Ep. 88 Vitale Buford and Jaydee Graham - The Messy Memoir

May is Mental Health Awareness month so we decided to interview 2 authors whose new memoirs deal with their mental health issues and the addictions that resulted from those issues.

There is hardly a family who hasn’t been touched in some way by mental illness. For so many years, mental illness in all its forms--anxiety, depression, suicide or bipolar disorder--were kept under wraps which made the sufferers and their loved ones feel even more isolated.

But recently, memoirs about messy lives, dysfunctional families, and the realities of finding help have become increasingly popular and can be a powerful tool for the author to help themselves in addition to their readers. Our guests Jaydee Graham and Vitale Buford chat with us about the power of the messy memoir.

In part 1 of this week’s show, Jaydee talks to us about her book The Soul Grind: Fighting for Light Amongst the Trenches, an account of her struggles with alcohol and drugs in her teenage years.

In part 2 Vitale Buford talks to us about her 2020 memoir, Addicted to Perfect, in which she describes her 10-year addiction to the prescription drug Adderall, a drug often prescribed for people with ADHD. For those who abuse it, it can cause euphoria and the feeling of having superhuman amounts of energy. In Vitale’s case, she used Adderall because she felt it gave her the energy to be able to be “perfect.”

Book Mentioned in this Episode:

1- The Soul Grind : Fighting for Light Amongst the Trenches by Jaydee Graham
2- Addicted to Perfect: A Journey Out of the Grips of Adderall by Vitale Buford
3- Make Your Mess a Memoir by Anna David
4- A New Pair of Glasses by Chuck C.
5- Co-Dependent No More by Melody Beattie
6- The Art of Forgiving by Lewis B. Smedes
7- The Gentle Path Through the Twelve Steps: The Classic Guide for All People in the Process of Recovery by Patrick Carnes
8- Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
9- Books by Glennan Doyle
10- The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden
11- Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen
12- Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
13- Reasons Not to Die by Matt Haig
14- A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
15- Wild by Cheryl Strayed
16 - Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller