Gum on My Shoe

Find your tribe. Love them hard. When you’re in a close mutually supportive friendship like Fran and I are, it’s tempting to feel your friend should be there for you all the time. It’s unhealthy, though, to pile expectations onto the other person like that. It can stoke resentment on their part and disappointment on yours when, inevitably, they are unable to meet those expectations. Fran and I were talking about this the other day. She told me she’s happy I have other people in my life because meeting all my needs would be too much for her. It started me thinking about those other friendships and how grateful I am for them. I won’t embarrass anyone by naming them but these are my people. My tribe. Team Marty. I couldn’t be who I am, do what I do, without them. There’s no significance in the order I’ve written about them or how many words I’ve used. I’ve separated some roles out, so there are more sections than there are people. No role, and no friend, is more important to me th...

I’ve played Taylor Swift’s most recent album Evermore a lot since it came out in December. Four lines in particular caught my attention, from the song “Marjorie.” Never be so kind You forget to be clever Never be so clever You forget to be kind Let’s take a look at what it means to be kind and clever; clever and kind. Never Be So Kind You Forget to Be Clever I mentioned my idea for an article inspired by these lyrics to my friend and fellow blogger Aimee Wilson of I’m NOT Disordered . She immediately understood what I meant. “Maybe something like the importance of looking after yourself whilst supporting someone else?” “Yes! That’s exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about. Being there / being helpful / being kind on the one hand, but also being “clever” about boundaries. There can be an uneasy balance between wanting to be kind on the one hand and being clever (or wise) about it on the other. It might appear a good thing to be relentlessly and selflessly kind, bu...

Fran and I are excited to announce a new creative venture that we've been planning for some time. Kingston Park Publishing will publish a new revised edition of our first book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder . It will be available in print and for Kindle. Watch this space for further details. We encourage you to follow KPP on their website , Facebook , Linkedin , and Twitter . The first edition of High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder is still available for a limited period from Amazon and other booksellers.  

By Sachit Grover My motivation to make this series of films with the dance group STTM (Stories Told Through Movement) was the fact that there isn’t much talk about mental health within the South Asian community. Recently, Bollywood films like Dear Zindagi and Chhichhore have started talking about mental health, but it hasn’t been talked about in a mainstream fashion. I wanted to team up with STTM dance to have this talked about more publicly. We felt this collaboration would be beneficial given that we would be able to maximize our reach. A lot of people like dance videos while others prefer watching short films. We thought a combination of both would garner a larger audience. In the first episode of LOST , Lea and Shruti are introduced. In this series, Lea is the daughter of Shruti and Vijay. The first episode focuses on a dance segment between Lea and Shruti to the song Aashiqui (The Love Theme). In this first episode, Shruti is a figment of Lea’s imagination. That’s why ther...

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