Searching for Normal

“In her debut memoir, Meadows memorializes her daughter while deploring the state of adolescent mental health care. The book’s power comes from the way Meadows lucidly analyzes her own story to identify larger systematic issues in mental health care for young people. The memoir also includes basic advice and resources for struggling teens and their families. An intense, moving account of raising and mourning a child with mental illness.”
―Kirkus Reviews

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 the victims of 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.

Author: Karen Meadows

Publication Date: November 8, 2016

Categories: Fall 2016, Memoir

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About the Author

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2020 Eric Hoffer Awards da Vinci Eye Finalist

“Karen’s power-punch of a book is a must-read for parents struggling deeply with a child who suffering from mental health issues. This book is two hearts woven together―a mother’s memoir coupled with a daughter’s journal. A startling account of a deeply flawed system, and deeply flawed treatments, she has used ‘the power of her words’ beautifully, stunningly. Karen offers up a call to action, asking all of us who suffer from, or suffer around, mental health issues to get angry, to make a ruckus, to make a difference.”
―Amy Ferris, editor of Shades of Blue: Writers on Depression, Suicide, and Feeling Blue

“Karen’s intensely human exploration of her daughter’s depression and subsequent suicide is representative of the private battle millions of families are engaged in. She delivers a line in Searching for Normal that stunned me with its simplicity and directness―’I want the world to take note that we cannot afford to lose people like Sadie. I want society to stand up and say, This is unacceptable.’”
― Sheila Hamilton, author of All the Things We Never Knew: Chasing the Chaos of Mental Illness

“Searching for Normal is a profoundly personal account of a tragic experience navigating a confusing, often ineffective mental health system inundated with non-evidenced based treatment options for youth. Perhaps more importantly, Meadows provides immensely practical guidance through this morass, while persuasively advocating for developing an intelligible system that makes research-based treatment comprehensive and accessible to parents like herself.”
―Rick Mehlman, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Chief Executive Officer, Child Study and Treatment Center, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services

“Karen [Meadows] has written an extremely important book, one that is long overdue and necessary for parents navigating the confusing area of treatments for children struggling with mental illness. She does an excellent job blending personal details with information about treatment options at various levels. This is a must-read for anyone struggling with mental health issues, or trying to help a loved one with mental health issues.”
―Leslie Taylor, MD, psychiatrist

About the Author

After a six-year battle with her teenage daughter’s depression and subsequent suicide, Karen Meadows left behind her successful career in the energy industry to immerse herself in mental health issues. She spent years reading about mental illness and reading her daughter’s extensive writing. She has also volunteered on a crisis line and at homeless youth centers, and serves on the Oregon Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Board of Directors. She also serves on the State of Oregon’s Children’s System Advisory Committee. This committee provides oversight of children’s mental health system planning, coordination, policy development, fiscal development and evaluation of service delivery/functioning. She has an Executive MBA from UW-Madison, an MS in Engineering from UC Boulder, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley. Meadows lives with her husband and two cats in Portland, Oregon.