May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to take stock of your mental well being. Since publishing Rambler: A Family Pushes Through the Fog of Mental Illness last year, I look for opportunities to share what I learned from
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The end of a road?
We walk with a walk that is measured and slow
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
~Shel Silverstein
For the past dozen years—even more, really—I’ve followed the “chalk-white arrows” on a path that led to my
Psychosis
One of the more difficult things to understand about my husband Steve’s mental illness is his having a psychosis.
Steve has schizoaffective disorder, which involves severe mood swings and some of the symptoms associated with schizophrenia, like hallucinations and delusional or
Remembering Rosemarie
It’s been an interesting and busy two months since my book, Rambler: A Family Pushes Through the Fog of Mental Illness, was released.
Since then, there’s been:
a book launch celebration
radio interviews
magazine articles
newspaper stories
guest-blog essays and Q&As
Manic Impulse!
Mania can manifest in many different ways, from inflated self-esteem to a decreased need for sleep, from racing thoughts to irritability. For my husband, Steve, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it sometimes showed up in disproportionate interest in goal-directed
Rethinking Sunday’s Blue Law
It’s Sunday, and my son, Luke, has his cell phone turned off. Which means if I want to be in touch, either my husband, Steve, or I must drive five miles to his house.
Steve is there now. We’re grilling out,
The Art of Healing: “Pretty Pictures”
I saw the “Van Gogh, Monet, Degas” exhibit on a chilly, gray day in Pittsburgh last week. It felt good to be in an art museum looking at “pretty pictures.”
Those two words are in quotes because that’s how I think
Shrouded in Shame
Multiple hospitalizations occur for some people with severe mental illnesses, in part because it takes times to figure out the most effective drugs for regulating a set of symptoms. But they also happen because people with mental illnesses are oftentimes
Breaking the silence
For years I wrote a column for the Butler Eagle, our local daily newspaper. Mostly I wrote about the challenges of raising three children, my husband’s preoccupation with all things mechanical, and the sadness I felt watching Mom slip slowly
Why the title, “Rambler: A family pushes through…”?
What should I call my book after spending so many years writing it? It was a weighty question that took months to answer.
Initially, I titled it Gray Matters because I write a lot about the uncertainty I felt living with
