Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching--that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away--Stern treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Stern has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true. Tenderly delivered and expertly structured, Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens.

    . . ranges from the shocking to the simply lovely." —Marya Hornbacher Stacy Pershall grew up depressed and too smart for her own good, a deeply strange girl in Prairie Grove, Arkansas (population 1,000), where the prevailing wisdom was that Jesus healed all. From her days as a thirteen-year-old Jesus freak, through a battle with anorexia and bulimia, her first manic episode at eighteen, and the eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, this spirited and at times mordantly funny memoir chronicles Pershall's journey through hell-several breakdowns and suicide attempts—and her struggle with the mental health care system. After her 2001 suicide attempt, broadcast live on a Webcam, Pershall realized the need to heal her mind and body. She found a revolutionary cure (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and a new mood-stabilizing medication. She also met a tattoo artist and discovered the healing power of body modification. By giving over her skin and enduring the physical pain, she learned about the true nature of trust.

    Furthermore, it is widely believed that many autistic girls and women are underdiagnosed, which has further limited the information available regarding the unique needs of girls and nonbinary people with autism.Sincerely, Your Autistic Child represents an authentic resource for parents and others who care about autism written by people who understand this experience most, autistic people themselves. From childhood and education to culture, gender identity, and sexuality, this anthology of autistic contributors tackles the everyday challenges of growing up while honestly addressing the emotional needs, sensitivity, and vibrancy of the autistic community with a special focus on autistic girls and nonbinary people. Written like letters to parents, the contributors reflect on what they have learned while growing up with autism and how parents can avoid common mistakes and overcome challenges while raising their child.Sincerely, Your Autistic Child calls parents to action by raising awareness and redefining "normal" in order to help parents make their child feel truly accepted, valued, and celebrated for who they are.Contributors: B. Martin Allen, B. Rankowski, K. Asasumasu, M. Baggs, L. Wiley-Mydske, H. Moss, L. XZ Brown, K. Rodriguez, A. Schaber, J. St. Jude, M. Sparrow, M. Cruz, A. Sequenzia, K. Lean, L. Soraya, K. Smith, A. Forshaw, H. Wangelin/HW, V.M. Rodríguez-Roldán, J. Strauss, O.M. Robinson, K. Levin, J. Winegardner, D. Lyubovskaya, E.P. Ballou, S. daVanport, and M. Giwa Onaiwu. Foreword and Afterword by J. Wilson and B. Ryan.

    Revealing the hardships of grappling with a depressive disorder, it emphasizes unique methods of control through regular diet and exercise. Oscillating between humor and gut-wrenching poignancy, these compelling life stories entrust readers with a key message—while depression may not be curable, it can be managed.

    One in 300 individuals may have AS--exhibiting characteristics such as average to high intelligence, obsessive behavior, intense special interests, and difficulty dealing with everyday social situations--and it is now more prevalent than childhood cancer and Down's syndrome. As the mother of a boy diagnosed with AS in 1994, Barbara Kirby found scant resources and support. She developed the internationally renowned OASIS (Online Asperger Syndrome Information and Support) Web site in 1995 to help other parents find the information they need. She teamed up with Patricia Romanowski Bashe, now co-owner of OASIS and herself the mother of a son with AS, to write "The OASIS Guide to Asperger Syndrome," which has become the standout authority in the field and a must-have for this growing audience. Now Bashe and Kirby have crafted a fully revised edition of this comprehensive resource for parents, teachers, therapists, and anyone who knows or works with someone with AS. In addition to discussing what AS looks like and how parents can guide their unique child through the social, emotional, and intellectual challenges of growing up, this edition includes new developments made in AS research over the past four years, new thinking on diagnosis and evaluation, the latest approaches to medication and social skills development, and tips on navigating the maze of interventions, therapies, and special education. The authors know firsthand the joys and frustrations of raising children with AS, and they share their own experiences as well as those of dozens of parents facing the same issues. Filled with practical information and emotional support, this is the most complete and authoritative guide available. Whether your child has been diagnosed or troubling symptoms are just becoming apparent, this book will point you in the right direction as you face the particular challenges of loving and raising a child with Asperger Syndrome.

