Sign-In
Cart
My Own Ashes: A Hero's Journey With Mental Illness and Addiction
Paperback
Biographies GeneralAddiction & Recovery
Publisher Price: $22.99
Publisher: Obol House
Published: Feb 28 2026
Pages: 238
Weight: 0.95
Height: 0.65 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Kirk was the golden-haired child who seemed destined for greatness-until something invisible and unnameable began dismantling him from within. Crippled by undiagnosed mental illness, paralyzed by perfectionism and social anxiety, he spent decades trapped behind a glass wall, watching real people live while he remained locked in his own mind.
A gifted history teacher and deep thinker, Kirk possessed the intellect to succeed academically but lacked the tools to navigate basic human connection. Every interaction felt like a performance. Every social gathering was a cross-examination. The South's rigid expectations of masculinity-football, fearlessness, fitting in-collided with a boy who couldn't follow instructions, feared his own inadequacy, and found refuge only in imagination and isolation.
As loneliness calcified into self-loathing, Kirk discovered something that finally made him feel whole: alcohol. What began as weekend socializing spiraled into The Darkness-a decade-long descent through addiction, hallucinations, jail cells, and mental hospitals, all while maintaining his teaching career through sheer stubborn perfectionism.
My Own Ashes is not a recovery story with a triumphant ending. It's something more honest: a deeply philosophical exploration of living with invisible illness in a world that demands you perform normalcy. Drawing on Jung, Nietzsche, and the great thinkers who shaped him, Kirk examines identity, authenticity, and the hero's journey as the actual framework of a life spent refusing the call to adventure because he never knew the door existed.
Kirk writes from the ashes of his former life, still in the midst of his journey, still uncertain of his ending. His story continues-and that uncertain honesty is precisely what makes it essential.
Also from
Strawbridge, Kirk
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Toby Byron (ED.)
Pete Welding (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Kinney, David
Wittman, Robert K.
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII
Warnicke, Retha M.
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man
Erdoes, Richard
Lame Deer, Chief Archie Fire
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover