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Lost and Found
** I’ve been asked to be a regular blogger for the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation. Here’s my first blog post for CABF: “My best suggestion to you is to give up your parental rights to the state of Illinois.” A doctor told me that. A child psychiatrist my son Tim had been seeing for…
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A Strange Sigh of Relief
I remember the day my mom saw Jani Schofield and her parents Michael and Susan on Oprah. Jani is a beautiful young girl who suffers from childhood onset schizophrenia. Mom called me the next day, after watching the show off her DVR. I expected my mom’s tone of voice to be one of sorrow, or…
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Bad Moon Rising
It’s nearly a full moon tonight. Sunday will mark the third full moon of 2010, already. Hard to believe there’s been that many already this year. We’ve been very cognizant of the lunar cycle since Tim was a small boy. Although psychology rejects the notion, I’ve charted Tim’s manic cycles and psychosis to a fairly…
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Ms. Palin, You are a Hypocrite
An open letter to Ms. Sarah Palin Dear Ms. Palin: I wanted to lend my support to you and your family in your fight to stop entertainment shows like The Family Guy, politicians like Rahm Emanuel, and other public figures from using the term “retarded” to describe something they don’t agree with. I agree –…
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Gimme Some Space
We get a report every week from Tim’s caseworker at ODTC that tells us how his week went. For the past several weeks, Tim has been agitated by the voices (worse than usual), restless, has run off his floor /away from staff / out of class several times, and required physical restraint to keep him…
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The Hidden Cost of Me
Very interesting guest article in the Harvard Business Review on the cost of Mental Illness to businesses – especially in regards to parents of children with mental illness. http://blogs.hbr.org/friedman/2009/12/the-hidden-business-cost-of-me.html
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Four-Legged Victory
An appelate court in Illinois this week upheld a lower court’s decision that an autistic child could bring his therapy dog to school with him. A victory for psychiatric therapy dogs and precedent for the assistance they really do provide many children and adults with mental health issues. That’s Chloe, our 1 year old goldendoodle…
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I’m Not Scared At All
Not anymore. I’ve had a time to get some perspective. Yes, just a few days, but I have realized, I need a completely new attitude. Actually, it’s not a new attitude. It’s really the attitude I’m sort of infamous for. That “I dare you to tear me down” attitude. The one that flips off what…
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Thanks but….
I get a lot of unsolicited advice on dealing with Tim. Most of it is meant with good intentions, I know that. Rarely do I get comments from buttinskis that mean their advice more to admonish my parenting than truly be helpful. Those are usually the people that have no freakin’ idea what we’re dealing…
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Cycling
Talked to Tim on the phone last night. “My voices are back,” he said. As he’s gotten older, he has started to get the ability to separate his own thoughts from the three voices he shares his head with, at least for a time. After secretly congratulating myself for warning his case manager that this…