Category: Family
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Sonoma County – Wild Open Spaces #Writing101
A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image. – Joan Didion Sonoma County holds a special place in my heart. My husband and I bought our first house in Petaluma…
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Easter, Spring Break & Writing 101
Starting tomorrow, I’m taking WordPress Writing 101. I look forward to honing my writing skills. Hopefully I will have the time and energy to make the most out of this course. If not, I will simply get around to it when I can. Right now I am enjoying Easter at the beach. Tomorrow is my…
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Postpartum Bipolar Disorder Research Study
My friend & colleague, Dr. Walker Karraa, is studying the stigma surrounding postpartum bipolar disorder. If you fit her research criteria and are interested in participating, please do so. Her book Transformed by Postpartum Depression: Women’s Stories of Trauma and Growth is groundbreaking and a powerful, moving read. Research Study: The Stigma of Mental Illness for Mothers Diagnosed with Bipolar…
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Bay Area Here I Come!
This weekend I’m going up to the San Francisco Bay Area so that Rebecca Gitenstein can interview me at The Wright Institute for her doctoral study on mothers with bipolar disorder. What do you know – I’m a mother and I have bipolar disorder. PLUS – The Wright Institute is in Berkeley. Seeing Rebecca in person gives me…
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Do NOT Smoke!
First of all I hope and pray that I am able to emotionally support my husband as he experiences grief, having lost his oldest brother last week to lung cancer. Grief, anxiety, and the fear of loss is what prompted me to begin writing this blog back in September 2013. My husband benefitted from visiting his brother before he…
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Rumi on Grief
There is something both beautiful and sorrowful when someone or something dies. Something spiritual lives on. Love persists and is a blessing. I do not deny the pain of grief, but believe that death is a part of life, and that grief is a part of loving. There is no way to love without experiencing…
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Survey Says…
Long time in coming… below more emotionally substantive content are the results of the survey I took in mid-February. First of all, my first reaction to being asked to take a survey is a curt “No” then an abrupt disconnect. That said, I finally decided to figure out where and what the results were. Quite…
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The Bipolar Parent – Q&A with Kitt O’Malley
La Sabrosona of my spanglish familia interviewed me about parenting while living with bipolar disorder. Here is the interview:
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Childhood Trauma of Parental Mental Illness #1000Speak for Compassion
At the beginning of this week, Terezin – a woman who had been horrifically abused by a mother diagnosed with manic depressive psychosis – read my poem Suicide Infanticide and was understandably enraged. My poem described a fleeting and deeply disturbing psychotic thought I had postpartum. Her comment deeply troubled me and made me question my adequacy as a mother.…