Augsburg Fortress

Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman's Journey with Depression and Faith

Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman's Journey with Depression and Faith

Overcome with mental anguish, Monica A. Coleman's great-grandfather had his two young sons pull the chair out from beneath him when he hanged himself. That noose remained tied to a rafter in the shed, where it hung above the heads of his eight children who played there for years to come.

As it had for generations before her, a heaviness hung over Monica throughout her young life. As an adult, this rising star in the academy saw career successes often fueled by the modulated highs of undiagnosed Bipolar II Disorder, as she hid deep depression that even her doctors skimmed past in disbelief. Serendipitous encounters with Black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems were countered by long nights of stark loneliness. Only as Coleman began to face her illness was she able to live honestly and faithfully in the world. And in the process, she discovered a new and liberating vision of God.

Written in crackling prose, Monica's spiritual autobiography examines her long dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death in light of the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism that masked her family history of mental illness for generations.

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  • Publisher Broadleaf Books
  • Format Paperback
  • ISBN 9781506480756
  • eBook ISBN 9781506487106
  • Dimensions 6 x 9
  • Pages 350
  • Publication Date February 8, 2022

Reviews

"This empowering story of depression and healing is inspiring. Coleman's courage shines through in this fine memoir."

--Publishers Weekly

"Monica A. Coleman gets real about her own 'dance' with bipolar disorder and shows others there is a way out."

--Essence, "6 Books to Help You (Really) Practice Self-Care"

"Not since Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has an autobiography chronicled an African American woman's journey from trauma to joyousness as boldly and vividly as Monica A. Coleman's Bipolar Faith."

--Los Angeles Review of Books

"This book is a vital contribution to the often-negligible conversation on mental health and the church, a story told with the authenticity of someone who has lived and survived the darkness of depression and trauma. This beautiful and heartbreaking memoir shows us all how very much this is true. There is life after grief."

--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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