A Secret Sadness

A Secret Sadness
Author: Valerie Whiffen
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2009
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1572246928

Examines the often hidden relationship factors that make women depressed, the secret sadness that can last a lifetime. Whiffen shows readers how interpersonal problems can contribute to depression and how working through these underlying issues can help women heal.

A Secret Gift

A Secret Gift
Author: Ted Gup
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2010-10-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101444630

An inspiring account of America at its worst-and Americans at their best-woven from the stories of Depression-era families who were helped by gifts from the author's generous and secretive grandfather. Shortly before Christmas 1933 in Depression-scarred Canton, Ohio, a small newspaper ad offered $10, no strings attached, to 75 families in distress. Interested readers were asked to submit letters describing their hardships to a benefactor calling himself Mr. B. Virdot. The author's grandfather Sam Stone was inspired to place this ad and assist his fellow Cantonians as they prepared for the cruelest Christmas most of them would ever witness. Moved by the tales of suffering and expressions of hope contained in the letters, which he discovered in a suitcase 75 years later, Ted Gup initially set out to unveil the lives behind them, searching for records and relatives all over the country who could help him flesh out the family sagas hinted at in those letters. From these sources, Gup has re-created the impact that Mr B. Virdot's gift had on each family. Many people yearned for bread, coal, or other necessities, but many others received money from B. Virdot for more fanciful items-a toy horse, say, or a set of encyclopedias. As Gup's investigations revealed, all these things had the power to turn people's lives around- even to save them. But as he uncovered the suffering and triumphs of dozens of strangers, Gup also learned that Sam Stone was far more complex than the lovable- retiree persona he'd always shown his grandson. Gup unearths deeply buried details about Sam's life-from his impoverished, abusive upbringing to felonious efforts to hide his immigrant origins from U.S. officials-that help explain why he felt such a strong affinity to strangers in need. Drawing on his unique find and his award-winning reportorial gifts, Ted Gup solves a singular family mystery even while he pulls away the veil of eight decades that separate us from the hardships that united America during the Depression. In A Secret Gift, he weaves these revelations seamlessly into a tapestry of Depression-era America, which will fascinate and inspire in equal measure. Watch a Video

Perfectly Hidden Depression

Perfectly Hidden Depression
Author: Margaret Robinson Rutherford
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2019-11-01
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1684033608

When your life looks perfect, but you’re silently falling apart… If you were raised to believe that painful emotions are a sign of weakness, or if being vulnerable has always made you feel unsafe, then you may have survived by creating a perfect-looking life—a life where you appear to be successful, engaged, and always there for others. The problem? You’re filled with self-criticism and shame, and you can’t allow yourself to express fear, anger, loss, or grief. You recognize something is wrong, but you’re not sure what exactly—only that you feel trapped and alone. If this sounds like you, you may have perfectly hidden depression (PHD). With this compassionate guide, you’ll begin the process of understanding your perfectionism, identifying destructive beliefs, and connecting with emotions suppressed for far too long. You’ll also find tangible tips for quieting that critical inner voice, and powerful strategies for coping with difficult feelings. Most importantly, you’ll learn that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. If you’re ready to stop hiding and start healing, this groundbreaking book will guide you—every imperfect step of the way.

I Don't Want to Talk About It

I Don't Want to Talk About It
Author: Terrence Real
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 390
Release: 1999-03-11
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0684865394

A bestseller for over 20 years, I Don’t Want to Talk About It is a groundbreaking and hopeful guide to understanding and destigmatizing male depression, essential not only for men who may be suffering but for the people who love them. Twenty years of experience treating men and their families has convinced psychotherapist Terrence Real that depression is a silent epidemic in men—that men hide their condition from family, friends, and themselves to avoid the stigma of depression’s “un-manliness.” Problems that we think of as typically male—difficulty with intimacy, workaholism, alcoholism, abusive behavior, and rage—are really attempts to escape depression. And these escape attempts only hurt the people men love and pass their condition on to their children. This groundbreaking book is the “pathway out of darkness” that these men and their families seek. Real reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse. He mixes penetrating analysis with compelling tales of his patients and even his own experiences with depression as the son of a violent, depressed father and the father of two young sons.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Author: Aimee Bender
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2011
Genre: Family secrets
ISBN: 009953827X

Being able to taste people's emotions in food may at first be horrifying. But young, unassuming Rose Edelstein grows up learning to harness her gift as she becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

Manufacturing Depression

Manufacturing Depression
Author: Gary Greenberg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2010-02-02
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 141657008X

Am I depressed or just unhappy? In the last two decades, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine cabinets—doctors now write 120 million prescriptions annually, at a cost of more than 10 billion dollars. At the same time, depression rates have skyrocketed; twenty percent of Americans are now expected to suffer from it during their lives. Doctors, and drug companies, claim that this convergence is a public health triumph: the recognition and treatment of an under-diagnosed illness. Gary Greenberg, a practicing therapist and longtime depressive, raises a more disturbing possibility: that the disease has been manufactured to suit (and sell) the cure. Greenberg draws on sources ranging from the Bible to current medical journals to show how the idea that unhappiness is an illness has been packaged and sold by brilliant scientists and shrewd marketing experts—and why it has been so successful. Part memoir, part intellectual history, part exposé—including a vivid chronicle of his participation in a clinical antidepressant trial—Manufacturing Depression is an incisive look at an epidemic that has changed the way we have come to think of ourselves.

