Search results for: “parenting”
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#Bipolar Disorder and #Motherhood
My Response to Natasha Tracy’s post, Bipolar Disorder and Pregnancy: Bipolar Taking Away Choice I didn’t know I had bipolar disorder when I chose to become a mother. I was diagnosed with dysthymia [chronic depression]; although, I knew I likely had, at the very least, cyclothymia [mild form of bipolar disorder]. Once I got the…
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South Orange County – No Way
Transcript I never in my life thought that I would be living in South Orange County, California. Grew up in the South Bay. I moved a lot. Lived overseas. Lived on the East Coast. But, a lot of my life was spent in the South Bay LA, and even that, Hermosa Beach, I found to be…
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Back to School at Last
So this is where I was with my son back in April. Transcribing this voice recording was gut wrenching for me. In April, my struggle to get my son back to class after multiple absences came to a crisis point. He fell farther and farther behind in his challenging honors curriculum. He was overwhelmed. I…
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Dear Kitt
Kitt, you fuel your rage by seeing a psychoanalysist one to three times a week, exploring over and over how you had been abused as a child. You deepen your depression by studying psychodynamic theory in graduate school. Doing so defeats you and undermines your mental health. Yes, therapy will enable you to work through issues you have with…
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Too Tired to Write
Living with mental illness while parenting a child with chronic health issues is a balancing act. When my son was very young, I tried working as well, and ended up hospitalized. I could only juggle so many roles. Recently I’ve been exhausted. Too involved in attending to my son’s health and educational needs to have any…
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Time to Find a New Therapist
Time for a change. When I last saw my psychologist, she equated allowing my son to play video games to allowing him to smoke marijuana. She said that the two did the same neurological and psychological damage, that video games produce emotional cripples unable to make intimate relationships. She was quite incensed about it. I do not…
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Migraines – What a Pain! #MondayBlogs
So, it is May – Mental Health Awareness Month, and I’m not motivated to write about mental health. Not mine, at least. Instead, I find myself drawn to write about parenting a son who has suffered severe migraines since he was a toddler. My son’s earliest migraines involved gastrointestinal symptoms, but no headaches. When he was…
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Fear of Loss
Thursday night I saw my psychologist over the disaster that was Tuesday. First I had her listen to the distraught voice recording I made that night. I told her about my son’s recurring gastroenteritis. He’s suffered from migraines with vomiting since he was a toddler, has gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and gets gastroenteritis regularly during the…
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Death, Grief & the Beast
NAMI Orange County volunteer Melissa Nemeth passed on as did my brother-in-law Don. Grief that I denied myself now hits me. Now I realize how much compassion I withheld from my husband as I defended myself from pain and from being needed. My prayers go out to Melissa’s family and to my in-laws. The tears flow…
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Been Busy
No wonder I’m exhausted! Friday I attended a NAMI California Regional Meeting in which we participated in NAMI Smarts for Advocacy Training. NAMI Smarts for Advocacy is a hands-on advocacy training program that helps people living with mental illness, friends and family transform their passion and lived experience into skillful grassroots advocacy. Basically, we learned how…