Willow Weep For Me A Black Woman S Journey Through Depression

The first book to focus on black women and depression, "Willow Weep for Me" recounts the author's personal descent into despair. More than simply a memoir about depression, this pioneering work presents a powerful meditation on courage and a litany for survival.

The first book to focus on Black women and depression, through the author’s “absorbing and inspirational” (Washington Post) personal journey. When Nana-Ama Danquah, a twenty-two-year-old single mother, began to suffer from a variety of depressive symptoms after giving birth to her daughter, she thought she was going crazy. Determined to portray strength in a world that often undervalues Black women’s lives, she shrouded her debilitating despair in silence and denial. But when she befriends other Black women who suffer with depression, she finds the support she needs to confront the traumatic childhood events that lie beneath her grief. Twenty-five years after its initial publication, as best-selling author Andrew Solomon writes in an illuminating foreword, Willow Weep for Me “remains a brave book . . . but at the time of its writing it was humblingly audacious.” Also including an afterword from the author, this groundbreaking classic is a powerful meditation on courage and a litany for survival. “An important and moving memoir. [Danquah] describes beautifully her experiences with depression.” —Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind

Do you or someone you love suffer from "bad nerves"? •Denise is constantly on edge. She's convinced something bad is going to happen. •Ruth will drive an hour out of her way to avoid driving over a bridge. When she has to do it, her chest thumps, her heart starts racing, and she breaks out in a sweat. She's beginning to think she shouldn't leave her house. •Bernice hasn't slept in two months for fear that the witch is going to ride her again. What do these women have in common? They are struggling with crippling anxiety disorders. Thousands of Black women suffer from anxiety. What's worse is that many of us have been raised to believe we are Strong Black Women and that seeking help shows weakness. So we often turn to dangerous quick fixes that only exacerbate the problem -- like overeating and drug and alcohol abuse -- or we deny that we have problems at all. In Soothe Your Nerves, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett explains which factors can contribute to anxiety, panic, and fear in Black women and offers a range of healing methods that will help you or a loved one reclaim your life. Here finally is a blueprint for understanding and overcoming anxiety from a psychological, spiritual, and Black perspective.

Emily Mann is one of our most urgently engaging, provocative and significant American playwrights.'' - Joyce Carol Oates ''Elizabeth Packard emerges as a vibrant, passionate force of nature.'' - The New York Times Illinois, 1861; Without proof of insanity, Elizabeth Packard is committed by her husband to an asylum. Based on historical events, Emily Mann's play tells of one woman's struggle to right a system gone wrong in this winner of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award. Emily Mann is a playwright and director, now in her nineteenth season as artistic director of McCarter Theatre. Her award-winning plays have been produced throughout the world.

As a young girl in Bangalore, Gayathri was surrounded by the fragrance of jasmine and flickering oil lamps, her family protected by gods and goddesses. But as she grew older, demons came forth from dark corners of her idyllic kingdom—with the scariest creatures lurking within her tortured mind. Shadows in the Sun traces Gayathri’s courageous battle with debilitating depression that consumed her from adolescence through marriage and a move to the United States. Her inspiring memoir provides a first-of-its-kind cross-cultural view of mental illness—how it is regarded in India and in America, and how she drew on both her rich Hindu heritage and Western medicine to find healing.

Overcome with mental anguish, Monica A. Coleman's great-grandfather had his two young sons pull the chair out from beneath him when he hanged himself. That noose remained tied to a rafter in the shed, where it hung above the heads of his eight children who played there for years to come. As it had for generations before her, a heaviness hung over Monica throughout her young life. As an adult, this rising star in the academy saw career successes often fueled by the modulated highs of undiagnosed Bipolar II Disorder, as she hid deep depression that even her doctors skimmed past in disbelief. Serendipitous encounters with Black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems were countered by long nights of stark loneliness. Only as Coleman began to face her illness was she able to live honestly and faithfully in the world. And in the process, she discovered a new and liberating vision of God. Written in crackling prose, Monica's spiritual autobiography examines her long dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death in light of the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism that masked her family history of mental illness for generations.

Accra joins Lagos, Nairobi, Marrakech, and Addis Ababa in representing the African continent in the Noir Series arena. “Superb . . . Each story reaffirms how fundamental ‘place’ is to the noir genre and how the locale shapes the story as much as the characters themselves . . . Strongly recommended.” —Library Journal “There’s good writing as well as a strong sense of place and culture, and the reader will absorb a side of Accra that doesn’t make it into the tourist brochures.” —New York Journal of Books Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Brand-new stories by: Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Kwame Dawes, Adjoa Twum, Kofi Blankson Ocansey, Billie McTernan, Ernest Kwame Nkrumah Addo, Patrick Smith, Anne Sackey, Gbontwi Anyetei, Nana-Ama Danquah, Ayesha Harruna Attah, Eibhlín Ní Chléirigh, and Anna Bossman.