So, how did a slightly bonkers misfit with anorexia, bulimia and anxiety decide to solve their problems? I became a model. As you do.Charli Howard had always wanted to be normal - but for some reason, she couldn't quite find out how to do it. As a teenager, she felt like the only one who struggled with anxiety and self-esteem issues when everyone around her seemed to fit in. So she tried to embrace standing out: by becoming a model. Believing it would make her happy and envied, she set out single-mindedly to make it - and she achieved her dream. But the reality wasn't quite as glamorous as she'd hoped. The pressure on Charli to look a certain way took an extreme toll on her body and self-image, and no matter how thin she got, she was never thin enough.When Charli, though medically underweight, was fired by her modelling agency for being too big, she decided she'd had enough. She used her platform for good and spoke out about the insane standards of the modelling industry, whose images influence young women and girls all over the world. Now, Charli is comfortable in her skin for the first time ever, working happily as a plus sized model in New York. Here, she shares her journey, from anorexic and bulimic teenager to happy, healthy twenty-something.

Inspired by her hugely popular podcast, How To Fail is Elizabeth Day’s brilliantly funny, painfully honest and insightful celebration of things going wrong. This is a book for anyone who has ever failed. Which means it’s a book for everyone. If I have learned one thing from this shockingly beautiful venture called life, it is this: failure has taught me lessons I would never otherwise have understood. I have evolved more as a result of things going wrong than when everything seemed to be going right. Out of crisis has come clarity, and sometimes even catharsis.Part memoir, part manifesto, and including chapters on dating, work, sport, babies, families, anger and friendship, it is based on the simple premise that understanding why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. It's a book about learning from our mistakes and about not being afraid. Uplifting, inspiring and rich in stories from Elizabeth’s own life, How to Fail reveals that failure is not what defines us; rather it is how we respond to it that shapes us as individuals. Because learning how to fail is actually learning how to succeed better. And everyone needs a bit of that.

For fans of Bryony Gordon and Caitlin Moran, a comforting, witty, supportive book for real twenty-something women who want to discover how they can reach the end of the 'fun' decade knowing exactly who they are.Have you ever felt lost, anxious, panicky about adulthood?Have you ever spent a hungover Sunday crying into a bowl of cereal?Have you ever scrolled through Instagram and felt nothing but green-eyed jealousy and evil thoughts?Award-winning journalist, Grazia agony aunt and real-life big sister to five smart, stylish, stunning twenty-something young women, Daisy Buchanan has been there, done that and got the vajazzle.In How to be a Grown-Up, she dispenses all the emotional and practical advice you need to negotiate a difficult decade. Covering everything from how to become more successful and confident at work, how to feel pride in yourself without needing validation from others, how to turn rivals into mentors, and how to *really* enjoy spending time on your own, this is a warm, kind, funny voice in the dark saying "Honestly don't worry, you're doing your best and you're amazing!"

Pure is the true story of Rose Bretécher's life and struggle with 'Pure O', a rampant but little-known type of OCD whereby sufferers experience intrusive, 'unthinkable' thoughts, often sexual or violent in content. It tracks her farcical, decade-long path to redemption, from the moment she was first seized by incessant sexual mental images to her eventual recovery through therapy, acceptance and love.Rose tells the story of how fear, confusion and an obsessive search for her own identity dogged her for over a decade, with both humour and grace. She describes how intrusive thoughts coloured even the most euphoric experiences of her youth – how Jake Gyllenhaal's face melted into a chubby vagina even as she danced with him in a music video, and how she sat in the mansion of the founders of Lonely Planet, all the while imagining them bumming across the patio…Eventually, after stepping back from the iron railings of a snow-swept balcony in east London, Rose learns to find joy in the insurmountable truth that when it comes to who we are, there are no neat conclusions.Ultimately, Pure is about uncertainty and insecurity, and how trying to banish these things in the pursuit of happiness will paradoxically make us unhappy. It is about finding beauty in greyness, and embracing the unfathomable weirdness of the human mind.

