Days Full of Life

Maria Hagenschneider Days Full of Life Our shared time in hospice What happens when someone moves into a hospice in order to die there? Maria Hagenschneider relates what happened when she moved into a hospice center with her mortally ill husband and lived there for a surprisingly long ten weeks,...

The Fight Goes On – So Women Can Live in Dignity

Lea Ackermann The Fight Goes On – So Women Can Live in Dignity How Something New Began with the Death of My Son »If Sister Lea Ackermann hadn’t ended up with the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, she could have become a revolutionary or head of state. Her combination of a powerful sense of...

I, Birgit, Autist and Psychotherapist

Birgit Saalfrank I, Birgit, Autist and Psychotherapist Birgit Saalfrank is a psychotherapist. For years, she lived in various roles: competitive athlete, loving partner in a relationship, successful director of a psychosocial centre – until everything became too much for her. She became severely...

Lean Years

Nicole Knörr Lean Years How I overcame my eating disorder When Nicole Knörr was 13 years old she started eating less and less. With the progression of her anorexia, she only consumed 300ml of non-fat broth with which you cannot survive. When her body temperature fell to under 34° Celsius and she...

My Lion Cub

Elena Pirin My Lion Cub The Adventure of Raising a Child with a Handicap Leo is a wonderful little person. He does just fine, just not at the pace that development tests and school plans expect. When Elena Pirin and her husband adopted a baby, they didn't realize their child was developmentally...

The Great Departure

Sabine Mehne The Great Departure How I Lost the Fear of Death Through my near-death Experience Dying doesn't have to be a deadly serious thing. After Sabine Mehne had a near-death experience during her battle with cancer, the thought of death no longer makes her worry. On the contrary, she now...

The Street Collector

Peter Schmidt The Street Collector The Incredible Adventures of an Autistic World Traveler Travel is by nature unpredictable. And autistic people hate unpredictability. That makes it all the more surprising that Peter Schmidt, diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, wants to collect all the roads of...

Utterly Alone

Ann Helena Neudek Utterly Alone The Scars of my Childhood and How I Found my Way in Life »The beating had stopped. I cowered in the small tub. My mother sat in front of me and cried as she massaged her swollen hands.« For years, Ann Helena Neudek was beaten and humiliated by her parents. From the...

Zoe Means Life

Zoe Katharina Zoe Means Life I Risked 20 Years of Prison for Rescuing Hundreds of People at Sea - And Would Do It Again After passing her university-entrance exam and during her training as a boat builder, the 20-year-old Zoe joined the German Jugend rettet (Youth Rescues) organisation to save the...

Out of the Ordinary

Peter Schmidt Out of the Ordinary Practical Autism Information by Someone Who Knows About It There are many prejudices about autistic people, as conveyed by films like “Rain Man” that still shape the prevailing view of them to this day. But what is autism really and how can we better understand the...