Choosing to Live contains stories about people who tried to commit suicide, told in their own words, based on the author’s interviews with them. Each story serves as a source of encouragement and speaks with a clear voice to all those who struggle with suicide to assure them that they are not alone.

 Choosing to Live is for individuals with suicidal feelings and for their relatives and friends who have suffered with them. Caregivers will gain new insights into the mental anguish that taunts individuals who battle the inner turmoil of facing each new day.

 The author believes that people crave to tell the story of their lives, even if it involves wanting to die. The names of the people involved have been changed, including identifying details, to preserve anonymity.

 Specific topics include: rejection, overwhelming stress, bullying, painful memories, teenage stresses, ups and downs, parental abuse, depression and anxiety, breakup of a significant relationship, lack of support, shame and addiction, dysfunctional relationships, and suicide of a parent.

 Choosing to Live provides a voice to those who have attempted suicide. It will serve as a valuable resource for psychiatrists, social workers, crisis counselors, clergy, medical practitioners, social welfare personnel, human service workers, and primary care providers.

Aims of the book:  The aims of Choosing to Live are to reduce the stigma against talking about suicide, to help people understand what suicidal people experience, to motivate suicidal people to want to keep living, and to tell inspiring stories of people who turned their lives around.

 Audience:  Parents, teenagers, counselors, people who want to understand suicide, students who are taking psychology courses and professors who teach them, people who have attempted suicide, those who know someone who has been suicidal or who has committed suicide, severely depressed people, and therapists who want their clients to know about others with similar feelings.

 The stories:  The stories are told in the first person—they are short autobiographies. Each story contains an account of the person’s life before attempting suicide, a description of the attempt and how it failed, plus an account of how each person is dealing with life now.

 Is Choosing to Live an inspirational book?  Although the autobiographies contain unsettling descriptions of depression, mistreatment, and inability to cope with stress, a significant portion of each autobiography tells how the person dealt with these traumas. In answering the question “What keeps you going now?” people described what now gives them purpose and meaning.

 Choosing to Live is also a serious study of suicide, which means that it will appeal both to readers who want to be inspired and to readers who want to learn more about suicidal people. These latter include students in psychology courses, counselors, parents, and friends of suicidal people.

 A major health concern: Statistics about the prevalence of suicide in the United States and elsewhere show that it is a major health concern. According to the Centers for Disease Control (at http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/Suicide/statistics/index.html and http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2013-a.pdf), in 2013 suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, the second leading cause of death for those in the 15-24 and the 25-34 age brackets, the fourth among persons aged 35-44 years, the fifth among persons aged 45-54, and the eighth among persons 55-64 years old.

 From Books Kinokuniya: (https://malaysia.kinokuniya.com/bw/9780398091712)