When Molly McCloskey was a young girl, her brother Mike, 14 years her senior, started showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Through reading an astonishing archive of letters preserved by her mother and grandmother, and interviewing old friends of Mike's, she began to piece together a picture of his life.

"He Came In With It is the chronology of a mother and her family's coping with mental illness: the hurdles of diagnosis and treatment -- of stigma, denial, shame-- of pretending that things are T-square perfect for all the lacquered world"--

"Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the 'collected schizophrenias' but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community's own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations...

Dramatic biography of John Nash, a mathematical genius, who made an astonishing discovery early in his career and stood on the brink of international acclaim. But the handsome and arrogant Nash soon found himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery. After many years of struggle, he eventually triumphed over his schizophrenia, and finally, late in life, received the Nobel Prize.

Moving, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting, Lori Schiller's memoir is a classic testimony to the ravages of mental illness and the power of perseverance and courage. At seventeen Lori Schiller was the perfect child-the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit family. Six years later, she made her first suicide attempt, then wandered the streets of New York City dressed in ragged clothes, tormenting voices crying out in her mind. Lori Schiller had...

"A compelling foray into the life and work of poet philosopher Walter K. Delbridge. From rising star of the civil rights era to outcast 'schizophrenic,' Delbridge reclaims his dignity in poetry and prose, constructing beauty from fragmented structures of oppression. Living a life of relative isolation, he determined to 'steel' his mind through study and creative expression, building inner pathways of resilience that would lead to his recovery and...

Dawn Elgin was destined to be a 1940s big-band star. From the time she was fourteen, she took her place at the microphone in Houston's elite Empire Room and sang with the voice of a jazz angel. Vibrant and glamorous, she boldly pursued her love of performing to New Orleans, Hollywood, and New York, where she gave birth to her daughter, Tara, when she was twenty-one. Then Dawn began to suffer persistent visions of a deathly specter at her bedside....