Defying Mental Illness makes mental health disorders and treatment understandable. It takes the fear and mystery out of mental illness along with the technical jargon. This approach keeps people focused on recovery, which is more about finding a way to move forward than it is about the diagnosis. The book helps people with symptoms and family members collaborate and support each other. Simply written, consensus-based, positive and complete, the book covers schizophrenia, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, childhood mental illness, suicide prevention and more. The book builds recovery with strengths that endure despite the presence of symptoms. It's what a person needs to know to get started with recovery, what family members need to know to support recovery, and what faith-based and community groups need to know to help the people they serve. Revised and updated for 2013, the book is structured to support a simple planning strategy. The first section helps people understand what they are facing. It includes brief descriptions of mental illness symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, mood swings and other behavior changes, and describes major mental health disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. The authors use a developmental approach to childhood mental illness, contrasting ordinary childhood patterns with the extreme symptoms that may require intervention. The book suggests using benign, safe parenting techniques that improve structure and reduce stress, and supports a thoughtful approach to initiating treatment. Also covered are developmental disabilities like autism and fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as special education, including individualized education plans (IEPs) and so-called 504 plans. A chapter on treatment discusses therapy and medication, offering brief notes on various categories of medication. The book emphasizes the need to understand risks and benefits when deciding about any course of treatment. Subsequent sections focus on locating allies to promote recovery, finding resources to support recovery, planning both long-term and short-term, and following the recovery plan. The authors discuss planning for safety in advance of a mental health crisis, responding to a person in crisis, assessing risk of violence, and preventing suicide. The book suggests ways to help people who become involved in the criminal justice system, and covers involuntary hospitalization and guardianship. Further chapters discuss ways to locate treatment, find or retain housing, maintain employment or access vocational rehabilitation services. There is coverage of Social Security and SSI disability benefits and claims process, plus information about Medicare and Medicaid.--Publisher's description.

A two-part, four-hour documentary that explores America's youth mental health crisis through the eyes of more than twenty young people, who speak about their lived experience with mental health challenges, from depression to addiction to suicide ideation.

Holden Layfield helps audiences through his harrowing tale in this film set in the early 1990s. After succumbing to a secret battle with mental illness, seventeen-year-old Holden devolves from a gregarious, small-town Georgian football player to a lost, self-medicating prophet. Based on a true story about dual diagnosis and teen suicide, this important film portrays the complexity of mental illness and suicide in teens, offers insight to prevention.

Twenty years after killing a boy when she was eight years old, Chrissie wants a fresh start for her and her 6-year-old daughter, Molly, but the past will not leave her and Molly alone, forcing Chrissie to find a new way to take matters into her own hands.

"Chrissie is eight years old and she has a secret: she has just killed a boy. The feeling of it made her belly fizz like soda pop. Across her neighborhood, Chrissie's playmates and their parents are tearful and terrified. But Chrissie rules the roost - she's the best at wall-walking, she knows how to get free candy, and now she has a secret, thrilling power she doesn't get to experience much at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. Twenty years later, Chrissie has a new identity and a new name. As "Julia," she is working in a cafe to support herself and her six-year-old daughter, Molly. All she wants is a fresh start, but the past hasn't seemed to let her and Molly alone, and when, suddenly, their future together is threatened, Chrissie/Julia must find a new way to take matters into her own hands. Nancy Tucker leaves the reader breathless as she considers what happens when innocence and survival instincts collide. Tucker writes from professional experience in pediatric mental health, and she inhabits the voices of her young protagonists with a shocking authenticity and precision that moves the reader from sympathy to humor to horror to heartbreak and back again."--Provided by publisher.