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