Powerful and practical tools to help you support your loved one with serious mental illness, while also making room for your own needs.

If you have a loved one--a spouse, adult child, or other family member--who has a mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression and is experiencing symptoms like psychosis, you need help right now. Delusions and hearing voices can be frightening. Mania can be unpredictable. Isolation and withdrawal can make things worse. Things are made even more challenging when your loved one is resistant to treatment. You may feel helpless watching them struggle. And you may question whether you can handle the myriad everyday practical and emotional challenges ahead. It's important to know that you are not alone.

Authors Katherine Ponte and Izzy Goncalves have been there. They are there. During Katherine's ongoing eighteen-year recovery from severe bipolar disorder and depression, her husband Izzy has been her primary caregiver. Together through trial, trauma, and triumph, they have amassed an unmatched store of lived experiences, shared perspectives, and lessons learned. They now bravely share, for the first time, everything they have come to understand about the challenges they've faced and surmounted together.

A vital resource for families combating mental illness, this book will help you:

• Recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness
• Maintain and improve communication between you and your loved one
• Better understand your loved one's feelings and emotions
• Handle special situations, including de-escalating an emergency
• Discover different options for treatment
• Make room for self-care

The book never forgets one crucial truth: you have needs, too. That's why the authors provide resources to ensure that you stay healthy, well-rested, and energized, so you can help your loved one on the path to recovery.

... a tour de force not only for anyone living with a mental illness and their loved ones, but for anyone who feels in the need for some practical, down-to-earth guidance on how to make the most of life. - Larry Davidson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Program for Recovery and Community Health, Yale University

For anyone suffering from a serious mental illness, just getting by day to day can feel like an insurmountable task. Recovery may seem like an impossible goal.

However, recovery does not mean some abstract cure. It is about reaching a place where you can pursue a safe, dignified, meaningful life that is not limited by your illness - and it is possible.

>Written by Katherine Ponte, who is living happily in recovery from severe bipolar I disorder with psychosis, this vital workbook provides practical, accessible advice that will set you on the path to your recovery. Divided into 54 easily digestible sections covering a myriad of topics from self-assessment and treatment to relationships and the challenges you may face along the way, this book will provide you with the tools to overcome stigma and access the help you need.

Don't put it off any longer - begin the journey to recovery today.