Category: Mental Health
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I've Got This… Really, I Do
Since my mother refused post-stroke treatment, behavior I could not control, I’ve been really busy. Bordering on mildly hypomanic at times, yet surprisingly stable given all the stress I’m under, I gained a sense of control by learning what I can about those things I can control. Using skills I acquired in my careers in…
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Day from Hell
Recently my mother slammed the door on her speech therapist. She refused nursing care for herself and blocked nurses from seeing my father. Her behavior has caused both of them to be discharged as patients from home health services. No more home nursing visits, physical therapy or speech therapy. My parents reside in a board…
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About Me and This Blog
Blogging can affect both personal and social change. I started blogging because the thoughts and words in my mind simply had to get out. I hope this blog offers support, educates, and fights stigma. Though I am a minivan-driving wife and mother, unlike most of my suburban neighbors, I live with bipolar disorder. My Story,…
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I Said "No!"
My mother’s speech therapist (a great guy and excellent speech therapist) called me today so that I could participate in her speech therapy. Friday, when I first met with him and my parents, he told me to work with my mother daily. Afterwards, I freaked out, was bitchy and short-tempered with my husband and…
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Freaking Out
Once again I accidentally skipped a medication dose. Thursday evening I forgot to take my divalproex (used to treat seizures, migraines and bipolar disorder), making me less stable, more irritable, short-tempered with my husband, overwhelmed, emotionally fragile, raw and vulnerable. F*ck. So that’s a bit of background for how I felt Friday and Saturday. Am…
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Change is Anxiety Provoking
Great news. Monday I am moving my parents into shared rooms – and most importantly, a shared bed – at a board and care close to my home. To that end, I’ve been busy with electronic paperwork and facilitating the transfer of my mother from skilled nursing stroke rehab and my father from assisted living memory…
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My Parents Are Still Apart
Overwhelmed with feelings of guilt. Trying to do the best I can. The assisted living memory care where my father has been staying cannot accommodate my mother’s difficulty swallowing liquids due to her stroke. My mother is back in skilled nursing after a psychiatric stay for major depression and behavioral changes due to a UTI…
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Meaning and Mental Illness
I wrote this post for Lisa Bortolotti’s project Imperfect Cognitions: Blog on delusional beliefs, distorted memories, confabulatory explanations, and implicit biases. The blog was founded by Lisa Bortolotti in May 2013, after receiving the happy news that she had been awarded an AHRC Fellowship for a project entitled “The Epistemic Innocence of Imperfect Cognitions“. The…
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I, Too, Have Lost My Voice
In a seemingly ironic twist of fate, not only is my mother without words, without speech due to her stroke, but now I have fallen prey to an upper respiratory infection (cold or what have you) and cannot speak – well at least doing so hurts my throat. So, I lay in bed bored wishing…
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Time for Geriatric Psychiatric Hospitalization
Tuesday I took my mother from her stroke rehab to the hospital for a swallow test. When we returned to her stroke rehab afterwards, she refused to get out of my car. She went so far as to throw my car into park when I was driving toward the entrance. I warned her that her…