Mental Illness

I was executive director for a nonprofit for those with mental illness, I gave speeches from Washington DC to Berkeley. People told me to write a book, so I did. It was about 20 pages. Basically, it was on of my speeches. I decided I didn't know enough to write a book and to take a year to do some research. That research extended over four years. I self-published it five months before the advent of Kindle. I updated it, added about 80 pages and published a second edition in January of 2019.

This collection of poetry, memoirs, and stories of short fiction presents to the listener such themes as depression, suicide, hopelessness, grief, loss, love, mental illness, and abuse both emotional and physical experienced by the writers or someone close to them. This collection serves to demonstrate that hiding behind shame or fear rather than sharing emotional pain as the authors in these works do is tantamount to putting on a mask; wearing a person suit.

Following Rachel’s fatal overdose years later, her mother, Carolyn DiPasquale, stumbles upon her daughter’s diaries. Shattered, she searches for answers, retracing her steps to figure out how parents and doctors missed three major mental illnesses.

In this powerful memoir, Susan Ralphe employs sharp storytelling skills honed over a long newspaper reporting career to tell her own story of long-term, heart-wrenching bipolar madness. She recounts soaring accomplishments alternating with black periods of tenseness, brain freeze, and despair.

When Eric Hofstein changed his career path, he didn’t expect to meet hundreds of lost souls, many of whom were desperate to be found. Here he shares what he learned about how the people he met became homeless, what kept them on the streets, and how to help them improve their lives. He learned what true harm reduction is and how to manage his expectations and not center himself in his outreach work.

Mental Illness, like all other illnesses, can be treated, and if not cured, then it certainly can be managed. This two-volume book will explore the causes, effects, treatments, and possible cures for two of the most well-known mental ailments, bipolar disorder and depression.

You've probably seen it before: a human brain dramatically lit from the side, the camera circling it like a helicopter shot of Stonehenge, and a modulated baritone voice exalting the brain's elegant design in reverent tones... to which this book says: Pure nonsense.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), research shows that mental illnesses are common in the United States, affecting tens of millions of people each year. Estimates suggest that only half of people with mental illnesses receive treatment. And this refers only to the United States. There are mentally ill people suffering similarly the world over.

An uncensored look inside the mind of depression, anxiety, and bi-polar for individuals, families, and friends.

A once vibrant oak tree in her yard began dying, voicing cries of help through its dead leaves and moss-covered branches. Inside the house Barbara too was in crisis, the recipient of her husband's anger and rage. As time passes Barbara can no longer stay strong. While she deals with her own demons, the oak too weakens. Based on a true story, this woman takes us inside her emotionally charged existence, letting us feel the anguish of domestic abuse, divorce, attempted suicides, and incarceration in a mental institution.

Erin Reardon gets her first kiss from Jim Morrison and loses her virginity to David Bowie. When she flunks out of college, Bruce Springsteen comforts her, and Elvis Costello breaks her heart in Europe. So what happens when she finally meets a rock star in the flesh?

Follow the lives of several mentally ill patients in a psychiatric facility and what life holds for them in the outside world. Those who smile the most often times have experienced the most pain. Others separate themselves in the feeling of being misunderstood or in search for themselves. In both occasions, the difference between relapsing and feeling okay is being held by a thread. We want to shed the light on the stigma of mental disorders and raise awareness that anyone around us could be experiencing some form or another of these disorders.

When a child faces a physical health crisis, friends and family rally around to provide support. But when a child is diagnosed with mental illness, their families often find themselves struggling alone. Having raised a mentally ill daughter, author Andrea Berryman Childreth has first-hand experience with the shame and stigma these families face, hiding behind a mask of normalcy while feeling completely helpless and out of control at home. On the Edge provides a realistic and practical guide to parenting a child with mental illness.

Broken Brain, Fortified Faith is the story of one family's journey through schizophrenia, navigating the uncharted waters of mental illness to find help for their daughter, Amber, and support for their family. This memoir is an honest look at the stress, anger, education, and finally, hope experienced through eyes of a mother. Along the way, she questions her trust in God as their family encounters setbacks, inadequate treatments, and additional family health crises.

In the 1950s, mental illness was in the closet, a condition rarely discussed beyond immediate family members. A young mother struggles with bipolar disorder, abusing alcohol and prescription drugs before seeking psychiatric help. Their solution: mind-altering shock and insulin treatments. Her husband, fighting to keep the love of his life, focuses on her recovery, working two jobs to cover the costs of a decade-long cycle of depression.

To those who live under the shadow of an illness that doesn't require crutches, bandages or splints. The world, lacking outward indications of infirmity, tells them to “Get over it, it's all in your head”, “Buck up”, “Quit making excuses”, “Just stop lying around and start being more positive”. Imagine the same advice given to those with diabetes, broken bones and failing organs. To those who strive to heal in such an atmosphere of misunderstanding and criticism, this audiobook is dedicated.

In The Price of Silence she takes a devastating look at how we address mental illness, especially in children, who are funneled through a system of education, mental health care, and juvenile detention that leads far too often to prison. In the end she asks one central question: if there's a poster child for cancer, why can't there be one for mental illness? The answer: the stigma.

The search for hope is most urgent at the patient's bedside. The Anatomy of Hope takes us there, bringing us into the lives of people at pivotal moments when they reach for and find hope, or when it eludes their grasp. Through these intimate portraits, we learn how to distinguish true hope from false, why some people feel they are undeserving of it, and whether we should ever abandon our search.

This is the moving yet deeply disturbing story of a middle-aged mother and a teenaged daughter torn apart by the sudden onset of the mother’s insanity. It details the severe paranoia and absurd delusions that began to control my mother’s behavior. It follows her transformation from loving parent to violent psychotic and my transformation from obedient daughter to terrified runaway. And it depicts the overwhelming revelatory moment when I finally learned she had died - six years before.

The book bridges the dangerous divide between faith communities and those living with the stigma of mental health challenges. Faith leaders seeking greater understanding for those with troubled minds as well as those impacted by brain illnesses (including loved ones) will benefit from listening to Roberts narrate his personal and pastoral journey through bipolar disorder.