Sad Janet

Sad Janet
Author: Lucie Britsch
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2020-06-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593086546

Named one of the Best Books of the Summer by Lit Hub, The Millions, Refinery29, and Hey Alma. “Hilarious, wise, wicked, and tender.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, The New York Times–bestselling author of The Nest Janet works at a rundown dog shelter in the woods. She wears black, loves The Smiths, and can’t wait to get rid of her passive-aggressive boyfriend. Her brain is full of anxiety, like “one of those closets you never want to open because everything will fall out and crush you.” She has a meddlesome family, eccentric coworkers, one old friend who’s left her for Ibiza, and one new friend who’s really just a neighbor she sees in the hallway. Most of all, Janet has her sadness—a comfortable cloak she uses to insulate herself from the oppressions of the wider world. That is, until one fateful summer when word spreads about a new pill that offers even cynics like her a short-term taste of happiness . . . .just long enough to make it through the holidays without wanting to stab someone with a candy cane. When her family stages an intervention, her boyfriend leaves, and the prospect of making it through Christmas alone seems like too much, Janet decides to give them what they want. What follows is life-changing for all concerned—in ways no one quite expects. Hilarious, bitterly wise, and surprisingly warm, Sad Janet is the depression comedy you never knew you needed.

Sadness Is a White Bird

Sadness Is a White Bird
Author: Moriel Rothman-Zecher
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501176285

**A Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist** **A National Jewish Book Award Finalist for Debut Fiction** In this “nuanced, sharp, and beautifully written” (Michael Chabon) debut novel, a young man prepares to serve in the Israeli army while also trying to reconcile his close relationship to two Palestinian siblings with his deeply ingrained loyalties to family and country. The story begins in an Israeli military jail, where—four days after his nineteenth birthday—Jonathan stares up at the fluorescent lights of his cell and recalls the series of events that led him there. Two years earlier: Moving back to Israel after several years in Pennsylvania, Jonathan is ready to fight to preserve and defend the Jewish state. But he is also conflicted about the possibility of having to monitor the occupied Palestinian territories, a concern that grows deeper and more urgent when he meets Nimreen and Laith—the twin daughter and son of his mother’s friend. From that morning on, the three become inseparable: wandering the streets on weekends, piling onto buses toward new discoveries, laughing uncontrollably. They share joints on the beach, trading snippets of poems, intimate secrets, family histories, resentments, and dreams. But with his draft date rapidly approaching, Jonathan wrestles with the question of what it means to be proud of your heritage, while also feeling love for those outside of your own family. And then that fateful day arrives, the one that lands Jonathan in prison and changes his relationship with the twins forever. “Unflinching in its honesty, unyielding in its moral complexity” (Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author), Sadness Is a White Bird explores one man’s attempts to find a place for himself, discovering in the process a beautiful, against-the-odds love that flickers like a candle in the darkness of a never-ending conflict.

The Secret Life of Grief

The Secret Life of Grief
Author: Tanja Pajevic
Publisher: Abbondanza Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2016
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780986303135

Winner of the Nautilus Silver Book Award After her mother's death, a first-generation Serbian-American woman explores what it means to grieve consciously in a society that barely acknowledges grief. Throughout, she grapples with love, loss and legacy, as well as personal and familial transformation.

The Secret Sorrow

The Secret Sorrow
Author: Jay E. Valusek
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2010-09-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 145025831X

Valusek stands with one foot on either side of the chasm that separates those who believe in God from those who do not, inviting us to build a bridge from the raw materials of our common humanity. I tremendously respect his effort. Eric Maisel, Ph.D., author of The Atheists Way The Secret Sorrow is a poignant, mesmerizing memoir, proximately about the loss of faith but more generally about encounteringand working throughthe pain that accompanies the loss of meaning. Valuseks journey takes us into bleak territory, but never abandons us there. Instead, he leads us to a new place of affirmation centered in a sacred view of the natural world. I loved it. Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D., professor of biology, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, author of The Sacred Depths of Nature Jay Valusek has written beautifully about how mindfulness helped him find meaning and joy in the midst of great loss. Present, loving awareness became a powerful way of healing his suffering, enabling him to emerge from the darkness of despair into the light of a new moment. Micki Fine, M.A., L.P.C., certified mindfulness teacher, founder of Mindful Living of Houston, Texas.