Category: Caregiving
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Am I Still a Mental Health Blogger?
What defines being a blogger, specifically a mental health blogger? Must I write regularly or frequently? Must I always write about mental health? What if that is not my focus ALL the time? What if I’m so busy that living with bipolar disorder is not in the forefront of my mind? What if I’m overwhelmed…
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Time to Write Again?
Pre-Christmas Travel Writing I jump from one app to another. Jigsaw puzzle to reading to writing. Back and forth, writing and jigsaw. Uneasy. Jittery. Uneasy. Not at ease. Tense. Guilty. Dramatic, yes, but so fucking what. That’s who I am. I have no desire to change that about myself. Besides, honestly, I keep most of…
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Caregiving Can Wear You Down #RealTalkAboutCare
Since Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve been sick with an upper respiratory infection (URI). As an asthmatic, URI’s tend to go to my lungs. My son, too, is sick and in bed (no way for a teenager to spend the weekend). URI’s are highly contagious. We tend to share far too many illnesses in my family. Even…
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Mini Thanksgivings
This weekend my sister visited and we celebrated Thanksgiving twice with our parents. Friday we joined our mother at her memory care community and joined their festivities. That afternoon and early dinner went very well. We had fun decorating her room and organizing photos. Saturday we brought our father to visit our mother for lunch.…
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Shedding a Few Tears
It’s been a year. It’s been a year since I noticed that my mother hadn’t taken her turn in Words with Friends. It’s been a year since my mother was verbal. It’s been a year since she could use language. Her passion was words. She spent her days playing word games. She was proud that she…
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Featured Blogger: Kitt O’Malley – Art by Rob Goldstein
Thank you, Robert Goldstein, for featuring me on Art by Rob Goldstein as his November featured blogger. The original interview is posted at: robertmgoldstein.com/2016/11/06/featured-blogger-kitt-omalley/. Here I reprint it. This month’s featured blogger is writer and Mental Health Advocate Kitt O’Malley. In this interview we talk about internalized stigma, learning to accept and taking up the challenge of…
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I'm at a Loss…
My son has missed WAY too much school this year. He’s attending a private school where he gets one-on-one attention and learns at his own pace, so he simply falls behind and the charges for missed classes just keep adding up. He had gastroenteritis earlier this year (which we all had and which we all…
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Nothering, Too Good, or Good Enough Mother?
Feminine Collective published Good Enough Mothering, a poem of mine about mothering a migraineur. Check it out: femininecollective.com/good-enough-mother/