From the bestselling author of the classic book on ADD, Driven to Distraction, a memoir of the strange upbringing that shaped Dr. Edward M. Hallowell's celebrated career. When Edward M. Hallowell was eleven, a voice out of nowhere told him he should become a psychiatrist. A mental health professional of the time would have called this psychosis. But young Edward (Ned) took it in stride, despite not quite knowing what "psychiatrist" meant. With a psychotic father, alcoholic mother, abusive stepfather, and two so-called learning disabilities of his own, Ned was accustomed to unpredictable behavior from those around him, and to a mind he felt he couldn't always control. The voice turned out to be right. Now, decades later, Hallowell is a leading expert on attention disorders and the author of twenty books, including Driven to Distraction, the work that introduced ADD to the world. In Because I Come from a Crazy Family, he tells the often strange story of a childhood marked by what he calls the "WASP triad" of alcoholism, mental illness, and politeness, and explores the wild wish, surging beneath his incredible ambition, that he could have saved his own family of drunk, crazy, and well-intentioned eccentrics, and himself. Because I Come from a Crazy Family is an affecting, at times harrowing, ultimately moving memoir about crazy families and where they can lead, about being called to the mental health profession, and about the unending joys and challenges that come with helping people celebrate who they are. A portion of the author's proceeds of this book will go to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

What if you could read one book that would change the course of your family forever? A book that would show you a clear pathway to an awesome, Jesus-focused family where everyone in the family loves Jesus and loves each other deeply? A book that would help you be confident your kids will leave your nest connected to you and walking with Jesus?Crazy Cool Family is that book! Authors Don and Suzanne Manning, parents of seven godly children and ministers to hundreds of Crazy Cool Families over the last decade, deliver a uniquely gifted message that will cause you to Rethink the Way You Do Family!They asked Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40 what was most important in life. He said life was about relationships, first with our Heavenly Father and then with others around us. The same is true for family. Family is our most important network of relationships and the strength of our family will be determined by the strength of all of the family relationships.This book will show you how to navigate all of the relationships in your home so that everyone in the home loves and likes each other as well as show you how to create a culture in your home so that everyone wants to be there! Filled with stories, humor, and love, this is a book you will refer to again and again as a treasure map to unlock the unique, amazing family God has for you!

Presents a five-part plan for finding happiness by tapping into one's creativity.

A psychologist offers a roadmap for those looking to break free of toxic family relationships and thrive in the aftermath. Toxic family abuse is always two-fold. The first layer of abuse is the original poor treatment by toxic family members, and the second is someone’s denial of the ways in which abusers treat and harm them. Loving someone doesn’t always mean having a relationship with them, just like forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation. A significant part of healing comes with accepting that there are some relationships that are so poisonous that they destroy one’s ability to be healthy and function best. But It’s Your Family is a remarkable account of what it means to cut ties to toxic family abuse and thrive in the aftermath. Inside, Dr. Sherrie Campbell clarifies: · How parents, adult children, siblings, grandparents, and in-laws can be toxic · The difference between flawed and toxic family members · Explaining the cutting of ties to children and others who may not understand · Spiritual and religious views on forgiveness · The definition of cutting ties and what No Contact actually means When readers are able to bring closure to those toxic relationships, they give themselves the space to love those family members from a distance, as fellow human beings, with the knowledge that it is unwise to remain connected. Readers learn how to love themselves in the process and fundamentally change their lives for the better!

Weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis, Same Family, Different Colors explores the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States. Colorism and color bias—the preference for or presumed superiority of people based on the color of their skin—is a pervasive and damaging but rarely openly discussed phenomenon. In this unprecedented book, Lori L. Tharps explores the issue in African American, Latino, Asian American, and mixed-race families and communities by weaving together personal stories, history, and analysis. The result is a compelling portrait of the myriad ways skin-color politics affect family dynamics in the United States. Tharps, the mother of three mixed-race children with three distinct skin colors, uses her own family as a starting point to investigate how skin-color difference is dealt with. Her journey takes her across the country and into the lives of dozens of diverse individuals, all of whom have grappled with skin-color politics and speak candidly about experiences that sometimes scarred them. From a Latina woman who was told she couldn’t be in her best friend’s wedding photos because her dark skin would “spoil” the pictures, to a light-skinned African American man who spent his entire childhood “trying to be Black,” Tharps illuminates the complex and multifaceted ways that colorism affects our self-esteem and shapes our lives and relationships. Along with intimate and revealing stories, Tharps adds a historical overview and a contemporary cultural critique to contextualize how various communities and individuals navigate skin-color politics. Groundbreaking and urgent, Same Family, Different Colors is a solution-seeking journey to the heart of identity politics, so that this more subtle “cousin to racism,” in the author’s words, will be exposed and confronted.

