Normal Life

Author: Dean Spade
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 082237479X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
Revised and Expanded Edition Wait—what's wrong with rights? It is usually assumed that trans and gender nonconforming people should follow the civil rights and "equality" strategies of lesbian and gay rights organizations by agitating for legal reforms that would ostensibly guarantee nondiscrimination and equal protection under the law. This approach assumes that the best way to address the poverty and criminalization that plague trans populations is to gain legal recognition and inclusion in the state's institutions. But is this strategy effective? In Normal Life Dean Spade presents revelatory critiques of the legal equality framework for social change, and points to examples of transformative grassroots trans activism that is raising demands that go beyond traditional civil rights reforms. Spade explodes assumptions about what legal rights can do for marginalized populations, and describes transformative resistance processes and formations that address the root causes of harm and violence. In the new afterword to this revised and expanded edition, Spade notes the rapid mainstreaming of trans politics and finds that his predictions that gaining legal recognition will fail to benefit trans populations are coming to fruition. Spade examines recent efforts by the Obama administration and trans equality advocates to "pinkwash" state violence by articulating the US military and prison systems as sites for trans inclusion reforms. In the context of recent increased mainstream visibility of trans people and trans politics, Spade continues to advocate for the dismantling of systems of state violence that shorten the lives of trans people. Now more than ever, Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require.

A Nearly Normal Life

Author: Charles L. Mee
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0316400580
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 155

Book Description
In the summer of 1953 the author was a carefree, athletic boy of fourteen. But after he collapsed during a school dance one night, he was suddenly bedridden, drifting in & out of consciousness, as his body disintegrated into a shadow of its former self. He had been stricken with spinal polio. When he emerged from the grip of the disease, he was confronted with a life change so enormous that it challenged all he had believed in & forced him, despite his young age, to redefine himself. His once stereotypically normal life, filled with baseball & swimming pools & dreams of girls, had been irreversibly altered. He was almost the same person he had been; he was nearly normal. His moving personal narrative is a textured portrait of life in the fifties - a time when America & her fighting spirit collided with this disease. Both funny & profound, he is a gifted, unique writer, who unravels the mysteries of youth in a Cold War climate, who gives voice to the mind of a child with a potentially fatal disease, & whose recognition of himself as a disabled outsider heightens his brilliant talents as a storyteller.

A Normal Life

Author: Kim Rich
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
ISBN: 194332851X
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
After an unconventional childhood that ended in the tragic death of her mother and the murder of her Alaskan mobster father, Kim Rich was left on her own at the young age of fifteen to fend for herself. Ever since then, she began a nearly lifelong pursuit in chasing what most others had—a normal life. Rich tugs at your heartstrings as you follow her journey toward normalcy, from her teen years, freshly orphaned, through her high school years spent couch-surfing at local families’ homes, then through her college years, a failed first marriage, and a rising career as a journalist. Through frank and down-to-earth storytelling, Rich also tells of her grandfather’s kidnapping, a frightening health crisis, and a six-year attempt to have children. Picking up right where her first memoir, Johnny’s Girl, left off, A Normal Life recounts the author’s vivid story of being an ordinary girl faced with extraordinary circumstances—at seemingly every turn in life—with grace, humility, and wit.

Blatantly Honest

Author: Makaila Nichols
Publisher: BrownBooks.ORM
ISBN: 1612549500
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 171

