Caring for the needs of a loved one is often incredibly rewarding. Knowing that the best care decisions are being made and that the paperwork, insurance claims and many other day-to-day needs of the loved one are being addressed, should help caregivers sleep better at night. But are they sleeping? One of the most challenging […]
A Caregivers Path
A few months ago, I was asked to share my story with a local Caregivers organization. As I was reading it over the weekend, I realized that many of my readers may not know the story of how I became a Caregiver. If you are a Parent/Caregiver, welcome! I am glad to have you along on […]
Ghosts of Christmas Past
Christmas time, as the song goes, is a time of joy and cheer. For me, it serves as a reminder of a specific Christmas season four years ago; the year that everything changed. It was a major fork in the road for me, and as Yogi Berra says, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it” and take it I did.
Peer Pressure
***My hope is that this post will help parents and caregivers better understand the role that peer pressure can play in an adolescent’s mental health crisis, especially where cutting is involved*** One of the most startling experiences during my son’s mental health crisis was the realization that within his adolescent peer group, mental illness […]
Speaking Up
The following post was originally published on the Childhood Bipolar Project site on June 28, 2014. As you read, think about this… how often do we ignore that voice inside us that says something is not right, this doesn’t feel right to me or this doesn’t honor my needs? And why do we ignore? Food […]
Unexpected Memories
On a recent morning, I was driving to an early meeting when I hit quite a bit of traffic. Living where I do, we can be anywhere from the suburbs to the city within 20 minutes; during normal “rush hour” it might take 27 minutes. But on this morning, traffic was stopped. I flipped on […]
Fighting Stigma
Last week, I had the honor and privilege to share an original essay on shattering stigma as part of the Stigma Fighters series on oldschoolnewschoolmom.com. Sarah Fader created Stigma Fighters as a safe place for people to share their stories about living with mental illness. Sarah not only has created this non-judgmental space for others […]
Shattering the Stigma
Today, Far From Paradise’s latest post is being featured over at OldSchoolNewSchoolMom.com as part of their Stigma Fighters series – You can read it in full here. ****Head on over and show some love! Stigma Fighters is a blog series where real people with mental health issues are sharing their stories in order to combat societal stigma. Human beings […]
The Scars We Choose
Lately I have been thinking about the things we do in life to commemorate or to remember a period of time. There are many ways we remember these times; some choose writing about experiences, or photographing important memorable items and still others choose to create a memorial or select an artifact to serve as a […]
A Chat about Blogging, Mental Health and Stigma Shattering: Guest Podcast
Happy Memorial Day to all of my US Readers! This past week, I had the privilege and honor to represent Far From Paradise blog as a Podcast guest on my friend Darren’s blog Myriad of Ideas – a place to “Share and Learn”. During the podcast we chatted about blogging, mental health and shattering the […]