    George and Sam are autistic. George and Sam takes the reader from the births of each of the two boys, along the painstaking path to diagnosis, interventions, schooling and more. She writes powerfully about her family and her sons, and allows readers to see the boys behind the label of autism. Their often puzzling behavior, unusual food aversions, and the different ways that autism effects George and Sam lend deeper insight into this confounding disorder.George and Sam emerge from her narrative as distinct, wonderful, and at times frustrating children who both are autistic through and through. Moore does not feel the need to search for cause or cure, but simply to find the best ways to help her sons. She conveys to readers what autism is and isn't, what therapies have worked and what hasn't been effective, and paints a moving, memorable portrait of life with her boys.

    A fresh, honest, and practical guide to living with bipolar disorder.Paul Jones, a stand-up comedian and workshop leader who suffers from bipolar disorder, uses humor, honesty, and hard-won practical advice to dispel the stigma surrounding mental illnesses and shed light on the challenges of living with bipolar disorder.Offering an intimate view of life with bipolar disorder—including the most common mistakes bipolar individuals make and how to avoid them— and covering every aspect from diagnosis, social life, home life, and career, this is an accessible and engaging guide from someone who’s been there and can help readers cope and thrive.

    In his pithy essays, author Ido Kedar, a brilliant sixteen year old with autism, challenges what he believes are misconceptions in many theories that dominate autism treatment today while he simultaneously chronicles his personal growth in his struggles to overcome his limitations.Ido spent the first half of his life locked internally, in silence, trapped in a remedial educational system that presumed he lacked the most basic comprehension, and unable to show the world that he understood everything. But at the age of seven, Ido was finally able to show that he had an intact mind and could understand. This led to the quest to find a system of communication that he could use despite his impaired motor control. Through the use of a letter board, and now an iPad, Ido has triumphed communicatively, enabling him to flourish in a regular high school in all general education classes.But Ido has a larger goal. He does not want to be seen as an isolated autistic exception with miraculously advanced cognitive and communication abilities. He wants people to see that thousands of other severely autistic individuals have the same capacity, but remain trapped and locked-in, as he was, unable to show their true capacities. These individuals desperately need new theories and new methods to help them break free too. Of importance to neuro-researchers, educators, psychologists, doctors, parents, friends, family and people with autism, Ido in Autismland will change our collective understanding of severe autism.PRAISE FOR Ido in Autismland "There are doubtless many Idos in this world, unable to speak, yet possessing good intellectual ability and, most certainly, a rich emotional life. And yet, precisely because they cannot communicate, nonverbal individuals with autism are nearly always consigned to the junk heap of mental deficiency, branded as incapable of understanding language or even having feelings... We need to help change things for this terribly neglected group... Reading Ido's book is a good beginning." - Portia Iversen, Co-founder, Cure Autism Now and the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange Gene Bank. Author of Strange Son"Ido is a brilliant communicator. His words bring us inside the world of autism. His gift of writing enlightens, inspires, educates. Every person who loves or works with someone with autism - educator, therapist, karent, grandparent, neighbor - should read Ido in Autismland." - Elaine Hall, Author of Now I See the Moon, co-author of Seven Keys to Unlock Autism. Featured in Autism: The Musical"Ido's book touches any heart, not only because it is well written, but because it reveals a mind that has learned how to speak to the world through spelling every word on a letter board and keyboard. His book is indeed a great gift to the world. Thank you, Ido." - Soma Mukhopadhyay, Executive Director of Education, HALO, Author of Understanding Autism through Rapid Prompting Method

    Comparing and contrasting both AS and non-AS partners' viewpoints, this book frankly examines the fundamental aspects of relationships that are often complicated by the disorder. With all findings illustrated with case examples taken from interviews conducted with couples, the author tackles issues such as attraction, trust, communication, sex and intimacy, and parenting. Drawing on her extensive research and established career as a Relate counsellor, Maxine Aston has produced a much-needed analysis of intimate relationships where one adult has AS and this book is a must for all those with AS and their partners, as well as for friends, family and counsellors.