Book Description
“[Makaila] shoots straight about the pressures of growing up in such a highly social climate and offers much-needed advice for other teens.” —David Boreanaz, actor, director, producer of film and television Being a teenager today is one of the hardest jobs in the world. You have grades to maintain, obligations to extra-curricular activities, and soul-crushing pressure to excel at everything so colleges take notice. On top of it all, you’re forced to act as your own public relations manager because, thanks to social media, every bit of your life is on display. No one knows that better than teen model, actress, and author Makaila Nichols. Nichols’ book, Blatantly Honest, is filled with peer-to-peer advice on navigating life as a teen in a world that begs young people to grow up before they’re really ready. Unlike books for teens written from an adult perspective, Blatantly Honest offers real, relatable advice based on lessons learned in today’s world. After all, adults today have no experience being a teen in a social climate where peers have immediate, constant access to one another. Despite her rising fame, Nichols has struggled through body image issues, dating disasters, friendship failures and bullying. In this refreshing, open, and honest book, Nichols offers hard-earned advice on these tough topics and more. “It’s a daring undertaking to be honest about ourselves. Makaila genuinely shares her experiences, and it is such a true gift to her peers for them to realize that we all deal with our insecurities.” —Frederique van der Wal, supermodel and entrepreneur “Makes you feel like you’re talking with an older sister or a close friend—but this isn’t your mother’s advice.” —Anna Caltabiano, teen author and influencer

Everything is Normal

Author: Sergey Grechishkin
Publisher: Inkshares
ISBN: 1942645910
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
Everything is Normal offers a lighthearted worm’s-eye-view of the USSR through the middle-class Soviet childhood of a nerdy boy in the 1970s and ’80s. A relatable journey into the world of the late-days Soviet Union, Everything is Normal is both a memoir and a social history—a reflection on the mundane deprivations and existential terrors of day-to-day life in Leningrad in the decades preceding the collapse of the USSR. Sergey Grechishkin’s world is strikingly different, largely unknown, and fascinatingly unusual, and yet a world that readers who grew up in the United States or Europe during the same period will partly recognize. This is a tale of friendship, school, and growing up—to read Everything is Normal is to discover the very foreign way of life behind the Iron Curtain, but also to journey back into a shared past.

Saving Normal

Author: Allen Frances, M.D.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062229273
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
From "the most powerful psychiatrist in America" (New York Times) and "the man who wrote the book on mental illness" (Wired), a deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. These challenges are a normal part of being human, and they should not be treated as psychiatric disease. However, today millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and are receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, warns that mislabeling everyday problems as mental illness has shocking implications for individuals and society: stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, misallocation of medical resources, and draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient and self-healing brains, which have kept us sane for hundreds of thousands of years, and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the new edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), will turn our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Alarmingly, in DSM-5, normal grief will become "Major Depressive Disorder"; the forgetting seen in old age is "Mild Neurocognitive Disorder"; temper tantrums are "Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder"; worrying about a medical illness is "Somatic Symptom Disorder"; gluttony is "Binge Eating Disorder"; and most of us will qualify for adult "Attention Deficit Disorder." What's more, all of these newly invented conditions will worsen the cruel paradox of the mental health industry: those who desperately need psychiatric help are left shamefully neglected, while the "worried well" are given the bulk of the treatment, often at their own detriment. Masterfully charting the history of psychiatric fads throughout history, Frances argues that whenever we arbitrarily label another aspect of the human condition a "disease," we further chip away at our human adaptability and diversity, dulling the full palette of what is normal and losing something fundamental of ourselves in the process. Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity.

Yearnings in the Meantime

Author: Stef Jansen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782386513
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
Shortly after the book’s protagonists moved into their apartment complex in Sarajevo, they, like many others, were overcome by the 1992-1995 war and the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia More than a decade later, in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, they felt they were collectively stuck in a time warp where nothing seemed to be as it should be. Starting from everyday concerns, this book paints a compassionate yet critical portrait of people’s sense that they were in limbo, trapped in a seemingly endless “Meantime.” Ethnographically investigating yearnings for “normal lives” in the European semi-periphery, it proposes fresh analytical tools to explore how the time and place in which we are caught shape our hopes and fears.

