Category: Mental Health
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What I’m Working On Now
Last Thursday, I interviewed at NAMI Orange County to participate in two of their programs: NAMI Ending the Silence NAMI Ending the Silence is an in-school presentation about mental health designed for high school students. Students can learn about mental illness directly from family members and individuals living with mental illness themselves. NAMI Provider Education The NAMI…
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Hypomanic Again
Since my interview with NAMI on Thursday about volunteer opportunities I’ve been hypomanic – so easily overstimulated. Hardly got any sleep last night and today I feel wiped out, fried, extra crispy.
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Mental Illness, Religion, and Spirituality
Healing, recovery, or simply living with a serious mental illness such as bipolar disorder may require medical, psychological, and spiritual support. Struggling with mental illness can at times feel like spiritual war. As someone living with bipolar disorder, while in the deepest of depressions, I’ve experienced what I can only describe as a living hell, and…
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Suffering and Meaning
“Existential psychologist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl (1959), learned through his own direct experience of severe torture, suffering, and loss, that part of the essence of the human experience is our capacity to find meaning in living through tragedy. He said, ‘In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds meaning’…
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Insight into My Blog
Today Cheri Lucas Rowlands, WordPress editor and author of Writing Through the Fog, wrote Drawing Insight From Your Annual Report. On December 30th, I used information from my report to thank my readers, especially my most active commenters – Dyane Leshin Harwood, Ellen Stockdale Wolfe, and Glenn Archibald. Here’s my recap and response to last year’s statistics. 11,000 people viewed this blog last year. Awesome! Readers…
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Why the Changes?
You may have noticed that I’ve revised the design of this site. I changed my theme (site design template), fiddled with my widgets (that sounds dirty, but just refers to the handy doodads at the side and bottom of each page), and experimented with colors and fonts. Why the changes? Well, I’ve been taking WordPress Blogging 101.…
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Refresh, Energize, and Rejuvenate
Daily Prompt – Re-springing Your Step: Tell us about the last experience you had that left you feeling fresh, energized, and rejuvenated. What was it that had such a positive effect on you? Honestly, the last experience I had that left me feeling fresh, energized, and rejuvenated was the last time I took a bath. Yes, it’s…
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NAMI Advocacy Update: January 2015
Here’s the NAMI Advocacy Update I received January 14, 2015. Go to NAMI.org, become a member, subscribe to your choice of informative emails, and you, too, can receive content like what I quote here. Follow @NAMIPolicyWonk and @DarcyGrutt on Twitter to keep up to date on mental health policy issues. Thank you! ABLE Act Permits Tax-free Savings Accounts…
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Bipolar Disorder, My Biggest Competitor
Former Olympian Amy Gamble is my Coach on living with bipolar disorder as she sheds light on mental illness. She concludes: “I try to dream and set goals. I have accomplished a few along the way. But the really big ones elude me. I have had to learn how to be satisfied with the small…
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Through the Lens of Our Past
TRIGGER WARNING – Discussion about whether Sia’s music video for Elastic Heart sexualizes relationship between an adult male and a pubescent girl. STATEMENT: I do NOT condone the sexualization or abuse of children. The question is: Does this video? Do not view it if you believe it may trigger you. FFFRAIL from disillusioned graduate to functioning adult wrote Controversy versus Art…