Books like Afraid to Tell by Heidi Harding

The Bell Jar is the only novel written by American poet Sylvia Plath. It is an intensely realistic and emotional record of a successful and talented young woman's descent into madness.

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.

xxxv, 338 pages ; 21 cm

"Across the world, Hari found social scientists who were uncovering evidence that depression and anxiety are not caused by a chemical imbalance in our brains. In fact, they [believe they] are largely caused by key problems with the way we live today. Hari's journey took him from a ... series of experiments in Baltimore, to an Amish community in Indiana, to an uprising in Berlin. Once he had uncovered [what he argues are] nine real causes of depression and anxiety, they led him to scientists who are discovering seven very different solutions"--Amazon.com.

In the summer of **1985**, severe depression left **William Styron** hopeless and suicidal. His memoir centers on his hospitalization and subsequent road to recovery. **Styron**’s message reminds us that ***as bleak as it may seem, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.*** Regardless of your experience, **Styron** will stir up strong emotions. Darkness Visible provides deep insight into what it’s like to live with depression—insight that will resonate with survivors and help those who aren’t afflicted develop a greater understanding of the pain that depression sufferers are going through. **Styron**’s utter candor makes this book truly impactful.

The Noonday Demon examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policy makers and politicians, drug designers, and philosophers, Andrew Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease as well as the reasons for hope. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications and treatments, and the impact the malady has on various demographic populations—around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by biological explanations for mental illness. With uncommon humanity, candor, wit and erudition, award-winning author Solomon takes readers on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. His contribution to our understanding not only of mental illness but also of the human condition is truly stunning.

"From Congressman Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" gaffe to the high school rapists of Steubenville, Ohio, to the furor at Vanderbilt, sexual violence has been so prominent in recent years that the feminist term "rape culture" has finally entered the mainstream. But what, exactly, is it? And how do we change it? In Asking for It, Kate Harding answers those questions in the same blunt, bullshit-free voice that has made her a powerhouse feminist blogger. Combining in-depth research with practical knowledge, Asking for It makes the case that twenty-first-century America-where it's estimated that out of every 100 rapes only 5 result in felony convictions-supports rapists more effectively than victims. Harding offers ideas and suggestions for how we, as a culture, can take rape much more seriously without compromising the rights of the accused. "-- "If American women couldn't laugh about the way we discuss rape in this culture, half of us would be sobbing constantly, while the other half, one can only assume, would be arming themselves for the revolution. In the last few years, a series of Republican politicians have introduced memorable phrases into the American lexicon that reveal their automatic suspicion of women who report rape: "forcible rape," "honest rape," "legitimate rape," and "emergency rape" are some choice favorites. These qualified terms reveal what a lot of Americans--too many of them in public office--believe down deep: There's rape, and then there's rape-rape. Disturbingly, most of us do support rape, whether in subtle ways ("All women should take self-defense classes!") or blatantly misogynistic ones ("Hot sex with a crazy bitch"). That's how culture works. You're soaking in it. This is the first book since 2008's Yes Means Yes! to tackle the subject of rape culture, and I'm pretty sure it's the first non-academic, single-author book since the 1990s to examine sexual assault as a social phenomenon. Harding explores how rape culture manifests itself via media narratives about sexual assault victims and perpetrators--and how those change, depending on the age, race, sexual orientation, gender identity and fame of both victim and offender. Through that lens, she will take a close look at the three pillars of rape culture--excusing the accused, blaming the victim, and insisting that individual women can and must protect themselves from rape"--

Shy Keenan co-founded Phoenix Survivors to campaign for justice for victims of sexual abuse and to rescue children at risk. As a child, she was beaten by her mother and raped by her stepfather and his associates. This is her memoir.

Written by two clinical psychologists, this manual shows you how to improve your life using cognitive therapy - one of the most effective and widely practiced forms of psychotherapy. Step-by-step worksheets teach you specific skills that have helped thousands of people conquer depression, panic attacks, anxiety, anger, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, eating disorders, substance abuse, and relationship problems.

From Kay Redfield Jamison - an international authority on manic-depressive illness, and one of the few women who are full professors of medicine at American universities - a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life. Vividly, directly, with candor, wit, and simplicity, she takes us into the fascinating and dangerous territory of this form of madness - a world in which one pole can be the alluring dark land ruled by what Byron called the "melancholy star of the imagination," and the other a desert of depression and, all too frequently, death. A moving and exhilarating memoir by a woman whose furious determination to learn the enemy, to use her gifts of intellect to make a difference, led her to become, by the time she was forty, a world authority on manic-depression, and whose work has helped save countless lives.

The Feather Men were a clandestine group of retired military officers from SAS, MI5, etc in UK. Ranulph Fiennes was proported to be one of them and exposed a series of assasinations of ex SAS officers ordered by the Sheik of Oman as a result of 3 of his sons being killed/murdered by these men in the war in his country in the '60s. (later made into a film with Robert de Niro) Very Complex and full of twists and deceipt. Was almost banned by HMG as a violation of the Official Secrets act but Fiennes declared some years later that it was just a work of fiction possibly as an appeasement to the government. Fiennes really was SAS and spent many years in dark corners of the world specializing in demolition and later became the explorer and the author on many feats of exploration and was later Knighted for his work. He also climed Everest 3 times despite him suffering from vertigo.

This is a unique, research-based resource for professionals treating women who were sexually abused by female perpetrators, mainly mothers and grandmothers. The book first focuses on the female perpetrator, defines the treatments that have proven successful, and provides an overview of the available literature. Then the authors share results from communication with 85 adult women survivors, whose journals, poems, and artwork are collated with the healing methods the women themselves find to be either helpful or counterproductive. The authors outline intentions and procedures for verbal and nonverbal treatment methods such as art, poetry, and writing that prove effective in practice.

'Far from the tunnel having light at the end of it, it seems like it is blocked at both ends, and you are inside it. So if I could only have known the future, that there would be one far brighter than anything I'd experienced, then one end of that tunnel would have been blown to pieces, and I could have faced the light ... ' At the age of twenty-four, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over the depression that almost destroyed him, and learned to live again.

From the age of four, Duncan carried a terrible secret - his father was molesting him. Raised in a household where secrets and sick rituals were part of daily life, Duncan was manipulated, bullied and raped from the age of four for over a decade. This is his story. Desperate to escape his father's tyranny, he tried to kill himself.