thomas awakens on the side of a two-lane road paralyzed from the chest down. Fast forward through a rigorous year of physical therapy to when her doctor gives her an ominous warning: “You will live a long time and be a burden on your family for the rest of your life unless you check yourself into a nursing home”.

A displaced person (now called refugee or economic migrant), aged 19, escapes in 1950 from behind the Iron Curtain with his mother's and her friends' help. He maneuvers through minefields and swims across icy waters and past Russian patrols to reach Salzburg and then Switzerland, hoping to catch up with his brother (who by then had migrated to Australia). He makes it back again, falls in love, but then emigrates to Canada to start a new life, gets to University in Toronto, and is then joined by his mother after escaping in 1956 during the Hungarian uprising.

At age 16, James Tate Hill was diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a condition that left him legally blind. After high school friends stopped calling and a disability counselor advised him to aim for C's in his classes, he used his remaining blurry peripheral vision to pretend he could still see. Feigning eye contact, memorizing common routes, filling shelves with paperbacks he read via tape cassettes, he organized his life around passing for sighted.

Jan Grue was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three. Shifting between specific periods of his life - his youth with his parents and sister in Norway; his years of study in Berkeley, St. Petersburg, and Amsterdam; and his current life as a professor, husband, and father - he intersperses these histories with elegant, astonishingly wise reflections on the world, social structures, disability, loss, relationships, and the body: in short, on what it means to be human.

What would your life look like if you measured success by your improvements instead of your victories? Chris Nikic, the first person with Down syndrome to ever complete an IRONMAN® triathlon, inspires others to achieve their goals by getting one percent better better every day.

For many years, Jeffrey Demitrack searched for a meaningful and fulfilling relationship and, most of all, hoped that one day he would find a significant other who understood and unconditionally accepted his struggles with epilepsy. People have their insecurities, and relationships already are hard without throwing seizures into the mix, so his search has been a challenging one.

Written as a narrative short story, CallyRae shares her candid insights as she journeys through surviving with autoimmune diseases. Suffering from chronic daily pain, infections, and extreme fatigue, her outlook was one of frustration and hopelessness. As her life journey down the autoimmune highway took twists and turns, she learned to read the signs and listen to her body, mind, and spirit. She continues on the journey but has replaced pain with vitality, infections with health, and extreme fatigue with immense energy.

This inspiring autobiography by Helen Keller is an account of her life from her family history up to her last years of college, supplemented by her personal letters from age 7 to 21. This edition includes letters and reports contributed by her teacher, Anne Sullivan, and the editor, John Albert Macy.

In My Two Elaines, author Marty Schreiber, former governor of Wisconsin, watches his beloved wife, Elaine, gradually transform from the woman he fell in love with in high school, and who diligently supported his political career, to the Elaine who knows she is declining and can’t remember how to cook a meal, and finally to the Elaine who no longer recognizes Marty or their children. Beyond sincere, practical advice, My Two Elaines gives the listener permission to feel the full spectrum of emotions, including humor, even in the face of this relentless illness.

In January 2016, life took an unexpected turn for Marilyn Miller Lowry when a stroke abruptly had her asking those questions—and more. In the years since, Lowry examined her life and made dramatic changes that opened up more possibilities than she ever imagined. Grateful to be able to author A Stroke of Magic, Lowry uses her background as a counselor to share candid observations of the trauma that comes with unexpected physical disability.