Search Results: Returned 8 Results, Displaying Titles 1 - 8
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By Pick, Alison2014., Adult, Doubleday Canada Call No: BIO Bio P594b Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: From the Man Booker-nominated author of the novel Far to Go comes an unflinching, moving and unforgettable memoir about family secrets and the rediscovered past. Alison Pick was born in the 1970s and raised in a supportive, loving family in Kitchener, Ontario. As far as Pick knew, both her parents were Christian. Then as a teenager, Alison made a discovery that instantly changed her understanding of her family. She learned that her Pick grandparents, who had escaped from the Czech Republic during WWII, were Jewish--and that most of this side of the family had died in concentration camps. In her early thirties, engaged to be married to her longtime boyfriend but struggling with a crippling depression, Alison slowly but doggedly began to research and uncover her Jewish heritage. Eventually she came to realize that her true path forward was to reclaim her history and indentity as a Jew. In this by times raw, by times sublime memoir, Alison recounts her struggle with the meaning of her faith, her journey to convert to Judaism, her battle with depression, and her path towards facing and accepting the past and embracing the future. Illuminated with heartbreaking insight into the very real lives of the dead, and hard-won hope for the lives of all those who carry on after. Alision Pick has published two volumes of poetry, and is a faculty member at the Humber School for Writers and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She lives in Toronto.
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2015., Adult, Flatiron Books Call No: Bio L415f Edition: First edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "The creator of thebloggess.com blog "like Mother Theresa: only better" Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness as "a high-functioning depressive with anxiety disorder and mild-self harm issues." A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. Terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. As Jenny says: "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Furiously Happy is about "taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. A book about embracing everything that makes us who we are - the beautiful and the flawed - and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. No matter how awful life seems, you always have the choice to be happy. Jenny Lawson's first book, Let's pretend this never happened : (a mostly true memoir) was her story of growing up dirt poor in rural Texas"--Provided by publisher.
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-- Hello! I want to die, please fix me.2019., Adult, Random House Canada Call No: Bio P214h Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Frank, eye-opening, heartbreaking and disarmingly funny, Anna Mehler Paperny is a fabulous, vibrant new voice. In her galvanizing memoir-meets-exposé, writing with riveting vitality and intelligence about surviving suicide and the ways we try to talk about and treat depression, she has discovered what eludes many: a way to reach out to us to talk about one of the increasingly concerning medical issues today. An energetic tour-de-force of empathy and desire for understanding, Hello! I Want to Die, Please Fix Me is compelling reading, as well as essential for anyone curious to understand how it feels to be depressed, or whose life, family or friends has been touched by depression. Anna Mehler Paperny is a young journalist from Toronto--a smart, passionate reporter who has contributed to the Toronto Star, Global News, The Globe and Mail, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and just about every major news outlet you can think of. In her early-twenties, while thriving in her dream job, enjoying warm familial support and a strong social network of friends and colleagues, Anna found herself trapped by feelings of failure and despair. In September 2011, she made her first attempt to kill herself by ingesting a deadly mix of sleeping pills and antifreeze, landing her in the ICU followed by weeks of enforced detention in two different big-city psych wards. This was Anna's entry point into the labyrinthine psychiatric care system--one that is nominally responsible for providing the best reasonable care to millions of Canadians suffering from severe, life-threatening mental illness. Her first stay in the psych ward--at times horrifying, other times boring, hilarious and absurd--was just the beginning of a long recovery and a journey towards understanding, first-hand, the myriad ways our systems and medical practitioners treat--and fail to treat--a disease that afflicts a full fifth of the population. While trying to be a good patient, Anna cannot help but turn her intrepid journalist's eye on the world around her--in the psych ward, as an outpatient, as a survivor enduring the gruelling ordeal of facing concerned family, friends and co-workers; of finding the right meds, the right therapist; of staying insured and employed. Anna's personal account of life in the shadow of self-obliteration explores in searing detail her individual experience of depression, close encounters with fatal self-harm, and the trials and errors of treatment. It is at the same time an illuminating, profound, and utterly original analysis of how we approach mental illness in North America; the novel hypotheses specialists are putting forward to tackle it; and the truth about how primitive our methods of healing sick brains still are."--Provided by publisher.
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2017., CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Call No: QWF Bio F833i Edition: First edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: This is a compendium about my daily battle with depression, anxiety, hot weather, and militant introversion. It is also about plumbers, spiders, loud neighbours, video games, books, and cats.This book is not a therapy book for those who suffer with depression or anxiety, nor is this book intended as a disparagement or a glorification of my mental and social difficulties; it is merely a record of how I have learned to cope with them, and is intended as a comedy not a tragedy. I invite everyone to laugh along with me through one of the worst years of my life, and hope that by reading about my tribulations, you will come to understand why I hate summer.
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2019., University of Regina Press Call No: QWF Bio A152o Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Harry Abley was a nightmare of a father: depressive, self-absorbed, unpredictable, emotionally unstable. He was also a dream of a father: gentle, courageous, artistically gifted. Mark Abley, his only child, grew up in the shadow of music and mental illness. How he came to terms with this divided legacy, and how he learned to be a man in the absence of a traditional masculine role model, are central to this beautifully written memoir. This extraordinary story will speak to all those who love music, who struggle with depression, or who wrestle with the difficult bonds of love between a parent and a child. The organist is a rich and wonderful book, a deeply insightful and moving story of a family's journey through the 20th century.
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[2015]., Adult, Doubleday Canada Call No: Bio G437t Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Camilla Gibb, author of Sweetness in the Belly and The Beauty of Humanity Movement, reveals the intensity of the grief that besieged her as the happiness of a longed for family shattered. Grief that lived in a potent mix with the solace that arose with the creation of another, most unexpected family. A family constituted by a small cast of resilient souls, adults broken in the way many of us are, united in love for a child. Reflecting on tangled moments of past sadness and joy, alienation and belonging, Gibb revisits her stories now in relation to the happy daughter who will inherit them, and she finds there new meaning and beauty. This Is Happy asks the big questions and finds answers in the tender moments of the everyday. Camilla Gibb has a Ph.D. from Oxford University and teaches in the graduate creative writing programs at the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph-Humber"--Provided by publisher.
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2019., Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Call No: Bio A735v Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: From New York Times bestselling author and blogger Heather B. Armstrong comes an honest and irreverent memoir-reminiscent of the New York Times bestseller Brain on Fire-about her experience as one of only a few people to participate in an experimental treatment for depression involving ten rounds of a chemically induced coma approximating brain death. For years, Heather B. Armstrong has alluded to her struggle with depression on her website, dooce. It's scattered throughout her archive, where it weaves its way through posts about pop culture, music, and motherhood. But in 2016, Heather found herself in the depths of a depression she just couldn't shake, an episode darker and longer than anything she had previously experienced. She had never felt so discouraged by the thought of waking up in the morning, and it threatened to destroy her life. So, for the sake of herself and her family, Heather decided to risk it all by participating in an experimental clinical trial involving a chemically induced coma approximating brain death. Now, for the first time, Heather recalls the torturous eighteen months of suicidal depression she endured and the month-long experimental study in which doctors used propofol anesthesia to quiet all brain activity for a full fifteen minutes before bringing her back from a flatline. Ten times. The experience wasn't easy. Not for Heather or her family. But a switch was flipped, and Heather hasn't experienced a single moment of suicidal depression since. Disarmingly honest, self-deprecating, and scientifically fascinating, The Valedictorian of Being Dead brings to light a groundbreaking new treatment for depression.
