Mental Illness Advocacy (MIA) Reading Challenge

This reading challenge was started by Opinions of a Wolf as an effort to raise awareness, knowledge, and acceptance of mental illness.  As rightly mentioned, reading, both fiction and nonfiction, is an excellent way to broaden one’s horizons and expose one to new ideas and ways of thinking and being.

What books count?
Any book, fiction or nonfiction, that is either about mental illness or features characters or real people with a mental illness counts for the challenge.  However, the book must not demonize people with mental illnesses.

I plan to read unto 8 books from the list shared on the challenge page between Jan 2014 – December 2014 and share them with you in the hope that one of you may be interested to pick it up thereby facilitating the purpose of this challenge.

Addictive Disorders

• Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
• Germline by T. C. McCarthy (review)
• Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff

Alzheimer’s

• Elegy for Iris by John Bayley
• The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Anorexia

• Abject Relations: Everyday Worlds of Anorexiaby Megan Warin (review)
• Diary of an Exercise Addict by Peach Friedman
• Hunger  by Jackie Morse Kessler (review)
• Hungry: A Mother and Daughter Fight Anorexia by Sheila Himmel
• Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women by Trisha Gura
• Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher

Antisocial Personality Disorder

• American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (review)
• The Craigslist Murders by Brenda Cullerton (review)
• Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
• I Am Not A Serial Killer  by Dan Wells (review)
• Mr. Monster by Dan Wells (review)

Asperger’s Syndrome

• 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster (review)
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison

Bipolar Disorder

• Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania by Andy Behrman
• Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard (review)
• Manic: A Memoir by Terri Cheney
• An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison
• Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?: A Family’s Journey Through Bipolar Disorder by Karen Winters Schwartz

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

• The Adonis Complex: How to Identify, Treat and Prevent Body Obsession in Men and Boys by Harrison G. Pope
• The Broken Mirror: Understanding and Treating Body Dysmorphic Disorder by Katharine A. Phillips

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

• The Buddha and The Borderline: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder Through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Buddhism, and Online Dating by Kiera Van Gelder (review)
• Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
• I Hate You–Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality by Jerold J. Kreisman
• A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology, and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She is Today by Kate Bornstein (review)
• Waiting For Daybreak by Amanda McNeil (blog tour and reviews page)

Bulimia

• Perfect by Natasha Friend
• Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher
• Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Andersen

Depression

• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
• A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby (review)
• Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder or MPD)

• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
• Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls by Matt Ruff
• The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor’s Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder by Olga Trujillo, JD (review)
• When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase

Mental Retardation

• The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon (review)

Munchausen by Proxy

• More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss
• Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood by Julie Gregory

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

• Almost Perfect by Alice Adams
• Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Karyl McBride (review)

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood by Jennifer Traig
• I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing by Kyria Abrahams
• Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Spencer Hesser

Panic Disorder

• I Don’t Want To Be Crazy by Samantha Schutz
• The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Shay
• Barefoot Season by Susan Mallery (review)
• Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
• Regeneration by Pat Barker
• Soft Spots: A Marine’s Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by Clint Van Winkle
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (review)

Schizophrenia

• A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
• The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks
• I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
• January First: A Child’s Descent into Madness and Her Father’s Struggle to Save Her by Michael Schofield (review)
• Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy (review)

Self-Injury

• Cut by Patricia McCormick
• Rage  by Jackie Morse Kessler (review)
• Skin Game: A Memoir by Caroline Kettlewell
• Women Who Hurt Themselves: A Book of Hope and Understanding by Dusty Miller

Sensory Processing Disorder

• Not Just Spirited: A Mom’s Sensational Journey With Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) by Chynna T. Laird
• The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz

Sleep Disorders

• Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
• Insomniac by Gayle Greene
• Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

Tourette’s Syndrome

• Don’t Think About Monkeys. Extraordinary Stories Written by People with Tourette Syndromeedited by Adam Ward Seligman
• Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
• Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen

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