Me Myself And Them A Firsthand Account Of One Young Persons Experience With Schizophrenia

Download or read book Me, Myself, and Them : A Firsthand Account of One Young Person's Experience with Schizophrenia written by Kurt Snyder and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007-10-03 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During his second semester at college, Kurt Snyder became convinced that he was about to discover a fabulously important mathematical principle, spending hours lost in daydreams about numbers and symbols. In time, his thoughts took a darker turn, and he became preoccupied with the idea that cars were following him, or that strangers wanted to harm him. Kurt's mind had been hijacked by schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder that typically strikes during the late teen or young adult years. In Me, Myself, and Them, Kurt, now an adult, looks back from the vantage point of recovery and eloquently describes the debilitating changes in thoughts and perceptions that took hold of his life during his teens and twenties. As a memoir, this book is remarkable for its unvarnished look at the slow and difficult process of coming back from severe mental illness. Yet Kurt's memoir is only half the story. With the help of psychiatrist Raquel E. Gur, M.D., Ph.D., and veteran science writer Linda Wasmer Andrews, Kurt paints the big picture for others affected by adolescent schizophrenia. Drawing on the latest scientific and medical evidence, he explains how to recognize warning signs, where to find help, and what treatments have proved effective. Kurt also offers practical advice on topics of particular interest to young people, such as suggestions on managing the illness at home, school, and work, and in relationships with family and friends. Part of the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative series of books written specifically for teens and young adults, My, Myself, and Them offers hope to young people who are struggling with schizophrenia, helping them to understand and manage the challenges of this illness and go on to lead healthy lives.

Download or read book Eight Stories Up written by DeQuincy Lezine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-14 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a teenager, DeQuincy Lezine nearly ended his own life, believing it was the only way to escape the emotional pain that was overwhelming him. Instead, Lezine was able to find expert psychiatric care, and went on to found the first university campus-based chapter of the Suicide Prevention Action Network USA. Now a researcher at the University of Rochester's Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide, Lezine has devoted his life to preventing suicide in adolescents, and he brings the wealth of his personal and professional experience to bear in Eight Stories Up. He starts by describing his deteriorating state of mind in college, using his own email archive to retell the episode that would nearly claim his life. He then offers hard-earned wisdom and practical advice to other young people who may be considering suicide. In straightforward, easy-to-understand language, and drawing on the psychiatric expertise of David Brent, MD, Lezine discusses the potential causes of suicide in adolescents, how to seek psychiatric treatment, and how to get the most out of professional help. He also surveys some of the therapies used to prevent suicide, how to talk to loved ones about suicidal thoughts, and how to stay healthy at home and at school. The result is both a remarkable memoir and a useful guide that will ease the isolation and hopelessness caused by thoughts of suicide, helping young people to overcome their troubles in a safe and healthy way. Part of the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative series of books written specifically for teens and young adults, Eight Stories Up offers hope to young people who are at risk of suicide, extending a lifeline of support and guidance that can save their lives.

Download or read book Chasing the High written by Kyle Keegan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kyle Keegan was like many teenagers: eager to fit in at school, he experimented with alcohol and drugs. Soon, his abuse of these substances surpassed experimentation and became a ruthless addiction to heroin that nearly destroyed his life. Now in recovery, Keegan tells his remarkable story in Chasing the High. Starting with the early days of alcohol and drug use, Keegan charts his decline into crime and homelessness as his need for heroin surpassed all thoughts of family and friends, of right and wrong. He then goes on to use these experiences to offer guidance and practical advice to other young people who may be struggling with substance abuse. In straightforward, easy-to-understand language and along with the psychiatric expertise of Howard Moss, MD, Keegan discusses what is known about the neurobiology of addiction in young people, how to seek treatment, and how to get the most out of professional help. He also covers such topics as which therapies are used to combat addiction, how to talk to family and friends about substance abuse, and how to navigate risky situations. Both an absorbing memoir and a useful resource for young people. Part of the Adolescent Mental Health Initiative series of books written specifically for teens and young adults, Chasing the High is at once both an absorbing memoir and a useful resource. It offers hope to those who are struggling with substance abuse and will help them to overcome its challenges and to go on to lead healthy, productive lives.

Download or read book If Your Adolescent Has Schizophrenia written by Raquel E. Gur and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses warning signs, diagnosis, treatments, and daily handling of schizophrenia in adolescents and provides advice from parents.

Download or read book Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-09-03 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.

Download or read book Night Falls Fast written by Kay Redfield Jamison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-01-12 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical reading for parents, educators, and anyone wanting to understand the tragic epidemic of suicide—”a powerful book [that] will change people's lives—and, doubtless, save a few" (Newsday). The first major book in a quarter century on suicide—and its terrible pull on the young in particular—Night Falls Fast is tragically timely: suicide has become one of the most common killers of Americans between the ages of fifteen and forty-five. From the author of the best-selling memoir, An Unquiet Mind—and an internationally acknowledged authority on depression—Dr. Jamison has also known suicide firsthand: after years of struggling with manic-depression, she tried at age twenty-eight to kill herself. Weaving together a historical and scientific exploration of the subject with personal essays on individual suicides, she brings not only her remarkable compassion and literary skill but also all of her knowledge and research to bear on this devastating problem. This is a book that helps us to understand the suicidal mind, to recognize and come to the aid of those at risk, and to comprehend the profound effects on those left behind.

Download or read book Tell Your Children written by Alex Berenson and published by Free Press. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In “a brilliant antidote to all the…false narratives about pot” (American Thinker), an award-winning author and former New York Times reporter reveals the link between teenage marijuana use and mental illness, and a hidden epidemic of violence caused by the drug—facts the media have ignored as the United States rushes to legalize cannabis. Recreational marijuana is now legal in nine states. Advocates argue cannabis can help everyone from veterans to cancer sufferers. But legalization has been built on myths—that marijuana arrests fill prisons; that most doctors want to use cannabis as medicine; that it can somehow stem the opiate epidemic; that it is beneficial for mental health. In this meticulously reported book, Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, explodes those myths, explaining that almost no one is in prison for marijuana; a tiny fraction of doctors write most authorizations for medical marijuana, mostly for people who have already used; and marijuana use is linked to opiate and cocaine use. Most of all, THC—the chemical in marijuana responsible for the drug’s high—can cause psychotic episodes. “Alex Berenson has a reporter’s tenacity, a novelist’s imagination, and an outsider’s knack for asking intemperate questions” (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker), as he ranges from the London institute that is home to the scientists who helped prove the cannabis-psychosis link to the Colorado prison where a man now serves a thirty-year sentence after eating a THC-laced candy bar and killing his wife. He sticks to the facts, and they are devastating. With the US already gripped by one drug epidemic, Tell Your Children is a “well-written treatise” (Publishers Weekly) that “takes a sledgehammer to the promised benefits of marijuana legalization, and cannabis enthusiasts are not going to like it one bit” (Mother Jones).