Unwillable: A Journey to Reclaim My Brain
Description
When Jackie M. Stebbins had reached the pinnacle of success as a young trial lawyer, she desperately tried to hide her anxiety and depression. But her shaking hands, endless insomnia, and white noise in her ears told her it was true: she had burned herself out. After she pleaded to be committed to a psychiatric ward, her world went black. She awoke a month later to learn that she had a rare and debilitating brain illness that stole her career and nearly ended her life. The twists and turns of her journey to a diagnosis, recovery, and new life takes readers on an emotional and psychedelic rollercoaster ride. You will feel her terror and devastation and be moved by her will and hope. Unwillable makes you laugh, cry, and cheer for Jackie in this fast-paced story of a woman whose persistence burdened her, but also equipped her to survive.
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About the Author
Reviews
"Through her incredible writing, Jackie genuinely and selflessly shares the raw details of her journey with autoimmune encephalitis. As the father of an AE survivor, I understand the common feelings of loneliness and emptiness in not having anywhere to turn in such an unrelatable disease. I have cried along with strangers, and I shed tears while turning the pages of Unwillable. Unwillable will help those suffering through loneliness and give them hope. While we're making strides to identify and treat AE, it's not happening fast enough. The best we have right now is hope. And Jackie's story brings hope. The AE world needs Jackie, and it needs Unwillable."
-William Gavigan, father of an AE survivor and Chairman of the Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance
Unwillable is a brave and powerful book. Jackie Stebbins, a brilliant, driven young lawyer, wife, and mother, shares the devastating story of her illness with autoimmune encephalitis, a rare autoimmune brain disease, and her amazing recovery. As the mother of a son with autoimmune encephalitis, I found our story in Jackie's story. Jackie vividly describes her journey so that we experience what it feels like to descend into this rare illness's terror, pain, and uncertainty. Like Jackie, our son was cared for by Dr. McKeon at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic. Reading about Jackie's Mayo trip brought back to me the feelings of relief, hope, and grief that we felt when we went to Mayo and found a doctor who said, "I know what is wrong; we can treat the illness, and it will take a very, very long time to recover." In her book, Jackie shows us how she found the way through this darkness and how she found the way forward into a new life-a brilliant woman, wife, mother, and advocate who is showing other people who face autoimmune encephalitis how to "keep standing." I am grateful to be an autoimmune encephalitis warrior with Jackie!
-Helen Egger MD (co-founder of the Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance)
"In Unwillable, Jackie Stebbins takes you through her harrowing battle with autoimmune encephalitis. Piecing together her own story from memory, medical records, interviews, and the handwritten journals she kept during her illness, Stebbins shines a light on a little-known and even less understood medical condition. In documenting her descent into illness and road to recovery, she pulls her readers into her story as she tries to first find out what's wrong with her and then find out what that diagnosis actually means, not just medically but for her life going forward. Stebbins engages readers through the unflinching honesty, attention to detail and palpable willpower that she displays both in facing her illness and in her storytelling."
-Maria Burns Ortiz, co-author NYT bestseller My Fight/Your Fight
