Gum on My Shoe

I’m not trying to make a huge thing out of this but it struck me that sometimes there’s a value in connection, in reaching out to someone, that goes beyond whatever words might be exchanged in the course of the call or conversation or whatever it might be. Audio version here (YouTube) A friend messaged me today to ask if I’d like to have a call with her while she was traveling to meet up with somebody. And I was “Yeah cool, let’s do that!” Unfortunately, although we started off really well, by the time my friend got onto the bus we discovered it was actually quite hard to continue with the conversation. I’m not sure if it’s because she was on the bus and maybe traveling in and out of a decent signal area, or whether there was some other technological reason, but it became difficult to hear each other. So after a little while, before we got too frustrated with it or with each other, we decided to leave it there. We’ll pick up another time. Afterwards, I messaged my friend to s...

By Melissa Howard You’re easily drained from social gatherings. Working with people leaves you depleted, and by the afternoon you can’t wait to get home and curl up with a book. You love your kids to death but crave those few minutes that allow you to decompress once they go to bed. As an introvert, there’s nothing wrong with that, and in fact, you should plan on all that and more. Keep reading for tips to help you to take better care of your mind, body, and soul so that you can live the life you’re meant to live. Stop Comparing Yourself to Extroverts First of all, as an introvert, it’s critical to avoid comparing yourself with other people, especially extroverts . It might not be in your nature to be the life of the party, to be super outgoing in public, or even to be the most ambitious person. And that’s OK! Comparison will get you nowhere, other than eating up precious energy and making you feel miserable about yourself and the person you’re comparing yourself with. Beside...

By Julie A. Fast I love Christmas. I like the music and the colors. I’m listening to the Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack as I write this! I love the food and the snow and the lights on the houses. It is not a religious holiday for me, but one that I associate with really good childhood memories and a lot of family events. And yet, there is also the bipolar disorder side of Christmas. Bipolar is an illness triggered by change, even if the change is positive. I write about triggers in my book Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder . For all of my adult life I’ve loved Christmas, but once my bipolar started in my late teens, I kept getting sick at this time of year. It took me years to figure out why. My bipolar diagnosis at age 31 helped, but I still wasn’t able to handle the up and down emotions during the holiday season here in the States. (Please feel free to substitute the holiday you choose to celebrate.) Even after my diagnosis and creating my management system I lived with ver...

During December my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson has been recording a series of daily vlog (video blog) posts. (You can find them on her YouTube channel .) I was fascinated by the insight these gave into my friend’s life and was inspired me to try something similar. With that in mind I have been exploring how to record and share short audio posts. Hopefully these will be as interesting to our audience here at Gum on My Shoe as Aimee’s vlogs have been to me. The Technology I wanted to be able to complete the whole workflow on my Samsung S9 phone and to record using my VicTsing Bluetooth Headset . I spent a fair amount of time testing various voice recorder apps but none picked up the audio from my headset. I finally came across Parrot Voice Recorder . It works well and I haven’t had too many issues with it. You can hear how I got on testing this setup in the first two recordings listed below. I initially considered posting my audio clips to Soundcloud but ...

By Janet Coburn My husband used to work in a community correctional facility – essentially a jail. The residents were considered nonviolent offenders technically on parole for mostly drug crimes, but things could still get interesting. Mostly he didn’t talk about his work because he would try to dismiss it from his mind every day as he went by a certain overpass on his way home from work. One day, though, I was bitching in disbelief about something that had happened at my work – another editor had put his table of contents in random order instead of numerical. I was appalled by the stupidity of that. There I was ranting about it. Then my husband said, “Boy, that’s tough. All I did today was break up a fight and spot a guy who might have a septic wound. But you – the table of contents out of numerical order? Wow!” That put me in my place. My husband was someone who helped other people. For years after he left the job, people would come up to him when he was out and about, and remi...