I well knew the power of the mind over the body since I was 13 and 'gave' myself appendicitis. I had a test on Anna Karenina and hadn't read the 800 page book. I said I had a tummy ache and went to the school sick room and read all day. That night I had to go to Hebrew school and I had forgotten about a test so I said I had a tummy ache and drew a picture until my father came to pick me up and I went straight to bed to read Anna Karenina for the test next day still feigning pain.At midnight I woke in excruciating agony with tummy ache. At 4 a.m. I had an emergency appendectomy and was so ill I was in hospital for 3 weeks (and missed the Anna Karenina test and won third prize in a national art competition since my parents sent off my drawing. I got a WH Smiths gift voucher.) Fairly early on in the book, the author says that there was a test with a CAT scan. There were three elements to the test. First the sufferer of the psychosomatic illness which had intractable physical symptoms had a scan. Secondly normal students then had a brain scan. Then the students were asked to pretend to be ill with the same symptoms.You would think that the scans from the pretence and the "all in the head" patient would be identical wouldn't you? But they weren't. All three scans were different. A psychosomatic illness is quite genuine, it's not the consciousness faking it, it's the brain reacting to an issue with physical symptoms. No one would know they were doing it, it's not under their control, if it was they could stop it and wouldn't have worked their way up through many doctors and tests to seeing a consultant neurologist.Yet the doctor, nor anyone else it seems tells ME sufferers of these scans that would prove their illness is not imagined (despite the stupid eye-catching title no doubt imposed by the publisher), that they are not faking it, that just because the symptoms have a psychosomatic rather than pathological base, whether they started from a physical issue or not, their illness is very real.ME/CFS (view spoiler)[ Quote from the author: "To include ME/CFS in a book primarily concerned with the description of those suffering psychosomatic illness is foolhardy to say the least. A fierce argument has raged for decades between those who consider this to be a purely organic disorder and those who view it as psychologically driven."So she knew what she was getting into! However some of these ME sufferers are really out of order. The UK's prime researcher into ME/CFS has endured years of abuse and even death threats for his work instead of praise. His "crime"? He is a psychologist!  (hide spoiler)]

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  'Enthralling and terrifying in equal amounts. A chilling glimpse into a world unseen by so many and perhaps for very good reasons. Kerry guides us gently, but firmly, through her incredible world of miscreants, monsters and the misunderstood. Both unforgettable and unputdownable.' PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK, Britain's leading forensic anthropologist and author of the Sunday Times bestseller All That Remains \
For those of us who play by the rule book, few things are more fascinating and rankling than those who choose to tear it apart. Some of the stories I tell here are heart-breaking, others enraging and some plain weird but what connects them is the insight they give us into the human condition.Kerry Daynes has worked with some of the most complex and challenging criminals in prisons and secure hospitals as well as the victims of crime. A large part of her day job is spent delving into the psyche of convicted men and women to try to understand what lies behind their actions and how to set them on the path to becoming law-abiding citizens. Welcome to the life of a forensic psychologist. No two days are the same. The people you work with are wildly unpredictable, sometimes frightening and often deeply frustrating. Drawing on her case files from the frontline, The Dark Side of the Mind offers readers an unforgettable insight into the psychological causes of some of the most extreme forms of human behaviour, and what the treatment and incarceration of those who transgress says about society.

A shocking, heart-rending and blisteringly funny account of what it's like to live with mental illness, by a powerful new comic voice. When Michelle Thomas suffered her first major depressive episode six years ago, she read and watched and listened to everything about mental health she could get her hands on in an effort to fix herself. God, it was tedious. And, quite frankly, depressing.Which is the last thing she needed. What she did need was a therapist who would listen and offer a wellness strategy catered to her specific needs. What she got was advice to watch a few YouTube videos and a cheerful reminder that 'it could be worse'. An honest, hilarious and heart-rending account of living with mental illness, My Sh*t Therapist will help you navigate the world, care for your mind and get through sh*t diagnoses, jobs, medications, boyfriends, habits, homes and therapists.You'll find no scented candles or matcha tea 'cures' for mental illness here. Instead, learn how a modern woman and her friends and followers navigate life with their brilliant but unpredictably sh*t brains.\
  Having a crappy mental health day? I've got you.\
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  Want to chat antidepressants and breakdowns?\
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  Pull up a pew and let's get into it.\


With her signature heart and humor, Julie Halpern explores a strained friendship strengthened by one girl’s battle with cancer. Alex’s father recently died in a car accident. And on the night of his funeral, her best friend Becca slept with Alex’s boyfriend. So things aren’t great. Alex steps away from her friendship with Becca and focuses on her family. But when Alex finally decides to forgive Becca, she finds out something that will change her world again—Becca has cancer. So what do you do when your best friend has cancer? You help her shave her head. And then you take her bucket list and try to fulfill it on her behalf. Because if that’s all you can do to help your ailing friend—you do it.

