Am I Normal? I spent many years working in public mental health with people who have serious, chronic mental illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia. Over and over they would say to me “well you’re normal, you don’t get it”. I started to question, what exactly is normal and how [...]
There is no single origin story for mental illness. There are genes and what passes through them; there are early onset signs that may be treated if they weren’t missed or ignored; there are traumas that bring forth something in the brain’s chemistry that wouldn’t have reared its ugly head otherwise; but there is not [...]
PPD and PPA. Two seemingly harmless 3 letter acronyms that are mentioned quickly in a one page article in the back of the most read pregnancy book on the market. Two acronyms that my (otherwise wonderful) OB doctor failed to mention to me at all during my 18 combined months of pregnancy. But Postpartum Depression [...]
I recently watched 'Lars and the Real Girl' for the second time and once again was touched by the gentleness of this movie. For those who haven’t seen it, the movie is about a young man who thinks a blow-up sex doll is his real girlfriend. What is so poignant about the movie is how [...]
Obesity is not an epidemic. There is a reason we say something popular online has gone “viral”; because it resembles the uncontrollable spread of a virus. People don’t go around injecting random strangers with virus-filled syringes, or spraying them in the face with virus-laced chemicals. These types of outbreaks occur in spite of the best [...]
Reducing Shame When Seeking Help for Your Family Given all the obstacles that children face these days it’s easy to understand why parents may choose to hide that they are seeking therapy or psychiatric treatment for their child. It’s one thing as an adult to choose whether to share your diagnosis and treatment. Much more [...]
When one finds out that a friend has cancer one’s heart breaks. There may not be a cure for the cancer as yet, but damned if people aren’t trying. Everybody has lives that have been touched by cancer - whether family or friend. Heck, for me every Holy Week reminds me of a close family [...]
Understanding Stigma I am the first Portland, Oregon-area woman author to publish a memoir about schizoaffective disorder (a little talked about diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia). My memoir is called, Sherry Goes Sane: Living A Life With Schizo-Affective Disorder. Most books on mental illness are written by doctors and clinicians, but I feel the [...]
The other week, I 'perved' on a teenage girl in a displacement camp. The sixteen or seventeen year-old from Nuba in South Sudan, now languishing uneasily in the nearby town of Kodok and being filmed by a team of BBC cameramen, was wearing a thread-bare, semi-transparent whisper white tobe (as is traditional in the region), [...]
Talking about mental health is how we progress mindsets. “The Devil’s Pulling Strings” is a reflection of both personal, and professional experiences with Schizophrenia. A distrust in reality is heartbreaking to see, and difficult to mend. Daily function becomes hampered by your own demons and contradicting truths. Through living in New York, I am submerged [...]