I was proud to take part in this year’s Jingle Bell Walk in support of the Chris Lucas Trust which raises funds for and awareness of children’s cancer. I did the walk for the first time last year and was keen to do so again. I wasn’t alone! According to event organiser Lynn Lucas over four hundred people registered with more turning up on the night – all the more impressive given the rather damp weather we’d had all week! The start coincided with the lighting ceremony for the huge Christmas tree outside Newcastle Civic Centre. I’d never witnessed this before and it made up for me missing the turning on of Newcastle’s main Christmas lights this year. We set off from outside St Thomas’ church at Haymarket just after six pm. Four hundred walkers in Santa hats led by a marching band is quite something to see (and hear) and we drew plenty of attention! The 2.5 mile route took us down Northumberland Street which looked very festive with the Christmas market in full swing and a...

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by number of page views they attracted during the month, most popular first. How Honest Friends Helped Me Find Stability It’s Not Just for Kids: Reading Together for Fun and Friendship Chapter and Verse: A Few Thoughts on Poetry, Creativity, and Mental Health How to Be Honest without Losing Your Friends Ten Things I Learned about Myself Last Week Exploring Bipolar Disorder and the Sister Diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder. Is My Friend or Sibling Underdiagnosed? Caregivers Need Care Too Our Top Posts of the Month (October 2019) Our Top Posts of the Month (December 2018) Hidden Histories: Mining in the North East Our most visited pages were: Contact Us Resources About Us Our books News and Appearances Testimonials  

By Kailey Fitzgerald Being in recovery from drug addiction and having a mental illness concurrently can be extremely mentally taxing. On my off days, when I am not keeping up with my daily routines and neglect my self-care mechanisms, my life can seem chaotic and unmanageable. I often say it feels like I am just constantly putting out one fire after another. On the other hand, when I do manage my dual diagnosis well, I am truly happy. Finding coping mechanisms and a healthy daily routine that worked for me took a lot of time and effort through trial and error. What may work for one person, may not work for another. It wasn’t until I went to an addiction treatment center and began true, honest, and rigorous therapy that I finally found what worked for me. Go to Therapy Regularly Going to therapy and giving it a real, honest shot is what saved my life. For years I was repulsed by laying down on some brown over-sized couch and telling some stranger with a medical degree all o...

Photo: Priscilla Du Preez I’ve learned that the best relationships aren’t just about the good times; they’re also about the obstacles you go through together, the undying support, love, and the ways you help each other grow. — Sibyl Chavis Fran and I believe openness and honesty are essential if you want your friendships and relationships to be successful. As we write in our book High Tide, Low Tide : We believe it is healthier to be open about our thoughts and feelings than to dismiss, hide, or avoid them. .... We sometimes get upset or angry with each other, but we deal with discord promptly if it occurs, recognising there is no need to fear even powerful emotions when they can be explored safely. It’s not always easy. Being honest requires mutual respect and trust, a commitment to work through whatever comes up, and the belief that your relationship is worth the effort. Here are three examples where I’ve worked through disagreements and issues honestly with friends. If I can ...

By Julie A. Fast Do you have bipolar, schizoaffective disorder or a different mental health disorder that affects your friendships? I have bipolar and a psychotic disorder, now called schizoaffective disorder. As you can imagine, relationships were difficult when I was undiagnosed and didn’t know how to manage my own behavior! I’d like to share how I progressively righted my often out of control relationships and found more stability and happiness in my daily life. Paranoia and Friendships I lived with undiagnosed psychotic paranoia for many years and it greatly affected my ability to have stable interactions with friends and coworkers. My diagnosis helped me name what was going on in my brain and I finally knew that I wasn’t thinking and acting oddly out of obstinance. I was ill! Even though I now manage my psychosis with a plan that keeps most symptoms calm, I still had to teach myself to live with the symptoms that I can’t always control. I lost friends along the way, b...

By Janet Coburn Originally published in May 2017 at Bipolar Me. While there are professional caregivers, family members often provide care and support for those with bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses. My husband of 35 years is my caregiver. He does a spectacular job – making sure I have my meds, taking me to my appointments, running the errands that I have no spoons to do, keeping the house quiet when I need to sleep, making sure I eat at least one nutritious meal a day. It’s a lot. And there are things I can give him in return. Things he needs. Appreciation . When my father was dying of cancer, my mother was his primary caregiver. One day she came to me, wanting me to tell her that she was doing a good job. She knew that she was. She just needed to hear it from someone else, someone who could tell her that her excellent care had been noticed and appreciated. Appreciation – validation – is the thing that caregivers need most, to replenish themselves, to allow them to...

