On The Edge

When a child faces a physical health crisis, friends and family rally around to provide support. But when a child is diagnosed with a mental illness, their families often find themselves struggling alone. Having raised a mentally ill daughter, author Andrea Berryman Childreth has personal experience with the shame and stigma these families face, hiding behind a mask of normalcy while feeling completely helpless and out of control at home.

A four-time award-winning book, ON THE EDGE provides a realistic and practical guide to parenting a child with mental illness. Real life stories combine with an overview of common diagnoses, advice on navigating your health insurance or school system, and help with setting expectations at home to give practical steps to bring order to the chaos and hope to the future.

ON THE EDGE is a 2020 winner of the Best Indie Book Award, Nautilus Silver Book Award, Living Now Award, and Finalist for the Best Book Awards.

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About The Author

Andrea Berryman Childreth has first-hand experience with mental illness. As the mother of a daughter diagnosed with anxiety, depression, ADHD, non-verbal learning disorder, and auditory processing disorder, she has also struggled with anxiety, depression and bulimia as a young woman, which eventually led to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder when she was 34.

Andrea is the award-winning author of ON THE EDGE: Help and hope for parenting children with mental illness, founder of The Lemonade Project, and a coach of families struggling with a mentally ill youth.

“My goal with this website, blog and my book is to help families who are struggling with mental illness,” says Andrea. “First, I want them to feel as if they are not alone, and also I want them to know how they can get the support and information they need.”

In addition, Andrea seeks to dispel the myth that mental illness happens only to those who struggle with abuse or dependency issues. “It happens to ‘normal’ people,” she says. “Most people (with mental illness) are just in the throes of life like everybody else,” she says. “It can be miserable and lonely – it certainly was for us for a long time.”

“We are such a reactive society. If we just took care of the mentally ill in the first place, it would solve a lot of issues,” Andrea stresses. “I keep pushing for answers and for resources. I just want to keep moving in that direction.

“My husband’s and my goal is to be nurturing parents to both our daughters and to help them find and achieve their goals and their passions – whatever they might be.”

Andrea, her husband, Jeff, and their two daughters, Chloe and Sophia, live in Medford, Oregon. She is owner of Spotlight Marketing, a marketing firm based in Medford, and Jeff is a dentist in private practice in Medford.