A Normal Life

Author: Vassilis Palaiokostas
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781904491408
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
"I never legislated, I never enforced, and I never obeyed any laws! Laws dictated by the interests of a handful of rulers. I came across their laws everywhere, but I never found justice. I'll remain with the unique ones; the uncatchables. Those that consciously chose to lead their lives normally, reacting to an abnormal world..." A Normal Life is the autobiography of Vassilis Palaiokostas, known to some as the 'Greek Robin Hood', to others as 'The Uncatchable'. His is a life of kidnappings and robberies. A life lived in defiance of the police and of the state. For decades it has been a life lived as a fugitive. It is a life led extraordinarily. He has become a modern folk hero of sorts, earning millions in robbed banks and kidnapped CEOs whilst distributing his gains to those who need it most. He is most famous for not only one but two helicopter escapes from the Korydallos Prison in Athens. Vassilis Palaiokostas is hated by the authorities, deemed a terrorist, his freedom a continued insult to the Greek state. Now, translated to English for the first time, Palaiokostas tells his story in his own words. He does not justify his actions, but elaborates his motivations and dreams and their totality. A Normal Life is a gripping account of life on the run and in prison, of car chases, prison life, daring escapades and the camaraderie of bandit life. It is also the story of his motivations. He is still free.

So Long, Normal

Author: Laura Story
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0785248579
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
In the shifting (or even collapsing) of everything familiar in life, you don’t have to wring your hands in fear. Push past the loss of your “normal” with bestselling author and Bible teacher Laura Story, and step into the new story God is writing for you. You've been faced with circumstances beyond your control. Your plans are altered. But you have the blessing of a Father who loves you enough to take off the training wheels and place his beloved child in the best possible scenario for your good and growth. So Long, Normal guides you to leave behind the idols of comfort, caution, and routine so you can live strong and well, even when life takes an unwelcome turn. In her confessional, conversational style, worship leader, Bible teacher, and Christian recording artist Laura Story weaves her own personal stories with examples from Scripture of characters whose lives were upended by unexpected (and undesired) change. So Long, Normal will help you: Process the trauma of the loss of your “normal” Learn to rest in God’s plan for you instead of trying to control your circumstances Find true community and encouragement in your struggle with uncertainty Discover three great comforts and three gifts to steady you on your journey Face the future with fresh spiritual eyes and find joy in the unwavering strength of Christ Losing your “normal” is not the end of the world but the beginning of a new adventure. It is possible to grow with grace through tough times, navigating the unknown secure in the knowledge that God is with you—every step of the way.

Redefining Normal

Author: Alexis Black
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781734573145
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
Growing up, they didn't believe they had a future. Together, they are building forever. Alexis Black persevered through her mother's death and her father's imprisonment. And after escaping a long and abusive relationship, the college junior promised her foster parents not to date for at least a year. But when she meets an incoming freshman on the first day of their scholarship program, she feels the world melt away, as though it were only the two of them in the room. Justin Black lived in the poorest section of Detroit before his parents surrendered him to the foster care system at the age of nine. But when he grabs the chance for better opportunities by pursuing higher education, he can't help but be drawn to a beautiful third-year student. At first, their past traumas--and their age difference--conspired to complicate their attraction. But the joy each took in the other and eventually conquered those obstacles, and these two survivors journeyed together toward healing. In a stark and wholehearted true story that shares how two individuals on separate paths found each other, Alexis and Justin merge their course into one full of hope and purpose. And hand-in-hand, with a desire to help others, they learned to reject the abusive patterns of their past, thereby intentionally breaking the cycle of generational violence and unhealthy behaviors. Written in an engaging novelistic style, the authors put forward a thoughtful exchange of ideas and personal experiences illustrating how anybody, no matter their backgrounds, can have a life of self-empowerment and joy. Broken down into four sections that cover crucial topics such as "Worthiness" and "Mental Health," this compelling narrative will help any who are learning to love themselves and want to end the line of toxic relationships. Redefining Normal: How Two Foster Kids Beat The Odds and Discovered Healing, Happiness, and Love is a page-turning memoir that will open your eyes to possibilities and dreams. If you like honest tales of triumph, refreshing transparency, and resilient faith in God, then you'll adore Justin and Alexis' inspirational story. This story contains mentions of domestic violence, trauma, sexual assault, and other difficult issues faced on the road to healing. Buy Redefining Normal to claim victory over harmful pasts today!