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Mental Health Memoirs

May is Mental Health Awareness Month! Take care of yourself and check out these memoirs written about life with mental illness–some are moving, some are funny, but all are compelling voices putting often-isolating experiences into words.

The blind woodsman : one man's journey to find his purpose on the other side of darkness

by John Furniss

John Furniss, known as "The Blind Woodsman," recounts his struggles with depression, drug addiction, and blindness; features his inspirational story and images of his woodworking.

The complications : on going insane in America

by Emmett Rensin

In this intimate portrait of what it's like to live with schizoaffective disorder of the bipolar type, the author invites us into every aspect of his life as he reflects on the uncertain “science” of diagnosis, the nature of art about and by the insane and the history of madness.

Everyone but myself : a memoir

by Julie Chavez

For Julie, an elementary school librarian and mother of two boys, there was no time for debilitating anxiety. Yet the terrifying aftershocks of her first panic attack left her grappling with questions about the causes of her mental health crisis and where it would lead next. What follows is a hopeful, honest account of love and loss, a husband who can't read minds, disastrous family outings, and finding a path (with help from loved ones and a few key new friends) to the joy of a well-lived life. Sure to resonate with mothers spread thin by the demands of modern family life, Everyone But Myself offers an intimate portrait of how one woman found her way back to herself. 

Heart berries : a memoir 

by Terese Marie Mailhot

The author recounts her coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest where she survived a dysfunctional childhood and found herself hospitalized with a dual diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar II disorder.

Heavy : an American memoir

by Kiese Laymon

An essayist and novelist explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.

Hyperbole and a half : unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened

by Allie Brosh

Collects autobiographical, illustrated essays and cartoons from the author's popular blog and related new material that humorously and candidly deals with her own idiosyncrasies and battles with depression.

I'm telling the truth, but I'm lying : essays 

by Bassey Ikpi

A deeply personal collection of essays by the Nigerian-American writer and creator of #NoShameDay explores how her childhood move from Nigeria to Oklahoma was complicated by Bipolar II and anxiety disorders.

Invisible wounds

by Jess Ruliffson

Shares the stories of men, women and non-binary people who struggle to reconcile their wartime experiences with their postwar lives, revealing how America's endless entanglement in wars has affected the psyches of the people who wage them.

I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki

by Sehee Baek

A successful young social media director at a publishing house chronicles her 10 years of psychiatric treatment for depression and she fought back against the harmful behaviors that kept her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. 

Line in the Sand : A Life-changing Journey Through a Body and a Mind After Trauma

by Dean Yates

Dean Yates was the ideal warzone correspondent: courageous, compassionate, dedicated. After years of facing the worst, though, including the Bali bombings and the Boxing Day tsunami, one final incident undid him. In July 2007, two of his staff members were brutally gunned down by an American helicopter in Iraq. What followed was an unravelling of everything Dean thought he knew of himself. His PTSD was compounded by his moral wound - the devastation of what he thought he knew of the world and his own character and beliefs. After years of treatment, including several stints inside a psychiatric facility, Dean has reshaped his view of the true meaning of life. Here, in all its guts and glory, is that journey to a better way of being. Dean has been to the blackest heart of humanity and come out with strength and hope. Line in the Sand is a memoir that is going to resonate for generations to come. It tackles the most important topic of our age in an unforgettable way.

Little panic : dispatches from an anxious life

by Amanda Stern

The author of the Frankly Frannie series presents a relatable, darkly comic memoir about her lifelong struggles with anxiety, tracing her upbringing by a bohemian mother and sanitized, affluent father in a transforming New York City. 

Marbles : mania, depression, Michelangelo, and me : a graphic memoir

by Ellen Forney

An artist describes her bipolar disorder diagnosis and her struggles with mental stability while discussing other artists and creative people throughout history who were also labeled as “crazy” including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe and Sylvia Plath. 

Stolen : a memoir

by Elizabeth Gilpin

An actress and producer, who suffered from crippling, undiagnosed depression in her teens, recounts her harrowing experience of psychological manipulation and abuse at a “therapeutic” boarding school where every moment was a test of survival, and shares how she was able to heal in the aftermath. 

Sure, i'll join your cult : a memoir of mental illness and the quest to belong anywhere

by Maria Bamford

From "weird, scary, ingenious" (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, a brutally honest and hilariously frenetic memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems-from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Suzuki violin training, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs. Maria Bamford is a comedian's comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. Singular and inimitable, Bamford's memoir explores what it means to keep going, and to be a member of society (or any group she's invited to) despite not being very good at it. In turn, she hopes to transform isolating experiences into comedy that will make you feel less alone (without turning into a cult following).

They called us exceptional : and other lies that raised us

by Prachi Gupta

Weaving a deeply vulnerable personal narrative with history, postcolonial theory and research on mental health, an award-winning journalist and former senior reporter at Jezebel articulates the dissonance, shame and isolation of being upheld as an American success story while privately navigating traumas invisible to the outside world.

Unshrunk : a story of psychiatric treatment resistance

by Laura Delano

A memoir of navigating psychiatric diagnoses and medications, chronicling the author's thirteen-year struggle within the mental health system, her decision to reject prescribed treatments, and her journey to redefine herself while questioning the influence of psychiatry and pharmaceuticals on human identity.