Gum on My Shoe

The following is excerpted from High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder , by Martin Baker and Fran Houston (Nordland Publishing, 2016). Three Thousand Miles. Three Hundred Minutes. According to one online calculator, Fran’s home on the north-east coast of the United States lies just over 3,050 miles (4,910 km) from mine in the north-east of England. For most of the year, we are five time zones (300 minutes) apart, so that when it is nine o’clock in the morning for Fran it is two o’clock in the afternoon for me. The time difference reduces to four hours for two weeks in spring, and one week in autumn, because our countries switch between normal time and daylight saving time on different dates. The UK enters daylight saving time (British Summer Time, BST) at one o’clock in the morning on the last Sunday in March, and returns to normal time (Greenwich Mean Time, GMT) at one o’clock in the morning on the last Sunday in October. The US enters daylight s...

Sunday, November 6, 2016 / 1-5 pm EST BLUE / 650A Congress St, Portland, Maine / www.portcityblue.com Join transatlantic best friends Martin Baker and Fran Houston for an afternoon of music, readings and fun, to celebrate their new book, “High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder,” and raise funds for Maine-based mental health nonprofit Family Hope ( www.familyhopeme.org ). “We thank all our friends who have come together to make our book, our event, and our way of looking at mental health a different way of being in the world.” (Martin & Fran) Martin Baker (via Skype from the UK) & Fran Houston Donna Betts, Executive Director, Family Hope Phil Divinsky, Master of Ceremonies Sherrie Phair, singer extraordinaire Kate Beever ( www.mainemusicandhealth.com/staff ) Jason Spooner with Adam Fredrick on bass ( www.jasonspooner.com/band.asp ) About the book We all want to be there for our friends, but when your friend lives with mental illness it can be h...

Last week I was honoured to participate as a speaker in the annual “It Takes A Community” forum organised by Maine Behavioral Healthcare. This year’s theme was social media and mental health. It is a topic close to my heart. My best friend Fran Houston and I live 3,000 miles apart, and have recently published a book sharing our experience using social medial and the internet to grow a strong, mutually supportive friendship between, in Fran’s words, a “well one” and an “ill one.” Amongst other topics, the panel discussed people using social media to share their lived experience, whether as part of their personal response to illness, to help others living with similar conditions, or to participate in the wider movement challenging mental health stigma and discrimination. Many, Fran included, share openly. Others are quite frankly too busy getting through one day to the next. Many have learned the hard way what it costs to raise their heads above the parapet. Or maybe they feel it is ...