    For most of that time, she didn't know why. All of her trips to the ER and her daily anguish, pain, and lethargy only ever resulted in one question: How could any one person be this sick? Several drug addictions, three major hospitalizations, and over $100,000 later, she finally had a diagnosis: late-stage Lyme disease. Sick is Khakpour's arduous, emotional journey—as a woman, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems—through the chronic illness that perpetually left her a victim of anxiety, living a life stymied by an unknown condition.Divided by settings, Khakpour guides the reader through her illness by way of the locations that changed her course—New York, LA, New Mexico, and Germany—as she meditates on both the physical and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life. With candor and grace, she examines her subsequent struggles with mental illness, her addiction to the benzodiazepines prescribed by her psychiatrists, and her ever-deteriorating physical health. A story about survival, pain, and transformation, Sick is a candid, illuminating narrative of hope and uncertainty, boldly examining the deep impact of illness on one woman's life.

    Today, it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood. Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety, Stossel presents an astonishing history, at once intimate and authoritative, of the efforts to understand the condition from medical, cultural, philosophical, and experiential perspectives. He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates, through later observations by Robert Burton and Søren Kierkegaard, to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists, such as Charles Darwin, William James, and Sigmund Freud, as they began to explore its sources and causes, to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety, as well as on the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotion’s myriad manifestations and the anguish anxiety produces but also the countless psychotherapies, medications, and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. Stossel vividly depicts anxiety’s human toll—its crippling impact, its devastating power to paralyze—while at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it. My Age of Anxiety is learned and empathetic, humorous and inspirational, offering the reader great insight into the biological, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.

    But when Isaacson, a lifelong horseman, rode their neighbor's horse with Rowan, Rowan improved immeasurably. He was struck with a crazy idea: why not take Rowan to Mongolia, the one place in the world where horses and shamanic healing intersected? THE HORSE BOY is the dramatic and heartwarming story of that impossible adventure. In Mongolia, the family found undreamed of landscapes and people, unbearable setbacks, and advances beyond their wildest dreams. This is a deeply moving, truly one-of-a-kind story--of a family willing to go to the ends of the earth to help their son, and of a boy learning to connect with the world for the first time.

    As a neuro-diverse kid diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD who didn't learn to read until he was twelve, the realization that that he wasn't the problem--the system and the concept of normal were--saved Mooney's life and fundamentally changed his outlook. Here he explores the toll that being not normal takes on kids and adults when they're trapped in environments that label them, shame them, and tell them, even in subtle ways, that they are the problem. But, he argues, if we can reorient the ways in which we think about diversity, abilities, and disabilities, we can start a revolution.A highly sought after public speaker, Mooney has been inspiring audiences with his story and his message for nearly two decades. Now he's ready to share what he's learned from parents, educators, researchers, and kids in a book that is as much a survival guide as it is a call to action. Whip-smart, insightful, and utterly inspiring--and movingly framed as a letter to his own young sons, as they work to find their ways in the world--this book will upend what we call normal and empower us all.

    Yet estimates are that upwards of eight million Americans are chronic self-injurers. They are people who use knives, razor blades, or broken glass to cut themselves. Their numbers include the actor Johnny Depp, Girl Interrupted author Susanna Kaysen, and the late Princess Diana.Mistakenly viewed as suicide attempts or senseless masochism--even by many health professionals--"cutting" is actually a complex means of coping with emotional pain. Marilee Strong explores this hidden epidemic through case studies, startling new research from psychologists, trauma experts, and neuroscientists, and the heartbreaking insights of cutters themselves--who range from troubled teenagers to middle-age professionals to grandparents. Strong explains what factors lead to self-mutilation, why cutting helps people manage overwhelming fear and anxiety, and how cutters can heal both their internal and external wounds and break the self-destructive cycle. A Bright Red Scream is a groundbreaking, essential resource for victims of self-mutilation, their families, teachers, doctors, and therapists.

    Cutting-edge research shows that today's 24/7 wired world and the growing demands of work and family life may simply max out the part of the brain that manages complex tasks. That's especially true for those lacking strong executive skills--the core brain-based abilities needed to maintain focus, meet deadlines, and stay cool under pressure. In this essential guide, leading experts Peg Dawson and Richard Guare help you map your own executive skills profile and take effective steps to boost your organizational skills, time management, emotional control, and nine other essential capacities. The book is packed with science-based strategies and concrete examples, plus downloadable practical tools for creating your own personalized action plan. Whether on the job or at home, you can get more done with less stress. See also the authors' Smart but Scattered parenting guides, plus an academic planner for students and related titles for professionals.