It’s been five years since Summer Marks was brutally murdered in the woods. Everyone thinks Mia and Brynn killed their best friend. That driven by their obsession with a novel called The Way into Lovelorn the three girls had imagined themselves into the magical world where their fantasies became twisted, even deadly.The only thing is: they didn’t do it. On the anniversary of Summer’s death, a seemingly insignificant discovery resurrects the mystery and pulls Mia and Brynn back together once again. But as the lines begin to blur between past and present and fiction and reality, the girls must confront what really happened in the woods all those years ago—no matter how monstrous.

Here is what happens when your mother dies.It’s the brightest day of summer and it’s dark outside. It’s dark in your house, dark in your room, and dark in your heart. You feel like the darkness is going to split you apart.That’s how it feels for Tiger. It’s always been Tiger and her mother against the world. Then, on a day like any other, Tiger’s mother dies. And now it’s Tiger, alone.Here is how you learn to make friends with the dark.

In 1988, at age 26, Lauren Slater lived alone in a basement apartment in Cambridge, depressed, suicidal, unemployed. Ten years later, she is a psychologist running her own clinic, an award-winning writer, and happily married. The transformation in her life was brought about by Prozac. Prozac Diary is Lauren Slater's incisive account of a life restored to productivity, creativity, and love. When she wakes up one morning and finds that her demons no longer have a hold on her, Slater struggles with the strange state of being well after a lifetime of craziness. Yet this is no hymn to a miracle pharmaceutical. It is a frankly ambivalent quest for the truth of self behind an ongoing reliance on a drug. Slater also addresses Prozac's notorious "poop-out" effect and its devastating attack on her libido. This is the first memoir to reflect on long-term Prozac use, and reviewers agree that no one has written about Prozac with such beauty, honesty, and insight.

A unique eating-disorder memoir written by a mother and daughter. Unbeknownst to food critic Sheila Himmel-as she reviewed exotic cuisines from bistro to brasserie- her daughter, Lisa, was at home starving herself. Before Sheila fully grasped what was happening, her fourteen-year-old with a thirst for life and a palate for the flavors of Vietnam and Afghanistan was replaced by a weight-obsessed, antisocial, hundredpound nineteen-year-old. From anorexia to bulimia and back again-many times-the Himmels feared for Lisa's life as her disorder took its toll on her physical and emotional well-being.Hungry is the first memoir to connect eating disorders with a food-obsessed culture in a very personal way, following the stumbles, the heartbreaks, and even the funny moments as a mother-daughter relationship-and an entire family-struggles toward healing.

More than five million adolescent girls struggle with eating dis-orders, and more than 80 percent of American women are unhappy with their bodies. Christie Pettit knows these statistics firsthand. As a college student with a tennis scholarship, she found herself eating less and less, compulsively exercising, and spiraling downward in a dangerous battle against anorexia. She was starving--but she didn't know it.Now with a two-color interior, Empty recounts Christie's gripping story, incorporating new statistics, reflections from her journal, and biblical insight. Her candid retelling of her experience shows the spiritual dimension of eating disorders and describes how Christie turned to the Bible as a source of strength and encouragement to help her overcome anorexia.Pastors, parents, counselors, and those battling anorexia--especially teen girls--will find hope and wise counsel in Christie's compelling story.

Fourteen-year-old Jennie's life is turning upside down. Her father has walked out, and her anguished mother seeks solace in pills. Her best friend practically abandons her to be with a boyfriend. It seems like Jennie's real best friend is her diary. Then she meets Mr. Johnstone, the substitute math teacher. Jennie has never met such a charismatic teacher. She feels honored when Mr. J. seems to single her out for special attention, and begins to fantasize about him as her boyfriend. When Mr. J. first reveals his feelings for her, she is thrilled by the relationship that grows outside the classroom walls. Then, slowly, Jennie's diary becomes a record of her loneliness, pain, and confusion. Will it also offer her a way to escape from this treacherous love?

Many books have described victims of rape and battering, but scant attention has been paid to another form of harm increasingly common among women. Here at last is a book that provides help for the thousands of women who secretly inflict violence on themselves. Filled with moving stories, this powerful and compassionate book is the first to focus on women who harm themselves through self-mutilation, compulsive cosmetic surgeries, eating disorders, and other forms of chronic injury to the body.

An international epidemic, suicide has touched the lives of nearly half of all Americans, yet is rarely talked about openly. In this timely and important book, Susan Blauner breaks the silence to offer guidance and hope for those contemplating ending their lives -- and for their loved ones.A survivor of multiple suicide attempts, Blauner eloquently describes the feelings and fantasies surrounding suicide. In a direct, nonjudgmental, and loving voice, she offers affirmations and suggestions for those experiencing life-ending thoughts, and for their friends and family. Here is an essential resource destined to be the classic guide on the subject.

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