I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder PDF Download

Author: Sarah Kurchak
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
ISBN: 1771622474
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Sarah Kurchak is autistic. She hasn’t let that get in the way of pursuing her dream to become a writer, or to find love, but she has let it get in the way of being in the same room with someone chewing food loudly, and of cleaning her bathroom sink. In I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, Kurchak examines the Byzantine steps she took to become “an autistic success story,” how the process almost ruined her life and how she is now trying to recover. Growing up undiagnosed in small-town Ontario in the eighties and nineties, Kurchak realized early that she was somehow different from her peers. She discovered an effective strategy to fend off bullying: she consciously altered nearly everything about herself—from her personality to her body language. She forced herself to wear the denim jeans that felt like being enclosed in a sandpaper iron maiden. Every day, she dragged herself through the door with an elevated pulse and a churning stomach, nearly crumbling under the effort of the performance. By the time she was finally diagnosed with autism at twenty-seven, she struggled with depression and anxiety largely caused by the same strategy she had mastered precisely. She came to wonder, were all those years of intensely pretending to be someone else really worth it? Tackling everything from autism parenting culture to love, sex, alcohol, obsessions and professional pillow fighting, Kurchak’s enlightening memoir challenges stereotypes and preconceptions about autism and considers what might really make the lives of autistic people healthier, happier and more fulfilling.

Author: Sarah Kurchak
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
ISBN: 9781771622462
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
An autistic writer's memoir of the detrimental effects of pretending to be normal, and her impassioned call to redefine what is considered a successful life.

Author: Robert Rand
Publisher: Terrace Books
ISBN: 9780299201609
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
"In this memoir, Robert Rand tells the tale of how social dancing freed him from the grip of panic disorder. Rand was a serious man, a scholarly, shy and intense perfectionist who achieved national recognition in his career. He was a senior editor on the staff of National Public Radio's All Things Considered when, in the midst of his success, panic attacks overwhelmed him. For more than two years, he suffered debilitating effects; the disease flattened his spirits and entirely stripped him of self-confidence. He crawled through his days, barely getting by." "Then Rand discovered social dancing, in particular Cajun and zydeco dance and music. Dancing became a cathartic and liberating endeavor, helping him beat back his panic disorder to gain control of his life. Rand found on the dance floor a new compelling world where absolute strangers physically embrace; a world where that embrace can turn volatile when the strangers are of different races; a romantic and passionate world, for dancing is how Rand met his wife."--Jacket.

Author: Stella Acquarone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429919247
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
As a group, babies later diagnosed as autistic are found to have more complications during gestation and delivery than their normal siblings and others. In addition to all these complications, infants later diagnosed on the autistic spectrum have a two-fold rate of residence in neonatal intensive care units. Over the past 50 years, ever younger previously non-viable very low weight babies are being kept alive, some born as much as four months before term. However, it is becoming apparent that miraculous procedures to counteract organ immaturity and prolonged incubation contribute to a new gamut of hitherto unknown forms of neurological damage. With pregnancy curtailed, prematurely separated mothers and their babies both experience a prolonged state of limbo, with the fragile infant being exposed to excruciating medical interventions and overwhelming stimulation. International researchers and clinicians renowned for their work in the field of early autism come together to resolve queries around the long debate on the development and resolution of autism.

Author: Charlotte Amelia Poe
Publisher: Myriad Editions
ISBN: 1912408333
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
An urgent, funny, shocking, and impassioned memoir by the winner of the Spectrum Art Prize 2018, How To Be Autistic presents the rarely shown point of view of someone living with autism. Poe's voice is confident, moving and often funny, as she reveals to us a very personal account of autism, mental illness, gender and sexual identity. As we follow Charlotte's journey through school and college, we become as awestruck by her extraordinary passion for life as by the enormous privations that she must undergo to live it. From food and fandom, to body modification and comic conventions, Charlotte's experiences through the torments of schooldays and young adulthood leave us with a riot of conflicting emotions: horror, empathy, despair, laugh-out-loud amusement and, most of all, respect.

Author: Temple Grandin PhD
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 9780446671828
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
A true story that is both uniquely moving and exceptionally inspiring, Emergence is the first-hand account of a courageous autistic woman who beat the odds and cured herself. As a child, Temple Grandin was forced to leave her "normal" school and enroll in a school for autistic children. This searingly honest account captures the isolation and fears suffered by autistics and their families and the quiet strength of one woman who insisted on a miracle.

