Searching for Normal

The Story of a Girl Gone Too Soon

Karen Meadows

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781631521386
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Storybook Beginning
• 2 Inklings
• 3 The Screening Results
• 4 The Couch
• 5 The Dysthmia Diagnosis and Hope of Zoloft
• 6 Zoloft at Work
• 7 Blood Chases Away the Betrayal
• 8 I Swallowed Every Last One
• 9 A Psych Hospital? Really?
• 10 Back Home—but Not for Long
• 11 The Stigma Rears Its Head
• 12 A New Start, Cold Turkey
• 13 Into the Dark Pit
• 14 Portland Street Life
• 15 A Scary Place
• 16 At War with Herself
• 17 Life in the Wilderness
• 18 Selecting Residential Treatment—but How?
• 19 Her Statement Changed Everything
• 20 Life in Residential Treatment—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• 21 Going Back to Serving the Goddess
• Places
• 22 Leaving a Chapter of Life
• 23 The Elusive Transition Services
• 24 Don’t Put a Label on Me
• 25 Peace Out and Save the Whales
• 26 Entering the World of Youth Social Services
• 27 When Will the Roller Coaster Short-Circuit?
• 28 The Only Time My Brain Is Still
• 29 Back on the Roller Coaster
• 30 The Activist and Running Wolf
• 31 The Importance of Connection
• 32 Reaching for the Stars
• 33 Life in the Fast Lane
• 34 The Emptiness Inside Is Full to Bursting
• 35 Shattered
• Epilogue
• Advice for Parents, Children, and Young Adults
• Call to Action
• Useful Helplines, Blogs, Information Resources, and Policy and Research Institutes
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author