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Mental Illness Isn’t a Laughing Matter – or Is It?
Thanks to Psych Central for turning me on to this great video, that discusses parenting a child with a mental health condition in an entertaining way.
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Gotta Go, Right Now
Tim isn’t having a good week. We’ve joked since Tim was first potty trained at age three that he has a bladder the size of a walnut. At that age, we sort of thought that using the bathroom was new, and he was always curious, and thought that maybe he just wanted to know where…
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Bravo, Glee
You are not your illness. Denying your illness by not treating it keeps you from being who you were meant to be. (note: this is last week’s entire episode – the anti-stigma portion starts at minute 46).
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Happy Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week
It’s Day One of Mental Health Awareness Month, and Day One of Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Lots of interesting things are going on this week: SAMHSA is hosting a Gala event showcasing artwork of children who lived through 9/11, and to honor this year’s Children’s Mental Health Honorary Chair Jamie Lee Curtis in Washington,…
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Progression
I’ve spent the past two weekends taking all the paperwork we have about Tim and putting it in chronological order and in to three ring binders. Twelve and a half years of paperwork, comprising every evaluation, every IEP, every page of every inpatient stay of Tim’s life, from Pre-K through last week. It took four,…
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HAWMC – Day Twelve: Free Writing Based on an Image
Image by Vivadança Festival Internacional Ano 5 via Creative Commons License I’ll be a parent forever. Of course, my children will always be my children, but I will have a child at home, living with me, dependent on me, relying on me to keep him safe and housed and clothed and fed until the day I die.…
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HAWMC – Day Ten: My Postsecret
Most people are familiar with Postsecret, the long time art and social experiment where strangers send anonymous secrets on postcards to a guy named Frank. Today’s Health Advocates Writing Monthly Challenge is to create my own Postsecret here – not anonymous, obviously – and explain why. So, here it goes. I absolutely believe that Childhood…
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The Dance: How and Why I Spoke Out Against Stigma
I firmly believe that sunlight sanitizes, that being open and honest about something that is widely misunderstood can bring clarity and eliminate the overtones that make people afraid. Phew. What a March. I’m glad it’s over for a number of reasons. It’s historically Tim’s most unstable month. It still snows here in Chicago, no matter…
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HAWMC – Day Five: Chrisa Attempts Poetry
I’m not really a poem person. I read them. Some. e.e.cumming and Emily Dickenson. But I don’t write them. So when I read today’s HAWMC prompt – to write a haiku – I procrastinated. I avoided. I generally did everything I could do not to. But, the day will soon draw to a close, so…
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HAWMC – Day Four: Absurd Headlines – Another Idiot
I wish I was making this one up. Again, a “doctor” that says, basically, we’re just lazy parents. Here’s his article (reprinted from the Metro West Daily News) and the comment I left on it.Childhood Bipolar Disorder or Just Childhood? By Dr. Jacob Azerrad On the Today show, a few days after the earthquake in…