SEEKING NORMAL is a must read; a chronological narrative in which the author describes dramatic events over significant years with such bracing detail that you feel like you are walking the halls of the psychiatric ward with her on the night she's admitted. As a child, she keeps secrets like her father's alcoholism, his mental illness, and her own homosexual trappings . . . As an adult, her suspicions grow concerning her husband's subtle unnatural behavior around young female children but too naive and scared to know where or whom to turn, she doesn't reveal it . . .

Brittanie Reese knows she has a disability, heaven knows she’s been told enough times, and living in a dysfunctional family only intensifies her inability to fit in. Desperately seeking to be viewed as a normal kid, she is shaken to her core when the school places her in the special needs program. Tormented daily by being labeled Britt struggles with her identity and disability. When she finally reaches high school all she can think about is putting the devastating experience of being a special needs kid behind her. When a teenage boy starts to pay attention, Britt naively believes his intentions are pure. What happens next will shatter her and her family’s thoughts of normal.

Karen Meadows had a normal, happy family until depression consumed her daughter, Sadie—a struggle that ended with Sadie’s suicide at age eighteen. In Searching for Normal, Meadows shares her family’s journey as she tries to help her daughter Sadie cope with her mental illness, expertly intertwining her own storyline with excerpts from her daughter’s diaries. The years Meadows chronicles are characterized by Sadie’s heartbreaking bouts of running away, cutting, and living with Portland street families while Karen and her husband desperately search for solutions—trying medication, hospitals, therapy, wilderness and residential treatment programs, and more. Ultimately, however, they find themselves confronted with the devastating shortcomings of the US’s mental health system. Including hindsight advice from Meadows, along with an extensive list of resources that she wishes someone had provided her when she was trying to help Sadie, this book will help parents of struggling teens feel less isolated and better equipped to navigate their teenager’s mental illness. : Meadows also describes recent developments that are paving the way for better diagnoses and treatment options.

"AN AUTISTIC BOY WHO BEAT THE ODDS." Looking For Normal is the memoir of author, musician and filmmaker, Steve Slavin. His obsession with music, at an early age, led to a long career in the creative arts, albeit one plagued by clinical depression and the symptoms of a condition he was unaware of until 2008. In recounting the 48 years that led to his autism diagnosis, this darkly humorous memoir will inform and inspire anyone with an interest in mental health and autism. But more than this, it is the story of an "emotionally disturbed child, without a future" who, against the backdrop of low expectation, became an ambitious, independent adult, with a wife, daughters, and a career stifled by the long shadow of his childhood dysfunction. "A wonderful insight into an extraordinary life." - Peter Holmes Ph.D. "Insightful, inspiring, informative and entertaining. Looking For Normal is not just about overcoming the adversities that life throws at you on a regular basis. It is also about someone's journey of accepting, embracing and celebrating everything that comes with having autism." - Dr RF (Senior practitioner Educational Psychologist).