The Ghost of Christmas Past It was a Thursday afternoon, December 17, 1964, when Mom died of a ruptured brain aneurysm. She was only 34. I was 14 and my little brother Jerry’s 7th birthday was the day we saw our Mom laying in her casket at the funeral home. She was wearing a pretty [...]
Stigmatize Me: People Living with Mental Illness Would you purposefully block someone else’s recovery? Would you put someone down for something they have no control over? People with mental illness face prejudice and discrimination in society everyday due to a lack of education about the issue. Mental health and illness education will help decrease mental [...]
You Always Deserve It *Trigger warning* - for examples of untreated eating disorder and depression symptoms and behaviors 8:00 AM - your alarm goes off. It’s a below-freezing January morning. Even though you got well over eight hours of sleep last night, you don’t have class for another few hours and all you want to [...]
NUMBING MEMORIES Dear friend, Sorry I haven’t written to you in last 21 days… Perhaps I was too busy, too distracted or too happy to be sad… But it’s all superficial, isn’t it? You finally have a happy streak and deep down you are afraid that you will get bad again and eventually it does [...]
WHY DO MENTAL ILLNESS AND ADDICTION SEEM TO SO OFTEN GO TOGETHER? _______________________________________________________ The day I asked myself how I had travelled so deeply into my depression—when all I wanted was to get out—I wore an anti-suicide smock and cried in a basement jail cell in Williston, North Dakota. I write that I travelled to [...]
10 Priceless Gifts You Can Give to Someone with Mental Illness If someone you care about is facing challenges related to mental health issues or addiction, you can give them many wonderful gifts throughout the year that won’t cost you a dime. Consider these. 1) Give the gift of assistance “Helping others isn’t a chore; [...]
Mr. Wrong Companionship is something we all crave so deeply. Even the tiniest preemie babies will grow stronger if they are held often. Most of us still feel that deep pull to other people on lonely nights, long after childhood. We are desperate not to be alone. My first serious relationship, like so many other [...]
If living with a misdiagnosed mental illness for seven years and running through the gauntlet of prescription medications to treat anxiety and depression isn’t enough, having an arrest serve as the catalyst that ultimately leads someone to a correct diagnosis and corresponding effective treatment program has been surreal to say the least. Add the words [...]
It's high time I wrote about this... My much adored son has gone missing. He suffers from schizophrenia and has been coping with this dreaded illness since at least 2008 (when it was first diagnosed after he shot himself in the head). Deemed a "gifted" art student at a very early age (8), throughout school, [...]
I get asked a lot what it’s like to raise a child that has a severe mental illness. My son Tim has childhood onset schizophrenia, a rare disorder in that this mental illness usually manifests itself in late adolescence or early adulthood, and it is extremely hard to diagnose in children because the visual and [...]
