Graphic Medicine | Darien

1) Everything is fine, I'll just work harder: confessions of a former badass

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Sexual Assault, Therapy, Trauma

Description

One queer person bravely and creatively uses therapy to navigate the healing from the trauma of a past sexual assault. One day, during an ordinary early-morning run, Cara's watch dinged with a Facebook friend request. But when they checked the message, the photo slammed them backward in time and froze them in fear. Their rapist wanted to "friend" them. Cara always had a long to-do list; always had many projects; always was busy. But as their rapist...

2) Feeding ghosts: a graphic memoir

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Generational Trauma, Mental Health, Mental Illness Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 2025

Description

"Tessa Hulls delves into her own family history and the intergenerational trauma caused by mental illness and political strife"-- Provided by publisher.

3) A Fox in My Brain

Notes

Topic(s): Cyclothymia, Mental Health, Mental Illness Honorable Mention for 2025 Graphic Medicine International Collective Award for Long Form Comic

Description

A Fox In My Brain is a graphic memoir about a young womans emotional journey struggling to understand and control a disease that has plagued her, her entire life. After many troubled years, Lou finally discovers what's causing the chaos in her brain: her Cyclothymia, a Bipolar Disorder that appears to her in the form of a fox. Join Lou as she learns to tame the fox within, and learns to cope with her condition, all with a bit of charm, humor, and...

4) Traces of madness

Author

Balius, Fernando

Notes

Topic(s): Mental Health, Mental Illness Shortlisted for 2025 Graphic Medicine International Collective Award for Best Long Form Comic

Description

"A portrayal in graphic novel format of the author's battle with auditory hallucinations, depicted as a monster, and his journey to understand and cope with his illness"-- Provided by publisher.

5) The heart that fed: a father, a son, and the long shadow of war

Author

Sciacchitano, Carl

Notes

Topic(s): Generational Trauma Shortlisted for 2025 Graphic Medicine International Collective Award for Best Long Form Comic

Description

"A brilliant graphic memoir debut, this is a loving son’s exploration of his tumultuous relationship with his father, told through the lens of the Vietnam War and its lasting effects long after returning home."--Amazon.

6) Here I am, I am me: an illustrated guide to mental health

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Mental Health Shortlisted for 2025 Graphic Medicine International Collective Award for Best Long Form Comic

Description

"Join author-illustrator Cara Bean as she takes readers on an illustrated journey to the center of the brain. Each chapter explores a different aspect of mental health, from the brain and the mind, to feelings and emotions. By portraying complex neuroscience concepts with a cast of illustrated brain part characters, the book explains what is really going on in the reader's head in an accessible, approachable way that ultimately serves to empower the...

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Bipolar Disorder Shortlisted for 2025 Graphic Medicine International Collective Best Short Form Comic

Description

An autobiographical comic about one person's experience living with bipolar I disorder. From mania to depression to the balance beam of the everyday, Sunflowers explores the human complexity of an often misunderstood disorder with honesty and vulnerability.

8) Abortion Pill Zine: A Community Guide to Misoprostol and Mifepristone

Author

Rotman, Isabella

Notes

Topic(s): Abortion Shortlisted for 2025 Graphic Medicine International Collective Award for Educational Comic

Formats:

e-Comic, eComic

Description

Access to safe abortion is a human right! This short zine explains one kind of abortion: with the use of pills misoprostol and mifepristone. Abortion is vital healthcare and part of comprehensive sexual health. This zine aims to provide readers with accessible information about the pill's mifepristone and misoprostol as options to manage abortion. Created by pro-choice community members, it covers the medical abortion process step-by-step, including...

Author

Krosoczka, Jarrett

Notes

Topic(s): Addiction, Childhood Trauma

Formats:

eAudiobook, Graphic Novel

Description

"In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka's teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy. But Jarrett's family is much more complicated than that. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett's life. His father is a mystery -- Jarrett doesn't know where to find him, or even what his name is. Jarrett lives with his grandparents -- two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through...

10) Past tense: facing family secrets and finding myself in therapy

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Childhood Trauma, Generational Trauma, Mental Health

Description

When Sacha Mardou turned forty-years-old, she was leading a life that looked perfect on the outside: happily married to the love of her life, enjoying motherhood and her six-year-old daughter, and her first book had just been published. But for reasons she couldn't explain, the anxiety that had always plagued her only seemed to be getting worse. The product of a stoic, working-class British family, Sacha had a deeply seeded distrust of mental health...

