Living Well with Epilepsy and Other Seizure Disorders or Darkness Is My Only Companion

Living Well with Epilepsy and Other Seizure Disorders: An Expert Explains What You Really Need to Know

Author: Carl W Bazil

Treatment options, lifestyle strategies,and emotional support for two million Americans.

Epilepsy, once mistakenly associated with demonic possession, has for centuries been a poorly understood illness. Today, though it affects nearly one out of every one hundred Americans, little comprehensive information can be found on bookshelves regarding this common and complex neurological disease. Until now!

Using his expertise in pharmacology and neuroscience, Dr. Carl Bazil demystifies epilepsy and other seizure disorders and offers medical, practical, and emotional support to patients and their families. He explains how and why seizures occur, and thoroughly discusses treatment options, the pros and cons of surgery, experimental and alternative treatments, strategies for daily living, and much more.

Substantiated with case examples, this useful book provides a much-needed window into epilepsy so that patients can achieve the full life they deserve.

Book review: Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England or Americas Inadvertent Empire

Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness

Author: Kathryn Greene McCreight

Where is God in the suffering of a mentally ill person? What happens to the soul when the mind is ill? How are Christians to respond in the face of mental illness? In Darkness Is My Only Companion, Kathryn Greene-McCreight confronts these difficult questions raised by her own mental illness--bi-polar disorder.

With brutal honesty, she tackles often avoided topics such as suicide, mental hospitals, and shock therapy. Greene-McCreight offers the reader everything from poignant and raw glimpses into the mind of a mentally ill person to practical and forthright advice for their friends, family, and clergy. Her voice is a comfort to those who suffer from mental illness and an invaluable resource for those who love and support them.

Publishers Weekly

Shortly after the birth of her second child, Greene-McCreight fell into a deep depression that lasted on and off for several years. Five years later she was diagnosed as bipolar, "a disease that scuttles between depression and mania." With mental illness so severe that she was hospitalized five times, she nevertheless continued to work as an Episcopal priest and theologian, wrestling with questions that therapists rarely broach but that Christian sufferers can't help asking: If all of God's intentions for us are good, why do we suffer? What is the relationship between mental illness and sin? Is the "dark night of the soul" different from depression? Will God forgive suicide? By means of personal story, theological reflection and practical suggestions for caregivers, Greene-McCreight takes readers into her mind as she plunges from frantic ecstasy ("Gorgeous exotic turbulent swirls of snow. Magic. The world tingles. My brain sparkles, all things connect") to profound despair ("the absence-so present you can feel it, taste it, sometimes even heaven forbid, see it and hear it-of the good"). With firm but never facile faith, she offers hope to Christians with mental illness and understanding to those who live and work with them. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

1	Darkness	19
2	Mental illness	36
3	Temptation to suicide	44
4	Mania	50
5	Darkness, again	56
6	Hospital	69
7	Feeling, memory, and personality	87
8	Brain, mind, and soul	94
9	Sin, suffering, and despair	102
10	Dark night, discipline, and the hiddenness of God	112
11	Health and prayer	128
12	How clergy, friends, and family can help	137
13	Choosing therapy	144
App. I	Why and how I use scripture
App. II	A brief checklist of symptoms and resources