A new book “A Glass Half Empty?…or Half Full: A Children’s Book for Grown-ups” by Calabasas, CA resident Danny Schuck takes a childlike, playful approach to exploring pessimism vs. optimism to find balance, manage stress and enjoy life. According to Schuck, the book uses humor and innocence to provide PERSPECTIVE—the opportunity to determine the fullness of our own glass, and how to apply it to our daily lives. Dan talks with Mark Alyn about the growing trend of ending ones life.
“My partner Jill’s Messick’s (Mean Girls Executive Producer) death was by suicide; the worst possible thing I could (and can still) imagine. She’d been experiencing extreme depression related to her Bipolar disorder; a lifelong challenge for her was not only battling the disorder itself, but the extreme stigma it carries,” Schuck said.
This book A Glass Half Empty? …or Half Full?… A Children’s Book for Grown-Ups. is based on a ‘exercise for the mind’ that Schuck used to do with Jill to help with her challenge of her mental health disorder. The “exercise for the mind” focuses on the practice of looking at life from multiple perspectives, a skill that takes practice and self-awareness.
“Using an actual, partially filled glass; Jill and Schuck would talk about what they could and couldn’t see. I began to form a vision of this fish in the Glass that could help tell the story (or rather the allegory); and the vision turned into this gift book intended for Jill. In many ways, this book was my coping mechanism during those first weeks of shock and denial. Keeping this project alive and using it to help raise awareness for Mental Health is a way I can honor Jill’s memory,” he said.
The stigma around mental health disorders and suicide are related and still very strong in our culture. It is an uncomfortable topic for so many of us, and yet it is something we can’t afford to ignore, Schuck stresses. On the very week of Kate Spade’s suicide, the CDC released a study that reports suicide rates went up more than 30% in half of states since 1999, and more than half (54%) of people who died by suicide did not have a known mental health condition, he noted.
Donations from the proceeds of the book will be made to a Glass Half Question fundraising campaign for the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation is committed to alleviate the suffering caused by mental illness by awarding scientific research grants that will enable people to live full, happy and productive lives.
A Glass Half Empty?…or Half Full?… A Children’s Book for Grown-ups was released May 8 and is available on Amazon.com, Kindle and Barnes and Nobel.
For more information visit: www.glasshalfquestion.com/