I’m sitting at a table in Newcastle’s City Library. At my side is the library copy of High Tide, Low Tide , the book I wrote with my best friend Fran. I never tire of seeing it on the shelf. It’s a proud moment for any author; second only to not seeing it because someone has taken it out on loan. I’m waiting for a friend. We’ll meet for coffee and then go for a drink or two; maybe something to eat. We’ll catch up with what’s going on for us. We’ll laugh, share old memories and make new ones. It is at moments like this that I feel most blessed. There were times in the past when I had no one to meet up with. I shared a quote on Facebook yesterday: I don’t chase after people anymore. If they like spending time with me they will do so. (Barry M. Sherbal) I posted it as a reminder to myself. Over the past year or so I’ve realised that chasing after people is unhealthy — for them and for me. I’ve done a lot of it in the past and the results have rarely been pretty. Some friends...

I met up recently with fellow blogger Aimee Wilson and we got talking about poetry and mental health. She showed me the blackout poem she’d created at a writing class run by Northumberland Council . Watch it permission rather I would demanded tolerance was not to be tested increasingly restricted reality reliving   particularly happy distracting not dared to return approved of given up hope Poetry is a new avenue for Aimee but she writes prolifically for her blog I’m NOT Disordered . As she says, “I find writing so beneficial for my mental health.” We agreed there can be a close relationship between mental health and creativity. I shared with her how Fran had never written or been interested in poetry until she met me in May 2011. At the time, she was highly manic. Our early emails and online chat conversations were full of wordplay and had a free-flowing stream of consciousness quality that I found intoxicating. Sparked by that, and my own poetry whi...

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by number of page views they attracted during the month, most popular first. It’s Not Just for Kids: Reading Together for Fun and Friendship Friends in Deed: An Interview with Bob Keyes How to Spot a Scripted Relationship and What to Do about It Attending North Tyneside World Mental Health Day Event 2019 Three Things I Wish People Knew about Loving Someone with Mental Illness Old Memories and New: A Stroll down Memory Lane Our Top Posts of the Month (December 2018) Complex Simplicity: The Art of Being Honest Seven Ways You Can Help Fight the Stigma of Mental Illness Hidden Histories: Mining in the North East Our most visited pages were: Contact Us About Us News and Appearances Our books Resources Testimonials  

By Sarah Blackshaw In this hectic world, maintaining friendships can be a tricky thing to do. When you have a chronic physical health condition such as fibromyalgia, it can be even harder. I spend a lot of time working with people who struggle with pain and fatigue, and I’ve written this blog post to explain the things that I think are important when accessing social support with a condition like fibromyalgia. Communication Is Key The thing I hear most often when talking to people who are struggling with pain and fatigue is that “other people don’t understand.” That’s likely to be due to a combination of factors. As a society, we don’t do a very good job of explaining conditions like fibromyalgia, as we tend to buy into a model of “have something wrong – go to doctor – get fixed – live happily ever after.” That model rarely works any more these days, and instead we have lots of people struggling with chronic physical and mental health conditions that cause distress. On top of...

Bob Keyes and Martin Baker I want to tell stories that convey personality and place. I like writing about artists, writers and performers who take risks with their work and are persistent in their passions. I’m curious about their motivations, inspirations and dreams. — Bob Keyes Fran and I recently had the pleasure to meet with award-winning arts writer and storyteller Bob Keyes when he interviewed us for the Maine Sunday Telegram . Given the distances involved we held the interview online using Skype. Bob and Fran were in Portland, Maine; I was three thousand miles away in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The set-up was perfectly in keeping with the international nature of my friendship with Fran and our key message that no one is too far away to be cared for or to care . It was a novelty for Bob, though; he said it was the first time he had interviewed anyone this way. We talked about how Fran and I first met, how we “do” our international, mutually supportive friendship, ...