Showing titles in People with Disabilities

Growing up with a learning disability, Josh was often told what he wouldn't be able to do. Fortunately, he did not listen. With the help of some wonderful teachers and friends, Josh found that he can do more than others ever predicted. Follow Josh on his journey through school, work, and his long-time participation in Special Olympics. Watch him confront challenges, overcome obstacles, and keep moving forward. This inspiring story will have you rooting for Josh from start to finish.

Max Toper isn't normal. His teacher segregates him at the back of the class, away from his peers. Other children make friends, yet he can't. He's told he has autism, a condition that seems to bring disaster after disaster, with no chance of achievement. But not all is hopeless. Change comes when he discovers his calling as a guild leader in the virtual world of Galactic Conquest, a place where he is respected and powerful. But can the digital world stop reality seeping in, or prevent him from addressing his demons?

I was born living the American dream. I had a mother and father who loved me. An older sister who cared for me. A beautiful house on a lake and extended family close by. But life has this way of flipping you inside out. By age two, we'd lost our home. By age six, my mother had died. For the next five years, we moved from place to place, crisscrossing the country.

With both clean essays and jagged diary entries, this memoir tells the story of one person's progress through disability and volunteering, self-exploration, and discovery, and snippets of growth in the contemplative writing process itself. Ultimately, the question "Can I work?" is answered with the passage of time. A challenging but uplifting piece of writing, spanning over a half a year of lyric prose with a touch of poetry.

So, there I was, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mark Wahlberg. Most women would say, "A dream come true", but in my case, it was a prayer answered. He is adorable, but I'm over 70, and I was on a mission. Sure, I've dreamed of being a movie star, but on that day my title was "unpaid extra" in a movie I would never go to the theater to see...R-rated...but I had a reason for being there, and only God could have orchestrated it. It was October 2014. Here's the story of how I appeared in the ComiCon scene with Mark Wahlberg in Ted 2. I'll start from the beginning.

Nineteen people from across the globe, ranging in age from 20 to 70-plus, tell their stories of living and thriving in diverse fields - in sport, the arts, medicine, business, and more. With refreshing frankness, they share their successes along with their struggles - grit is the one characteristic they all have in common. These are not stories of people overcoming disability - they’re stories of people accommodating disability while pursuing their dreams. Pure Grit shines a light on boundless possibility whatever the individual challenge.

It only takes a second to change your life. At age 21, Ryan Atkins had everything going for him: A full-ride scholarship in a prestigious business program, a well-paying internship, an opportunity to pitch a business plan to venture capitalists in New York City. He was living his dreams and preparing for a future of success. But the day before leaving for New York, Ryan was in a life-altering car accident that robbed him of the use of his arms and legs. Paralyzed from the shoulders down, he found himself struggling to grasp just how fundamentally his life had changed.

In this moving memoir, Joy Clausen Soto vividly brings us into her world. We see her go from her dream job to fighting for her life, and how she is able to come back from it all. You can't avoid falling in love with her quirks, indomitable spirit, and wry sense of humor. Soto takes listeners on a compelling journey as she faces cancer and the challenges she encounters while re-entering "normal" life.

Tracey had been told this so often as a child. Yet, two months after the horse-riding accident, Tracey was still not able to fulfil it. In fact, at that stage, she couldn’t do anything for herself. You’d think that after nearly losing her life and her abilities to live life as it was before because of the riding accident, that she’d be nervous about getting back on a horse. But her love for horses and riding was so deeply ingrained within her that she couldn’t imagine a life without it. Getting back on a horse...she was determined that she would.

Sometimes, dyslexia can go unnoticed for years, almost half a lifetime in fact. The effects of dyslexia are more than just bad spelling and illegible handwriting. I didn’t realize I was dyslexic until I was 41. By that time, I’d lost my job due to spelling mistakes more times than I can remember. But dyslexia is more than just making mistakes.

Frederick Moore spent his 1950s Minneapolis childhood obsessively teaching himself guitar and writing songs. In the 1960s, his bands Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos reached local stardom. After, they put everything they had into their cars and caravanned to Los Angeles. From a garage in suburban Arleta, they evolved Skogie into a new band called The Kats. In the 1980s, The Kats sold out every major club in Los Angeles.

Randi-Lee’s true story of coming to terms with her depression. Sharing thoughts around suicide and the harsh reality of feeling the need to hide these thoughts, each chapter outlines coping strategies that can help an individual explore their own mental health and lovingly embrace themselves. Worksheets are provided at the end of the book to but the strategies into practice. Stopping the stigma of mental health starts with speaking honestly and openly. Topics discussed include: therapy, medication, coping mechanisms, suicide, negative self-talk, positive self-talk, and self-care.

From the early stages of childhood development, a child learns from adults about boundaries and self-expression. When a child is bullied in all ways, as well as sexually, their view of the world becomes distorted. At age four, those boundaries were cast aside and thus my view of relationships, women, and sex was forever altered. It set the scene for later life where I had multiple relationships, cybersex, experiences with promiscuous women.

Tiffani, the author, becomes an intimate friend as you speaks to you about her deepest thoughts, fears, and worries. Her love, strength, honesty, and determination to care for her family at all costs is inspiring.

This often heartbreaking account by Carol, whose son, Paul, was born with many difficulties, including autism, is told with the honesty and sincerity necessary to portray the conflicting emotions faced by any family, and particularly a mother, in such circumstances. The overbearing feelings of guilt, failure and inadequacy have to be resolved to enable a happy life with her family.

This book begins with focusing on dealing with the societal ramifications/stigma of mental health disorders, the LGBTQ spectrum, and also looking at the religious stigma of the two. Finally, I will be telling my life story mainly from the years of 2012 to 2018 for the most part. Coming to terms, with my mental health disorder and identifying as a gay male.

While finishing off her degree in Gerontology at Umass Boston, Yvonne Decelis started writing about her life in the hope of showing others with similar conditions that they are not alone in the trials they face. Yvonne goes over her upbringing and life prior to, during, and after diagnosis covering things like medications, “healthful living”, work, SSDI disability benefits, friendships, and relationships, etc. This was also written for people seeking information on how to interact with others who have "invisible illnesses" like MS, Fibro, Post-traumatic Stress injury, etc.

Kelley Jo Burke embarks on a wild journey to understand many things, including the part where her grandfather sort of murdered her grandmother. Returning to a house filled with her first memories of childhood, she begins to explore the complex origins of her own anxiety. Along the way, she reflects on alienation and immigration, mental health and generational trauma, and the nature of memory itself. A memoir filled with raw honesty, comedy, tragedy, and grace.

This is my true life story growing up with dyslexia. How I almost allowed dyslexia to destroy my life. The education system failed me. I slipped through the cracks. Dyslexia controlled most of my life. I could still have a life without reading and writing. I was able to get married. Raise a family and run my own business. How my whole world changed overnight. For 62 years, I stayed silent.

Half a world away from home in 1976, 18-year old Anne B. Thomas awakens on the side of a two-lane road paralyzed from the chest down. Fast forward through a rigorous year of physical therapy to when her doctor gives her an ominous warning: “You will live a long time and be a burden on your family for the rest of your life unless you check yourself into a nursing home”.