Over the past couple of days, I have been following along with the congressional hearings of the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee on mental illness and violence, being held in response to the December 2012 Newtown, Conn. shootings. I have read a number of stories, essays and blog posts by parents who are participating […]
No is Not the Right Answer
The following was originally published as a guest post on both The Mindstorm and Parents Like Us Club blogs on February 8, 2013. Chrisa Hickey is the “Master-Mom” behind both of these blogs. She is also the mother of a child with mental illness, a powerful advocate and a voice for all whom the mental […]
Mental Illness in the Crosshairs
Over the past several months, there have been a number of incidents, tragedies actually, involving violence against unarmed, unsuspecting men, women and children. In these cases, some of the first reports that surfaced after the incidents were regarding the fact that the perpetrator “may” have had a background of either untreated or not effectively […]
Standing Up for Mental Health
On Tuesday, January 22, 2013, HealthyPlace.com launched a campaign called “Stand Up for Mental Health”. The goal of this campaign is to work towards shattering the stigma of mental illness by encouraging people to share their personal stories in hopes that others will “stand up” and share their stories as well. You can read more […]
Exciting News from FarFromParadise.org
Some pretty exciting things are happening around here at the FarFromParadise.org “Headquarters” and I am kicking off the New Year with a couple of exciting announcements! To start off, I am very excited that the production of Next to Normal is going to be at the Geva Theatre (Rochester, NY) from January 8, 2013 through […]
You Can’t Heal What You Don’t See
Welcome to 2013! If you are like me, you have taken some time to contemplate and review the past year. I like to do an inventory of what went well, what went askew and what, if anything, really went off the rails. The good news is that most of the past year was pretty darn […]
Caring for the Mentally Ill
The recent tragedy in Newtown, CT launched a national, if not global, discussion around mental illness and caring for the mentally ill. The need for better understanding, a higher level of care, more resources and greater support for both the patients and the caretakers has been brought out into the light. The conversations are frequent […]
Bringing Balance Home
This article was originally published on the IRoc Yoga site on November 15, 2012. Please visit IRocYoga.com and see the wonderful on-line yoga community that is growing there! Enjoy! One thing that I have learned going through a major mental health related crisis with my son, is that balance isn’t always easy to find. Never […]
What Came Next
In my last blog post, Now What?, I talked about the myriad of emotions that come up when faced with a crisis and how important it is to work on self forgiveness. What came next for me, and honestly was in parallel with dealing with the emotional side of the crisis, was identifying support. When […]