How MUCH is the crazy-much love?' This simple question is answered as two parents recount the journey of adopting their daughter and the many milestone moments that follow. From the child's first bath and first time riding a tricycle, all the way to her boarding that big yellow bus, the crazy-much love grows SO MUCH that it spills out the windows and busts down the doors.

A revolutionary new approach to ADD/ADHD featuring cutting-edge research and strategies to help readers thrive, by the bestselling authors of the seminal books Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction “An inspired road map for living with a distractible brain . . . If you or your child suffer from ADHD, this book should be on your shelf. It will give you courage and hope.”—Michael Thompson, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling co-author of Raising Cain World-renowned authors Dr. Edward M. Hallowell and Dr. John J. Ratey literally “wrote the book” on ADD/ADHD more than two decades ago. Their bestseller, Driven to Distraction, largely introduced this diagnosis to the public and sold more than a million copies along the way. Now, most people have heard of ADHD and know someone who may have it. But lost in the discussion of both childhood and adult diagnosis of ADHD is the potential upside: Many hugely successful entrepreneurs and highly creative people attribute their achievements to ADHD. Also unknown to most are the recent research developments, including innovations that give a clearer understanding of the ADHD brain in action. In ADHD 2.0, Drs. Hallowell and Ratey, both of whom have this “variable attention trait,” draw on the latest science to provide both parents and adults with ADHD a plan for minimizing the downside and maximizing the benefits of ADHD at any age. They offer an arsenal of new strategies and lifestyle hacks for thriving with ADHD, including • Find the right kind of difficult. Use these behavior assessments to discover the work, activity, or creative outlet best suited to an individual’s unique strengths. • Reimagine environment. What specific elements to look for—at home, at school, or in the workplace—to enhance the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit inherent in the ADHD mind. • Embrace innate neurological tendencies. Take advantage of new findings about the brain’s default mode network and cerebellum, which confer major benefits for people with ADHD. • Tap into the healing power of connection. Tips for establishing and maintaining positive connection “the other Vitamind C” and the best antidote to the negativity that plagues so many people with ADHD. • Consider medication. Gets the facts about the underlying chemistry, side effects, and proven benefits of all the pharmaceutical options. As inspiring as it is practical, ADHD 2.0 will help you tap into the power of this mercurial condition and find the key that unlocks potential.

Seventy now-adult children of divorce give their candid and often heart-wrenching answers to eight questions (arranged in eight chapters, by question), including: What were the main effects of your parents' divorce on your life? What do you say to those who claim that "children are resilient" and "children are happy when their parents are happy"? What would you like to tell your parents then and now? What do you want adults in our culture to know about divorce? What role has your faith played in your healing? Their simple and poignant responses are difficult to read and yet not without hope. Most of the contributors--women and men, young and old, single and married--have never spoken of the pain and consequences of their parents' divorce until now. They have often never been asked, and they believe that no one really wants to know. Despite vastly different circumstances and details, the similarities in their testimonies are striking; as the reader will discover, the death of a child's family impacts the human heart in universal ways.

“A magnificent gift to those of us who love someone who has a mental illness…Earley has used his considerable skills to meticulously research why the mental health system is so profoundly broken.”—Bebe Moore Campbell, author of 72 Hour Hold Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son—in the throes of a manic episode—broke into a neighbor's house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law. This is the Earley family's compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the “revolving doors” between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience—and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way.

A “raw and honest” (Los Angeles Review of Books) memoir from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a haunting, visionary memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice.