Parents with mental illness, expect summer transition behaviors from your children. We often underestimate what a huge transition our children experience as they finish up the school year (Help Your Child Feel Confident at the End of the School Year). Their routines change dramatically, as do ours. It is normal for kids to be grumpy, overly tired, and even combative as they work through major transitions in their lives. Parents with mental illness expecting these transitions into summer may have an easier time working with their kids and avoid mental health triggers.
Mental Illness Videos
Mental illness and addiction runs through my family alongside codependency. Mental illness is hereditary, flowing through families, from parent to child, from uncle to nephew. Where there is mental illness in a family there is a heightened instance of addiction (Substance Abuse and Mental Illness). But we don't acknowledge enough that where there is mental illness and addiction in families, codependency is often passed down as well.
Planning ahead for mental illness during the holiday season is tough, but it is doable. I could almost feel the whisper of hypomania pulsing through my veins last weekend as my family and I rolled through the Starbucks drive-thru. I squealed with excitement as the green aprons passed me my steaming red cup. As I sipped my cup of eggnog and espresso, I couldn't help but hope that my usual upswing was on its way. I look forward to my Christmas high--to actually feeling good--all year long. Christmas is so much fun. But is hypomania really a good thing for my family (Effects Of Bipolar On Family And Friends)? How can I navigate through my bipolar disorder to have a magical and peaceful holiday season? How can I plan ahead for my mental illness during the holidays?
The Easter weekend before Tim turned three, he got sick and we spent some quality time in an emergency room. My parents were visiting and while I was gone, my father, the neat freak, got restless and decided to vacuum my family room. He moved a chair – the kind with the skirt around the bottom – and found almost every toy that Tim owned beneath it. He frowned and, according to my mother, uttered something judgmental, while collecting the toys and putting them away properly in the toy box in Tim’s room (Surviving Mental Illness in a Judgmental World).
In our neighboring Newtown, Connecticut, too many families are steeling themselves for the anniversary of an unspeakable tragedy: the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.
I've recently been interviewed for an article (coming out soon) about whether I think the Mental Health system in Connecticut has changed in the year since the incident. My answer? Not yet, not that I can see. If anything, we're in danger of sweeping the issues under the rug once again.
But the questions remain: Could it have been prevented? Should someone have seen the "signs"? And - more usefully, perhaps - what can be done to help stop future tragedy?
Getting a diagnosis of schizophrenia, or any mental illness, after years of confusion, judgment and blame is both devastating - and a relief.
For Mental Health Awareness Day, here's how it felt for our family. Watch.
I just returned from a trip to Phoenix, Arizona, where for three days I've been on a whirlwind tour of interviews, meetings, and one community lecture, courtesy of Arizona Foundation for Behavioral Health (AFBH) and ASU's Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy - all to tell our family story to those who will, we hope, be affected by it in some way.
November was National Family Caregivers Month. An estimated 65 million Americans care for a family member. Of course, that is not just for families dealing with mental illness; that statistic accounts for those caring for loved ones with other physical and mental conditions, but also does not account for the number of families who are dealing emotionally with mental illness in a member even if direct care-giving is not a part of the picture right now.
I had the honor of being interviewed on several media outlets last week, and National Family Caregivers month drew to a close. The "month" may be over, but the job goes on. Here is one interview here, from "Reality Check" on Daytime TriCities.
Especially in the beginning, when a family is dealing with a loved one's mental illness, it's easy to become embroiled in the emotion of it all. In this television interview, I discuss the 5 points to remember about mental illness in the family.
Last Thursday, I was invited to read from Ben Behind His Voices to the members and staff at Laurel House in Stamford, CT. Laurel House is based on the "Clubhouse" Model, offering programs, services, and a community to people diagnosed with a mental illness. Tonight, Laurel House will sponsor the public Book Launch Event, and we hope to raise awareness and funds for the wonderful work that goes on there.
What do they do? from the home page of their website:
Recovery...
the regaining of or the possibility of regaining something lost or taken away.
Laurel House is a “for impact” organization that creates opportunities for people with serious mental illness to work, attend school, have a place to live and experience improved health and an overall better quality of life. It is also a place where recovery begins.
Since 1984, Laurel House has operated in Stamford, Connecticut, using a self-help approach known as the “Clubhouse” model. This is a holistic, community-based approach, which focuses on the individual strengths of people with serious mental illness to lead productive, meaningful and rewarding lives in the community.
I arrived at 11 am, and was greeted by the public relations team at Laurel House, consisting of both staff and members. One young woman shook my hand firmly and cheerfully and said, "I'm so glad to finally meet you! I have paranoid schizophrenia and I'm not ashamed to say it. I also want you to know that while I love my therapists and psychiatrists, I would not be here without the love and support of my family."