Gum on My Shoe

Number 3 in my list of six things I would quite like to do in 2019 is the hope for some joyful moments that would take me out of myself. On that score my year is off to a great start after meeting up with mental health blogger Aimee Wilson last weekend. We first met three years ago at an event organised for Newcastle Mental Health Day 2016 . I was volunteering for Time to Change and Aimee was running the social media side of things. We’ve met several times since then, mostly at mental health events or volunteering . This was the first time we’d arranged to meet up as friends and we were both really looking forward to it. One key thing we have in common is that we each blog on mental health topics, and this was very much a “Bloggers’ Day Out.” We both started blogging in 2013. Aimee began I’m NOT disordered in January of that year and we were also meeting to celebrate her blog’s success and sixth anniversary. With close to half a million readers, it is a success worth celebr...

By Julie A. Fast It’s fun to do things together, but it can be hard to figure out what is helpful when a person with bipolar is working hard on stability. Before I truly committed my life to bipolar management, going out drinking at karaoke was my main entertainment. These days, I look for more healing environments that allow me to have a great time and still get to bed on a schedule. If you’re a friend of someone with bipolar disorder and wonder what you can do together that is relaxing and fun and SAFE, think of these options. I’m in Portland, Oregon in the US where there is a lot of gender openness, so even if something sounds feminine or masculine, please know that there is no limit to what we can do - as you will see by suggestion number one: Get a pedicure or foot massage together! Find a salon with a good health record and book a joint session where you can sit and get your feet pampered while you both sit and gossip about life. Pedicure chairs are so comfortable. We h...

The most important sounds we can ever share with another person are our own voices. The above quotation is from the chapter in our book where we discuss how we make our 3,000 mile, transatlantic, friendship work. We believe there are many kinds of distance that can separate people, and not all are measured in miles or time zones. What keeps our relationship fresh and alive is our willingness to keep the channels of communication open between us, no matter what. Reading together is one way we honour that commitment, and amongst the most rewarding. Young children—and parents of young children—know this instinctively. And yet as adults we rarely read to one another. When was the last time you read to your adult child, to your partner, or to a friend? Geography need not be an obstacle. Fran and I live on opposite sides of the world, yet read together regularly on our video calls. We do this both for simple pleasure, and because Fran finds it helpful. She has difficulty maintainin...

What a day. A day of kittens. Of kitten therapy. And I got to take a part. I have a fish. I love my fish. He even lets me pet him. But he is not a kitten. I hiked down to Congress Square Park. They had five kittens in a playroom. Five people at a time. Five minutes. Kittens bring you into the moment. They let you wake up to who you are. One who wants to play. And you get lost. Or found. This was my day. You can watch my interview and find out more about kitty therapy on the Portland Press Herald page . Fran  

Readers of Marty and Fran’s excellent blog will already know about how they negate the geographical distance between them. But how can that be done when one of the people involved experiences anxiety about using the phone? With a little imagination, decent wifi and a mobile phone or tablet anything is possible. I tweeted the other day that I had all the ingredients to make Grandma’s Biscuits but that my thirteen year old daughter didn’t want to bake. (I have no idea what the biscuits are actually called, but I used to make them with my grandma when I was a little girl and that is what they have always been known as.) My friend, who blogs as mentalhound, tweeted back that she would love to bake with me — except she lives nearly two hundred miles away. Well, if she wanted to bake with me, I wasn’t about to let distance get in the way! I tweeted her a picture of all the ingredients, and told her to wash her hands and put a pinny (apron) on. There th...

Here are the rules: Put the logo on your post Thank the blogger who nominated you Write 5 facts about yourself Nominate 5 to 10 bloggers Thanks to my friend jenasauruswake for my nomination! Five facts about me (no one said they had to be interesting): I once banged my big toe in the shallow end of the swimming pool. I naively anticipated sympathy from my wife Pam: it took her about three days to stop laughing! Favourite nicknames include Marty, Hairy and Fluffy. Right now I am drinking a bottle of Guinness West Indies Porter. I am never more than 12 feet from my mobile phone. I ran a JRR Tolkien fan club called Middle-earth Reunion for ten years. Now to nominate five of my fave blogs. In no particular order: Moody Mu: www.moodymu.com Marla and Kasha: theglobalsunriseproject.com Gabe Howard: gabehoward.com Anne Goodwin: annegoodwin.weebly.com Johnny Two Hats: hashtagenjoythelittlethings.blogspot.co.uk