11) Brittle joints

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Bruck Syndrome, Chronic Pain, Progressive Disability

Description

An evocative and heartfelt graphic memoir about the challenges of living with a progressive disability. --from Amazon.

12) How to baby: a no-advice-given guide to motherhood

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Motherhood, Pregnancy

Description

"How do you know if you're ready to have a baby? How do you know if you might be pregnant? And how do you deal with peeing all the time and being hungry all the time and fielding well-meaning but kind of insulting advice and finding a doula and being dropped by your old friends and learning why it's called mom brain and not dad brain and spending half your life on hold with your insurance company and the tyranny of the milestones you're not meeting...

13) Heavyweight: a family story of the Holocaust, empire, and memory

Author

Brager, Solomon J

Notes

Topic(s): Generational Trauma, LGBTQ+

Description

"Solomon Brager grew up with accounts of their great-grandparents' escape from Nazi Germany, told over and over until their understanding of self was bound up with the heroic details of their ancestors' exploits. Their great-grandmother related how her husband, a boxing champion, thrashed Joseph Goebbels and cleared beer halls of Nazis with his fists, how she broke him out of an internment camp and carried their children over the Pyrenees mountains....

14) Proxy mom: my experience with postpartum depression

Author

Adriansen, Sophie

Notes

Topic(s): Postpartum Depression

Formats:

eComic, Graphic Novel

Description

"Marietta and Chuck, madly in love, are expecting a baby. But childbirth marks the end of the fairy tale. Zoe's birth didn't go as Marietta imagined, and the maternal instinct is slow to manifest itself. While she no longer recognizes her body, Marietta feels herself losing her footing in the face of this vulnerable baby for whom she is now responsible. Will she manage to feel like a mother? To love her baby? To stop thinking that a proxy mom would...

15) Polar vortex: a family memoir

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Caregiving, Aging Parents

Description

"For fans of Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, a poignant, stirring graphic memoir--both heartbreaking and darkly funny--that perfectly captures the grief, nostalgia, and chaos of traveling home to care for an elderly parent in crisis" - Publisher's description. What do you do when your mother can't remember who you are? You catch the first flight from your adopted home of London to your original hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where...

Author

Notes

Topic(s): Childhood Trauma, LGBTQ+

Description

A story about a newly realized lesbian woman, hellbent on reaching spiritual enlightenment. Even if it kills her. Cheryl just came out and she's been doing just fine, thanks for asking! She just broke up with her dog, quit gluten, cut contact with her father, and is just really trying to focus on getting enough water daily! It's all going great! Except it isn't, because no matter what Cheryl does she really can't shake the feeling that there's something...

17) When everything turned blue

Author

Baronciani, Alessandro

Notes

Topic(s): Anxiety, Depression, Panic Attacks

Formats:

eComic, Graphic Novel

Description

"Chiara lives her life afraid of many things, but most of all the fear of an undiagnosed illness. As she delves further and further down a rabbit hole of denial and disassociation, she will be forced to make a decision that will alter her life forever"-- Provided by publisher.

18) A fade of light

Author

Notes

Topics: Dementia

Formats:

eComic, Graphic Novel

Description

"A memoir of a cartoonist's formative experiences in life and his close relationship with his stepdad, who is later diagnosed with FTD"-- Provided by publisher.

19) Where black stars rise

Author

Notes

Topics: Mental Health, Schizophrenia, Therapy

Description

"Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger's Where Black Stars Rise is an eldritch horror graphic novel that explores mental illness and diaspora, set in modern-day Brooklyn. Dr. Amal Robardin, a Lebanese immigrant and a therapist in training, finds herself out of her depth when her first client, Yasmin, a schizophrenic, is visited by a nightly malevolent presence that seems all too real. Yasmin becomes obsessed with Robert Chambers' classic horror story collection...

20) The joy of quitting

Author

Roberts, Keiler

Notes

Topic(s): Motherhood, Mental Health

Description

"Keiler Roberts affirms her status as one of the best autobiographical cartoonists working today with The Joy of Quitting, a work encompassing 8 years of hilarious moments in the author's life, mined from the universal. It spans her frantic child-rearing, misfires in the workplace, and frustrating experiences with the medical system. In one strip, the author and her daughter Xia have itchy scalps. Roberts asks her husband to check her hair and all...