Disability Memoir

In this audiobook, you will catch intimate glimpses of how manic depression or bipolar disorder affects not only those diagnosed but the entire support structure around them. You'll find inspiration and hope that our fractured mental health system still holds opportunities for healing and unearthing resilience. In Hard Pill to Swallow: My Manic Memoir, Logan carries you through his struggles with his identity as a gay/bisexual man coming to terms with addiction while simultaneously battling bipolar disorder.

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.

A puddle of water on a highway changed Dinesh Palipana's life forever. Halfway through medical school, Dinesh was involved in a catastrophic car accident that caused a cervical spinal cord injury. After his accident, his strength and determination saw him return to complete medical school—now with quadriplegia. Dinesh was the first quadriplegic medical intern in Queensland, and the second person with quadriplegia to graduate medical school in Australia. Despite all of the pain and hardship he's faced, Dinesh now sees his accident as a turning point for the better in his life.

While finishing off her degree in Gerontology at Umass Boston, Yvonne Decelis started writing about her life in the hope of showing others with similar conditions that they are not alone in the trials they face. Yvonne goes over her upbringing and life prior to, during, and after diagnosis covering things like medications, “healthful living”, work, SSDI disability benefits, friendships, and relationships, etc. This was also written for people seeking information on how to interact with others who have "invisible illnesses" like MS, Fibro, Post-traumatic Stress injury, etc.

The world spun and rolled as I collapsed at Macy’s in San Francisco to the voices of Christmas carols being sung and bells ringing. Fresh out of the ICU and a week later, a beige man gave me a beige folder with a dark diagnosis that would color the rest of my life - multiple sclerosis. This set off a tidal wave, a tsunami inside of me that ravaged my body and crushed my lungs. The MS Diaries is a memoir that seeks to impart the journey inside one man’s mind struggling with a severe chronic illness through uncensored personal anecdotes and humorous situations.

Nineteen people from across the globe, ranging in age from 20 to 70-plus, tell their stories of living and thriving in diverse fields - in sport, the arts, medicine, business, and more. With refreshing frankness, they share their successes along with their struggles - grit is the one characteristic they all have in common. These are not stories of people overcoming disability - they’re stories of people accommodating disability while pursuing their dreams. Pure Grit shines a light on boundless possibility whatever the individual challenge.

Throughout our life, we all have different challenges, how can we allow these obstacles to facilitate growth and expansion, not contraction or fear? Cyrina Bullard PharmD, the author, will take you on a journey that begins with a lightning strike, jolting her to the ground. This was the first of the trilogy of nearly fatal episodes in her life. Personally revealing, authentic, and vulnerable, Cyrina shares some challenging details of her life, with the intention of inspiring you to enjoy your moments.

When her son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, Irma Velasquez was devastated. It was the pre-internet era of the early 1990s, and both information and experts were hard to find. Desperate for answers, she sought out therapists and educational programs designed to teach Aaron how to become successful in school and in life. But those early years ended up teaching Irma more than they taught Aaron. Irma realized her desire to "fix" her son had been a masquerade to fulfill her own needs, and she began to love him just as he was: perfect.

Unexpected Joy is a book about an inspirational young man who makes friends everywhere he goes. He is not like everyone else. He has special needs. He has taken his father and others on a journey they did not choose. His father learned to embrace the journey over many years. This is a story of struggle, depression, deliverance, redemption, acceptance, and eventually joy wrapped in an adventure of a lifetime of challenges.

Klim's journey to greatness began behind the Iron Curtain, in communist-era Poland. His family made a bid for freedom in the 1980s and immigrated to Australia, where swimming became his passport into a new culture and eventually led him to become one of his adopted country's great sporting heroes.

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.

Uncommon Vision by Matt Hendrick is a deeply moving memoir that captures the essence of human resilience. After a devastating accident leaves him paralyzed, Matt embarks on a life-changing journey that challenges both his physical limits and his perceptions of the world. From the depths of despair in a hospital bed to his adventures in the digital and supernatural realms, Matt's story is a riveting exploration of recovery, self-discovery, and the relentless pursuit of one's dreams despite the odds.

In the depths of despair, contemplating suicide, I gazed out a rain-streaked window in Maryland, where blurred colors in a parking lot mirrored my shattered soul. The shame of being sexually abused haunted me with recurring nightmares and PTSD, leading to a life cloaked in a complex facade of military titles and untold secrets. In this powerful memoir, published poet and author Adam Volant shares his raw and inspiring testimony of overcoming unimaginable brokenness to achieve success.

A two-week vacation to the Florida Keys meant Mary and Jameson Sr. could share the beauty of their favorite turquoise-blue waters with their four children. On that serene day at Looe Key Reef, after they finished lunch on the boat, their oldest, ten-year-old Jameson Jr., was swimming among the marine life, capturing breathtaking footage of a sea turtle. Until a massive bull shark attacked.

Treatment for anxiety all too often includes medication—but at what cost to the patient? After struggling with a lifetime of clinical anxiety, author and artist Lenny Gallo was confronted with the decision to try medication to help manage his symptoms. The medication did not work as expected and caused a misunderstood and often misdiagnosed movement disorder.

A raccoon bite on the arm doesn’t seem that serious, but it soon becomes a life-or-death medical crisis for Melissa Loomis. After days of treatment for recurring infection, it becomes obvious her arm must be amputated. Rewired is the inspirational, miraculous story of Dr. Ajay Seth’s revolutionary surgery that allows Melissa to not just move a prosthetic arm simply by thinking, but to actually feel with the prosthetic hand, just as she would with her natural arm. This resulted in what others have recognized as the world’s most advanced amputee.

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.”

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.

Kicking ASSpergers is the triumphant memoir of one man’s journey with autism and his quest for happiness and self-empowerment despite the many challenges life throws at him. Detailing his struggles with acute anxiety, depression, OCD, psychosis, and suicidal ideation, as well as social stigma and medical bias, Jeremy Tolmie moves through his childhood and into adulthood. Over time, Jeremy starts to alienate the people in his life with his erratic and dangerous behavior. When he meets Dave Ray, a home share provider, Jeremy starts to learn how not to let autism rule his life.

Nadeem's journey is a story told by a mother about her son—it’s not just about a mothers love, it also shows his compassion towards her, his siblings, family and friends. It shows us how he never let his illness define who he was even when the doctors were curt and less kind with their delivery of information. This book tells us the story about a fight to survive, a story about a mother’s love for a child and a story about how a community comes together to support each other.