Category: Bipolar Disorder
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What If I Don't Blog About Bipolar?
Recently I’ve been blogging about caregiving and about exhaustion more than about living with bipolar disorder. That said, obviously coping with major life events, such as taking on the role of caregiver of two parents struggling with dementia, is a HUGE stressor and potential trigger for mood cycling. Cocooning in bed right now. Treated myself…
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Happy Anniversary
My husband and I have been married for 19 years, together for 22. Marriage is not always easy. We’ve weathered hard times. Well worth it. He has my back. Life is hard. Living with a mental illness makes it even more challenging. Helps to have someone there for emotional and physical support, someone to make sure we…
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I Was a Workaholic Mother
Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. featured me in her HuffPost Women blog article, Living With Bipolar Disorder as a Mother and Workaholic. Her article quotes my wordy answers to her interview questions. Interview with Kitt O’Malley 1. Discuss your decision-making to work and mother at the same time. Before I even became pregnant, my husband and I purchased a house we could…
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Heavy Heart
Now that I filed taxes and got my parents settled in to their memory care community, I’m able to take a breathe and feel the weight of caregiving on me, on my now heavy heart. Struggling with the weight of caregiving for parents with dementia and a son with migraines while I live with bipolar…
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Updated My Resources Page
Now that I’m one of WEGO Health’s 7 Bipolar Depression Patient Leaders You Need to Know, I decided that I would update my Resources page. Actually, the two have nothing to do with each other. Just promoting myself, thanking WEGO Health, and passing on the resources… By Category Mental Health Youth & Young Adult Mental…
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Just Finished My CE's!
Just completed my continuing education (CE) for my California Marriage and Family Therapist license (LMFT). To renew my license this time around, among the courses I took, I chose the following three timely and emotionally charged ones: Older Adults and Mental Health, School Refusal, and Chronic Illness in Children. Yes, I’m firmly in the Sandwich Generation, parenting a sensitive adolescent while…
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Bipolar Disorder and Neurocounseling
My experience with psychotherapy supports the findings that we can “rewire our brains.” In cognitive therapy, I learned to stop negative thoughts and suicidal ideation, rewrite those thoughts and replace them with more accurate ones. In therapy I’ve learned to reframe my life experiences as meaningful – as preparing me to be a better mother, wife, and daughter,…