Coping with Illness
For the past few weeks (three?), my son and I (and my husband, but he's taking care of us) have been sick with gastroenteritis. I haven't been able to keep up with my [...]
Worn Out
Photos taken & poem written October 2015. It's that season again... Exhausted Overwhelmed Not thinking clearly Not able to complete sentences Not able to answer direct questions Fumbling with language With [...]
Finished Scrivener Tutorial!
October 2015, I last modified the import of my blog into Scrivener thinking I'd massage my writing into a book. The next month, my mother had a stroke. Never got back to the [...]
Please Support Me #NAMIWalks #JoinTheMovement
Please support me as I raise money for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). NAMI Orange County has been instrumental in my mental health recovery. Help Me Support NAMI NAMI’s Peer-to-Peer [...]
I do not whisper. I ROAR.
Motherhood transformed me. My identity changed. Now it changes again. I have constantly reinvented myself over my lifetime. As a pre-med biochemistry major at UCLA, I was miserable and suicidal. Then I studied part-time [...]
Barely Fiction: Kate.1
Her true and legal name is Kitt Kathleen O’Malley. She loves her name and is grateful her parents came up with it -- a great stage name if there ever was one. Her [...]
Review: Birth of a New Brain #PostPartumBipolar
Dyane Harwood thrilled me when she sent me an advance copy of her memoir, Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder. (I pre-ordered it and was anxiously awaiting it’s October [...]
Hypomania, Praise, and Self-Talk
Photo thanks to Gustavo Espíndola The praise came. Kitt loved to please. The more praise she received, the better she felt. The more she achieved, the higher she soared, until she couldn't. Her [...]
Bipolar & Dementia
I fear dementia. Both of my parents have dementia and live in a memory care community. They love one another and seem happy where they are now, but it took a while to [...]
ALPIM Anxiety-Laxity-Pain-Immune-Mood
Many of us living with mental illness have other chronic illnesses. Often we are not treated for our "physical" illnesses, as many doctors dismiss them as psychosomatic. "Mental" illnesses ARE "physical" illnesses, and "physical" illnesses affect [...]