Bipolar Faith

Both a spiritual autobiography and a memoir of mental illness, Biploar Faith examines how the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism mask a family history of mental illness. In gripping fashion Monica A. Coleman tells the story of learning to live faithfully with bipolar disorder and discovering a liberating vision of God.

Take hold of your own personal journey. Make peace with it. Peace is truth. If you suffer from bipolar disorder (also called manic-depression), or if you love someone who does, then you already know how frustrating and baffling this mental illness can be. This book assures you that there is great hope—through all of life’s circumstances. Even though bipolar disorder may put us through extreme challenges each and every day, if we are rigorous about taking the right medications and keeping an appropriate lifestyle, we can effectively stabilize the disease and choose a good life. Darcie Cooper was led by God’s Spirit to present her story to others. “God does not want us to suffer. God wants us to know that we do not have to resort to self-harm or suicide. He is always with us.” She tells us of her personal journey through life’s many obstacles—including tragedy, loss, poor physical health, and bipolar disorder. Our destinies are different, and they call us at different times of our lives, but we can learn to flow with what has been given. Each person’s experience with this disease will be unique, but every one of us can find a successful path to staying sane.

Mental illness, when untreated, can feel like imprisonment. This book was written to give hope to those suffering from mental illness and more specifically bipolar disorder. The struggles associated with this condition are not isolated and often create a frightening halo effect that impacts parents and other family members trying to care for a loved one who is suffering. The main purpose of this book is to offer knowledge, insight, and guidance to people and the families who support them by witnessing an intense, frightening, and ultimately joyful journey with bipolar. We don't go through hell and back without a good reason, and I recently felt my story needed to be shared. One binding thread throughout my book is that although the mind is very strong, God's love and will are much stronger. I am now a happy, healthy, married mom with three beautiful children. I have been an elementary teacher for the last seventeen years and have not required major interventions or hospitalization for twenty-five years. My story can educate and offer hope to those who are struggling with bipolar disorder and want to re-establish equilibrium in their lives and the lives of those they love.

The third and final volume in the first comprehensive history of Black social Christianity, by the “greatest theological ethicist of the twenty-first century” (Michael Eric Dyson) The Black social gospel is a tradition of unsurpassed and ongoing importance in American life, argues Gary Dorrien in his groundbreaking trilogy on the history of Black social Christianity. This concluding volume, an interpretation of the tradition since the early 1970s, follows Dorrien’s award-winning The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel and Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel. Beginning in the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr., Dorrien examines the past fifty years of this intellectual and activist tradition, interpreting its politics, theology, ethics, social criticism, and social justice organizing. He argues that Black social Christianity is today an intersectional tradition of discourse and activist religion that interrelates liberation theology, womanist theology, antiracist politics, LGBTQ+ theory, cultural criticism, progressive religion, broad-based interfaith organizing, and global solidarity politics. A Darkly Radiant Vision features in-depth discussions of Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, Gayraud Wilmore, James Cone, Cornel West, Katie Geneva Cannon, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Traci Blackmon, William J. Barber II, Raphael G. Warnock, and many others.

Poetry, humor, illustrations, a personal examination of mental challenges along with a deep grasp of spiritual matters infuse this big, readable work by Rich Melcher. Comprising 55 reflections and two “postscripts,” Melcher’s collection is an enjoyable, random ramble through events of his life, showing how major issues such as bipolar disorder and Biblical truths have influenced him, along with significant encounters with people along the way. Reflection 20 introduces Melcher’s RROCKSS Code, a strategy for channeling energies and conducting one’s life more positively: Respect, Responsibility, Observation, Cooperation, Knowledge, Safety, and Service make up the Code, explained in detail with cogent examples from the author’s experience.

Dust in the Blood considers the harrowing realities of life with depression from a Christian theological perspective. In conversation with popular Christian theologies of depression that justify why this suffering exists and prescribe how people ought to relate to it, Coblentz offers another Christian approach to this condition: she reflects on depression as a wilderness experience. Weaving first-person narratives of depression, contemporary theologies of suffering, and ancient biblical tales of the wilderness, especially the story of Hagar, Coblentz argues for and contributes to an expansion of Christian ideas about what depression is, how God relates to it, and how Christians should understand and respond to depression in turn.

New Beginnings: A Bipolar's Journey to Regain Her God-Given Identity presents a bird's-eye view of the author's life. Faith Bonyak penned this memoir over a seven-year period as an overview of her life dealing with bipolar and borderline personality disorder, before there was a name for it. The first part of the book is about all the different identities I lived under to help myself deal with the issues I was undergoing. The final part is the journey to my New Beginning. It is all the things I've learned along the way to help me see what God really had planned for me. Faith's story was written to help others overcome what she has experienced. I wanted to show others that you can lead a normal life and have this disorder. I want to be open and honest about how this disorder affects me on a daily basis and how I make my marriage and parenting work, even with the limitations it provides to me. Once again, I want to show others like me that they're not alone! I've been in their shoes when I've been manic. I understand the physical pain the cycle of depression brings.This is not something to be ashamed of, and it's something that can be treated if they let themselves get the help that is out there.

ABOUT THE BOOK Life Is Worth Getting Better shares the story of Maria A. Mansfield as she takes on an eleven-year-plus battle to overcome a trio of mental disorders. She writes honestly of her eighteen-month treatment and of her resolve to get better. In her account, Maria writes openly and sincerely about her experience, in a way most readers can easily relate to her story. She also adds valuable advice for confronting mental disorders in ones life or the lives of loved ones. She shares reminders from the Scriptures, of the consolation that faith in God can provide, and mentions the verses in the Bible, which helped her faith grow stronger during that season of her life. Marias desire in writing this book was to be able to encourage others to get the help they need to recover. Her story is about hope and redemption and about finding encouragement to live your life to the fullest. Your life is a gift, thats why Life is Worth Getting Better.