Marlon was that nerdy little kid who loved to write and went door to door in his little suit to share church pamphlets. But even a protective family could not shield him from the violence in his neighborhood. Marlon was in elementary school when he was first robbed. His exposure to violence made him hyper-vigilant, but nothing could protect him from being raped at gun point at the age of 14. As Marlon puts it, this event took away his childhood freedom and sentenced him to absolute silence and the beginning of his belief of his own brokenness. At 19, he went to jail, facing a life sentence for his part in a fatal robbery.
Read MoreDonna developed a serious auto-immune disease when she was a new mom. A simple viral infection left her hospitalized and paralyzed as her body turned against her very own nerve cells. With proper medical care and over time, she was able to walk again. But some symptoms lingered and when she would describe to doctors the neurological symptoms she also faced: depression, memory loss, brain fog, the answer was “well, of course, you’re dealing with so much pain and stress!” But Donna had a hunch that her symptoms were more than the results of the stress caused by her severe illness, and over years of research, she found out that she was indeed right. Very recent scientific discoveries are completely changing our understanding of the brain. And her reporting provides a radical new way of thinking about the brain and its interaction with the rest of the body. Donna provides essential and paradigm-shifting information for anyone who has suffered from depression, Alzheimer’s, or auto-immune diseases.
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