How to Live When You Want to Die


Book Description

n How to Live When You Want to Die, LeAnn Hull opens up about the heartbreaking experience of losing a child to suicide and the subsequent discovery of a purpose-driven conviction to spread love, inspiration and encouragement in the midst of her grief. Her message strikes a welcome chord with anyone struggling through loss or trauma of any nature.Hull lost her 16-year-old son to suicide in 2012. Andy was a great student, a star pitcher scouted by major league baseball teams, on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout, and was dearly loved by his friends. Andy's suicide sent a piercing thunderbolt through the hearts of many thousands of people-his family, his friends and his community. LeAnn Hull is a dear and trusted friend with whom I have shared a tremendous amount of my grief journey. Her wit, honesty and down-to-earth wisdom have helped many members of Helping Parents Heal move forward. LeAnn has not only survived the passing of her beautiful son Andy; she has also created an impressive nonprofit, Andy Hull's Sunshine Foundation, that honors his legacy. She has dedicated her life to saving lives of others. LeAnn now spends much of her time traveling throughout the country, delivering her uplifting 'You Matter' message to businesses, schools and military bases. Among many other things, the foundation is instrumental in gifting children with a love of books through its Sunshine Readers program. LeAnn's book, How to Live When You Want to Die, is a roadmap - for those who are suffering from the passing of a loved one - for embarking on their own journey of healing and hope. LeAnn shows, through personal life experience, that we can both survive the passing of a beloved child and lead a purposeful and joyful life once again. Elizabeth Boisson, President and Co-Founder of Helping Parents HealAnyone who assumes this book would be depressing to read will find themselves surprisingly uplifted. LeAnn Hull gently takes readers through the nuanced, yet richly rewarding, layers of her healing journey after the physical death of her beautiful son Andy. If you have ever grieved, or if you are grieving now, please read this book as soon as possible. It will help you recognize the many gifts brought about by your own relationships with loved ones, even in death. You will also be able to see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that none of your loved ones beyond the veil are ever really "lost." Susanne J. Wilson, MA, author of Soul Smart: What the Dead Teach Us About Spirit Communication




Suicide


Book Description

This is a frank, compassionate book written to those who contemplate suicide as a way out of their situations. The author issues an invitation to life, helping people accept the imperfections of their lives, and opening eyes to the possibilities of love.




Top Five Regrets of the Dying


Book Description

Revised edition of the best-selling memoir that has been read by over a million people worldwide with translations in 29 languages. After too many years of unfulfilling work, Bronnie Ware began searching for a job with heart. Despite having no formal qualifications or previous experience in the field, she found herself working in palliative care. During the time she spent tending to those who were dying, Bronnie's life was transformed. Later, she wrote an Internet blog post, outlining the most common regrets that the people she had cared for had expressed. The post gained so much momentum that it was viewed by more than three million readers worldwide in its first year. At the request of many, Bronnie subsequently wrote a book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, to share her story. Bronnie has had a colourful and diverse life. By applying the lessons of those nearing their death to her own life, she developed an understanding that it is possible for everyone, if we make the right choices, to die with peace of mind. In this revised edition of the best-selling memoir that has been read by over a million people worldwide, with translations in 29 languages, Bronnie expresses how significant these regrets are and how we can positively address these issues while we still have the time. The Top Five Regrets of the Dying gives hope for a better world. It is a courageous, life-changing book that will leave you feeling more compassionate and inspired to live the life you are truly here to live.




The Procrastinator's Guide to Killing Yourself


Book Description

This book is for those of us who are looking into a huge black hole and feeling that life is not worth living. It might also help those who love someone who is feeling that way. For 20 years Gareth Edwards worked in mental health and suicide prevention as a government advisor, university researcher and designer of innovative services. In The Procrastinator's Guide to Killing Yourself he shares how he found his own 'suicide prevention' came from a place of 'suicide procrastination'. Short stories are told with heartfelt humour as Gareth walks you through his five steps of 'living yourself' to find a way forward rather than a way out.




This Close to Happy


Book Description

A New York Times Book Review Favorite Read of 2016 “Despair is always described as dull,” writes Daphne Merkin, “when the truth is that despair has a light all its own, a lunar glow, the color of mottled silver.” This Close to Happy—Merkin’s rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression—captures this strange light. Daphne Merkin has been hospitalized three times: first, in grade school, for childhood depression; years later, after her daughter was born, for severe postpartum depression; and later still, after her mother died, for obsessive suicidal thinking. Recounting this series of hospitalizations, as well as her visits to myriad therapists and psychopharmacologists, Merkin fearlessly offers what the child psychiatrist Harold Koplewicz calls “the inside view of navigating a chronic psychiatric illness to a realistic outcome.” The arc of Merkin’s affliction is lifelong, beginning in a childhood largely bereft of love and stretching into the present, where Merkin lives a high-functioning life and her depression is manageable, if not “cured.” “The opposite of depression,” she writes with characteristic insight, “is not a state of unimaginable happiness . . . but a state of relative all-right-ness.” In this dark yet vital memoir, Merkin describes not only the harrowing sorrow that she has known all her life, but also her early, redemptive love of reading and gradual emergence as a writer. Written with an acute understanding of the ways in which her condition has evolved as well as affected those around her, This Close to Happy is an utterly candid coming-to-terms with an illness that many share but few talk about, one that remains shrouded in stigma. In the words of the distinguished psychologist Carol Gilligan, “It brings a stunningly perceptive voice into the forefront of the conversation about depression, one that is both reassuring and revelatory.”




Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me


Book Description

An engrossing memoir-meets-investigative report that takes a fresh, frank look at how we treat depression. Depression is a havoc-wreaking illness that masquerades as personal failing and hijacks your life. After a major suicide attempt in her early twenties, Anna Mehler Paperny resolved to put her reporter’s skills to use to get to know her enemy, setting off on a journey to understand her condition, the dizzying array of medical treatments on offer, and a medical profession in search of answers. Charting the way depression wrecks so many lives, she maps competing schools of therapy, pharmacology, cutting-edge medicine, the pill-popping pitfalls of long-term treatment, the glaring unknowns and the institutional shortcomings that both patients and practitioners are up against. She interviews leading medical experts across the US and Canada, from psychiatrists to neurologists, brain-mapping pioneers to family practitioners, and others dabbling in strange hypotheses—and shares compassionate conversations with fellow sufferers. Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me tracks Anna’s quest for knowledge and her desire to get well. Impeccably reported, it is a profoundly compelling story about the human spirit and the myriad ways we treat (and fail to treat) the disease that accounts for more years swallowed up by disability than any other in the world. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available. Contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.




Before I Die


Book Description

After losing someone she loved, artist Candy Chang painted the side of an abandoned house in her New Orleans neighborhood with chalkboard paint and stenciled the sentence, "Before I die I want to _____." Within a day of the wall's completion, it was covered in colorful chalk dreams as neighbors stopped and reflected on their lives. Since then, more than four hundred Before I Die walls have been created by people all over the world. This beautiful hardcover book is an inspiring celebration of these walls and the stories behind them. Filled with hope, fear, humor, and heartbreak, Before I Die presents an intimate portrait of the dreams within our communities and a chance to ponder life's ultimate question.




Make it to Midnight


Book Description

"Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34) "Don't worry." Sounds so simple, doesn't it? In Matthew 6:34, Jesus is encouraging Christians to live in the present. It has been said that depression is pain from the past, and anxiety is pain from the future. In order to live a happy life, we must learn to live in the present. Learning to live this way--the way Jesus prescribes--requires a change in our thinking. In order for this to happen, an understanding of the inner working of our brains is required. The human brain is comprised of two components--a thinking brain and a feeling brain. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, and a host of other mental disorders can be traced back to a conflict between the thinking brain and the feeling brain. Make it to Midnight illustrates that each of us has two sides to our psyche that are often in conflict. Through his research, Jim Denning discovered that we not only have two components to our psyche, we actually have two brains. Jim's goal for this book is to explain the anatomy of that conflict and provide its readers with the tools necessary to achieve a better quality of life and, ultimately, inner peace.




Still Right Here: A True Story of Healing and Hope


Book Description

"Finally, a story about grieving that's not depressing. This is a book filled with hope that life does get better after the death of a loved one." A grateful reader Join former Navy Commander-turned evidential medium Suzanne Giesemann and her husband Ty, a retired U.S. Navy Captain, on a healing journey with three other couples, brought together by their children in the spirit world. These inspiring parents serve as shining examples of those who have experienced the devastating loss of a child, but whose joy in life has been restored through the awareness that their children continue to participate actively in their lives. This book is for you if you have a child or know someone with a child on the other side, are struggling with grief for a loved one who has passed, are seeking evidence of life after death, and/or enjoy true stories about the triumph of the human soul. This powerful true story of a very special voyage provides stunning evidence of how truly thin the veil that separates us from those who have passed can be. Through indisputable accounts of connection with their children and the personal transformations that result, these couples' stories offer comfort and reassurance to those seeking relief from grief and pain. You will come to know, as these parents do, that death is no more than a doorway to life beyond, a life that continues to intersect with ours on a daily basis. Your loved ones are not gone. They are not lost. They are still right here.




Hello Cruel World


Book Description

Celebrated transsexual trailblazer Kate Bornstein has, with more humor and spunk than any other, ushered us into a world of limitless possibility through a daring re-envisionment of the gender system as we know it. Here, Bornstein bravely and wittily shares personal and unorthodox methods of survival in an often cruel world. A one-of-a-kind guide to staying alive outside the box, Hello, Cruel World is a much-needed unconventional approach to life for those who want to stay on the edge, but alive. Hello, Cruel World features a catalog of 101 alternatives to suicide that range from the playful (moisturize!), to the irreverent (shatter some family values), to the highly controversial. Designed to encourage readers to give themselves permission to unleash their hearts' harmless desires, the book has only one directive: "Don't be mean." It is this guiding principle that brings its reader on a self-validating journey, which forges wholly new paths toward a resounding decision to choose life. Tenderly intimate and unapologetically edgy, Kate Bornstein is the radical role model, the affectionate best friend, and the guiding mentor all in one.




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