Gum on My Shoe

As authors, Fran and I hope our words will touch those who encounter them. This week we have been blessed to have three readers share with us how they have been affected by our book. Excerpts are quoted here with permission. Judy Fryer sent me a photo as she was settling down to continue reading. Judy: My afternoon reading! Really enjoying the book and finding it helpful, interestingly written and touching. Martin: Thank you so much! It’s beyond amazing when someone shares how they are finding the book. What works for them. What resonates. It’s a cliché to say it makes it all worth it, but it’s true! Judy: Indeed it is so worth all the blood sweat and tears. Having ‘cared’ for my son the best I knew how 20 odd years ago, when I knew nothing about depression let alone Bipolar, I find myself thinking back and wishing I had had a resource like HTLT to support me and give me hope. It is written with such care, understanding, compassion and honestly, one cannot help but connect and ...

Excerpt from chapter 7, “The ‘S’ Word: Being There When Your Friend Is Suicidal,” of our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder . The chapter deals with how we manage our relationship and keep Fran safe when she is in the grip of suicidal thinking. This passage describes how Fran and I originally met online, and my first direct exposure to suicidality. She Is So Not OK Suicidal thinking has been part of our friendship since we met. Indeed, it is how we met. One evening in May 2011, I found myself on the social media page of someone who was clearly going through a rough time. She didn’t seem to be online, but in the previous hour she had publically shared suicidal thoughts and feelings. There were hundreds of well-meaning comments. People were offering concern and advice, posting with increasing urgency as time passed and she did not respond. I could have clicked away to another page and put her out of my mind, but I chose to stay. We were not...

By Amy Gamble In my wildest dreams, I never imagined I would have had psychotic episodes. I was the “All-American” small town girl from Sherrard, West Virginia, who made it all the way to the Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. People like me don’t get a mental illness. Right? Wrong. As much as I liked the athletic genes I inherited, I despise the bipolar disorder gene that tossed my life into a shambles. A lot of people have been willing to talk about the manic and depressive episodes of bipolar disorder, but few have eagerly stepped up to talk about psychotic episodes. I believe it has a great deal to do with stigma. Psychosis equals “crazy” in the minds of “normal” people. Losing touch with reality makes for great horror movies, where the insane go on a killing rampage. The voices of those who have experienced psychotic episodes are much quieter in the world of mental health advocacy. No one wants to be thought of as a deranged psycho. But this hurts the many people who have expe...

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by number of page views, most popular first. Mental Health in Social Media, by Rebecca Lombardo Anxiety is my Wingman … I Think, by Sarah Fader How to Handle Anger Creatively in a Supportive Relationship BESIEGED: Sometimes I Just Want to Be Left Alone My Support System, by Meghan Shultz Our Top Posts of the Month (June 2017) Our three most visited pages were: Contact Us Our Book Resources  

Nine years old. That was my age when I experienced my first depressive episode. Some people throughout the years have told me that this is impossible; no nine-year-old, especially one with a good family and loving parents, has a reason to be depressed. It still bothers me sometimes when people willingly display blatant ignorance on a subject that they are not experts on. But through the years I have learned to overcome the frustration and I’ve utilized whatever resources I’ve had at my disposal to inform and educate those that really want to have a better understanding of the mental struggles that so many of us, of any age, are challenged with every single day. The truth is that, at the time, not even my parents believed that there was anything seriously wrong with me. They thought that my severe dislike for school had drove me to implementing new and creative ways of staying home. Yes, I did loathe school and the anxiety that dealing with the kids and the teachers brought me, but ...

I recently volunteered with Time to Change, the UK’s largest mental health campaign, at Northern Pride on Newcastle’s Town Moor. This was the third time I’ve volunteered. The first was at Newcastle Mental Health Day 2016 . The second was at last year’s Northern Pride. It was a little after 11 a.m. when I arrived at the Health Zone marquee and met up with Angela Slater, Time to Change Community Equalities Coordinator for the North East. I’ve known Angela a couple of years now, and it was great to catch up with her and the other volunteers (Time to Change calls us Champions). Angela introduced me to a friend of hers on a nearby sexual health stall, who was dressed for the occasion as Chlamydia, one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the UK. It made for an interesting photo! The event proper began around 1 p.m. with the arrival of the parade. We were close to the main entrance and for an hour or so we were really busy! It doesn’t come naturally to me to engage wit...