Author: Bruce Kirkby
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643135694
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A warm and unforgettable portrait of a family letting go of the known world to encounter an unfamiliar one filled with rich possibilities and new understandings. Bruce Kirkby had fallen into a pattern of looking mindlessly at his phone for hours, flipping between emails and social media, ignoring his children and wife and everything alive in his world, when a thought struck him. This wasn't living; this wasn't him. This moment of clarity started a chain reaction which ended with a grand plan: he was going to take his wife and two young sons, jump on a freighter and head for the Himalaya. In Blue Sky Kingdom, we follow Bruce and his family's remarkable three months journey, where they would end up living amongst the Lamas of Zanskar Valley, a forgotten appendage of the ancient Tibetan empire, and one of the last places on earth where Himalayan Buddhism is still practiced freely in its original setting. Richly evocative, Blue Sky Kingdom explores the themes of modern distraction and the loss of ancient wisdom coupled with Bruce coming to terms with his elder son's diagnosis on the Autism Spectrum. Despite the natural wonders all around them at times, Bruce's experience will strike a chord with any parent—from rushing to catch a train with the whole family to the wonderment and beauty that comes with experience the world anew with your children.

Author: Claire Finlayson
Publisher: Caitlin Press
ISBN: 9781773860305
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
As a child, Claire's big brother Ray was always bright and inquisitive, and she looked up to him. But as the two became teenagers, Ray struggled to acquire the social skills that came more easily to Claire and their friends. Claire tried to help, pointing out what he should or shouldn't have said or done. Ray insisted that he wasn't the problem--"On my planet...", he would explain, there were no social climbers, no cocktail parties, no subtle hints or subliminal messages to miss. On his planet, the telling of little white lies would be a capital offence. At sixteen, sitting with him in the high school cafeteria, Claire vowed to find Ray's "planet." After graduation, Ray took a job as a letter carrier with Canada Post, but after thirty-three years on the job he had developed plantar fasciitis, his feet so painful he couldn't walk. Instead of seeking medical help, he began leaving mail in his truck overnight--a serious dereliction of duty. He was fired, blew his appeal, and spiralled into a suicidal depression. Claire didn't know he was in trouble until he reached out to her by email. Thus began a remarkable email correspondence that pulled back the curtain on an inner life Claire couldn't have imagined. Where in-person interactions plunged him into hot water, by email, Ray's writing revealed a compassionate, funny, sad man who showed extraordinary insight into his often self-destructive way of navigating the world. Ray was fifty when Claire realized he might have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but by then, having survived without a diagnosis his whole life, Ray was reluctant to have a label pinned on him and resisted Claire's efforts to fix him by trying, in all sincerity, to make him more like her. Dispatches From Ray's Planet draws on Ray and Claire's correspondence to tell the story of two siblings from two very different planets. There are thousands of Rays in our world, hiding in basements or holding up walls at social functions. In this collective memoir, Claire and Ray share their journey with the hope that others can also learn that we all perceive the world in different ways, and that "different" does not necessarily mean dangerous.

Author: Jana O'Dell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
Cyanide Kisses: The works of a manic, bipolar, dissociative mind is a powerful, roller coaster journey through one woman's mind and her continuous battle with mental health. Each poem is filled with raw emotion guaranteed to capture readers attention while introducing the author's private world and how she has dealt with the emotions she faces daily. Mental health is one of the most common afflictions facing the world. Jana O'Dell courageously shows us her personal struggles while highlighting her highs and lows in a style that is both engaging, relatable and unique. Cyanide Kisses, with its free flowing form and classic rule breaking format, will make you reflect in ways you never have before; and leave you with a better understanding of how mental illness can affect someone in a way they never let be seen.

Author: Kimberly Clark
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578798493
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This mini memoir is a celebration of my life story thus far and a motivational self-help book to build awareness in women about their mental health, sexuality and personality; and how they simultaneously work together in producing the women that we are today.Secondly, and most importantly, this mini memoir is to stop the misuse of the word "bipolar." Too often people will call everyone from their mean bosses to misunderstood girlfriends "bipolar" simply because they are having a bad day. Mental illness is far more serious than someone acting negatively toward another person.Experiences can impede our desired prosperity and detour you to unknown territories. These territories can be unhealthy relationships, unfulfilling marriages and unlived dreams. The key to positive growth is to go with the ups and downs. As things shake out, you must honor, respect and accept the parts that make up the true you... a greater you. We as women need to own the rights of our past to claim a fulfilling and prosperous future. I swear I had to be manic the first decades of my life. Although, with a mild mania, I remember being so joyfully content. My childhood, hands down, was a cake walk. My parents made sure that my siblings and I had what we needed and delivered most of our wants. Yes, I was spoiled, however not rotten. I loved Love, and I expressed it every day, around whoever I was with and was confident in the person I was becoming.This mini memoir is a compilation of my personal life stories, up to the age of 51, which reveals an array of behaviors, actions and intentions...both nice and naughty. I'm not ashamed of my past. Despite many fallouts, I am proud of myself and feel blessed to still be walking the Earth. I thank God every day.