Love’s loss: my therapist’s battle with bipolar disorder

 

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Pamela Glassman, my therapist at the John Bradshaw Center, took her own life after battling Bipolar Disorder. Her mother, Joan Childs, also my former therapist, penned this book about Pam’s struggles with mental illness and the health care system that let her down.

Continue reading “Love’s loss: my therapist’s battle with bipolar disorder”

Racism and antisemitism as triggers.

I am traveling back to Florida from Nevada, so have been away from my laptop. But the real reason I haven’t posted here, on my fb page, or worked on my memoir is I am so disheartened by the events of the last few days in Charlottesville that I can’t focus on writing. I guess racism, anti Semitism, and neo Nazism are anxiety and depression triggers for me. And you can throw shame in there. I am so ashamed of the president. Continue reading “Racism and antisemitism as triggers.”

This thing isn’t going to write itself.

The muse makes her appearance at 6 am.

Daily.

But here’s the rub. I am not a morning person. I am only up at this godforsaken hour because the Chihuahua refuses to acclimate from Eastern time to Pacific Daylight Time. Haley gets up each day precisely at six, jumps joyfully on my head and announces, in her own Chihuahua way, that the day has dawned. Dutifully, and because having a Chihuahua banging at your head is not that pleasant, I get up at six to feed and walk her. The muse is also awakened by the 8-lb monster, and it is during those tweams–the fleeting moments between dreaming and waking when you are finishing up a most delicious dream–that she fills my creative mind with the most brilliant of writing insights. Alliteration abounds and cadence croons. Continue reading “This thing isn’t going to write itself.”

Memoir of a mental patient blog

Two months ago my husband and I packed our Hyundai sedan with the essentials: my husband’s guitar, his ukulele, his big-ass amp, our Chihuahua Haley, a five-day supply of Haley’s organic homemade (by me) perfectly balanced nutrition-packed food, her favorite toys and water bowl, a customized-for-a-Chihuahua baby stroller (don’t judge), a thermos of frozen broccoli (healthy Chihuahua snacks), and every comforter and blanket we own stacked high over the back seat area so said Chihuahua would have a 360 view of the open road.   Continue reading “Memoir of a mental patient blog”