Gum on My Shoe

Last week I returned from a three week holiday in Italy. Because of my mental illness (grandiosely delusional psychosis and anxiety, more easily described as being ‘Crazy’—a phrase I am comfortable with) I haven’t been away from my hometown much since about 2004. These days I am so much better though, hence the bold move to leave my hometown for three weeks. I have put in a lot of work towards getting better, especially in my anxiety, and with some good luck as well, I have considered myself to be pretty much recovered since about 2016. In 2016 I flew to Ireland for my niece’s christening and in 2017 I flew to Holland for my cousin’s wedding, despite being afraid of flying, an endeavour that has the power to shake me to the core. These two trips were successful and enjoyable though, the flying was bearable, and they made me confident that I could safely enjoy three weeks in Italy, without my fading mental health issues getting in the way. I had a good time in Italy, we stayed a...

There are far more people than we can ever list by name, but those we are able to include represent a wide spectrum of experience, knowledge and expertise—and they have all believed in us. That is awesome—and humbling. As any author will tell you, compiling the acknowledgements is not the least part of writing a book! Whether you choose to recognise one person or one hundred (or none at all) it is a decision not to be taken lightly. We learned so much that we wrote a blog about it , in the hope authors might benefit from our experience and our friends and readers might understand how we went about it (and, perhaps, why they were—or were not—included). It is one year since our book, High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder was published. It seems an appropriate time to share our acknowledgements here on our blog. Acknowledgements We are grateful to writer, journalist, and mental health campaigner Rachel Kelly for her encouragement and support, and...

If you were going to write a book about your life, what would be the title? Who would you want to read it? Would you cover anything up? Would you expose an area of your life into the light? I want to lend you a story. It’s a story about life with mental illness but with none of the vocabulary you’d expect. You’ll read about depression, psychosis, mania, paranoia, anxiety and you will also read about recovery, finding being, mindfulness, healing, recovery. My favourite stories are those that you can relay to a child and the adult reader also finds depth of understanding beyond the literal narrative. Are yours? Well, I hope that The Flight of the Bumblebee does just that. In the last few weeks, I’ve added questions for individuals and book groups at the end of each chapter. I want to make it easier for you to have those ‘mental health conversations’. I find that when I have a metaphor to talk about, those chats are much easier to begin. “Have you read The Flight of the Bumblebee ? We...

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by number of page views, most popular first. Your Thoughts Create Your Future, by Soph Hopkins I Once Knew a Genius Who Ended up a Simpleton: My Brother Gabriel Had Epilepsy and Bipolar Disorder, by Marie Abanga Our Top Posts of the Month (August 2017) When Readers Write: How to Love Feedback from Your Readers Our Top 10 Blog Posts of All Time Talking Freely in Ely: An Invitation to Cake Our three most visited pages were: Resources Contact Us News and Appearances  

My name is Marie Abanga and I am from Cameroon in Africa. Before my brother Gabriel was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of eleven, all I knew about the condition was the appellation “fainting fits”. In my country and probably in a large chunk of Africa, such fits are still attributed either to evil attacks or ill luck. There is so much taboo and stigma surrounding such cases, to the extent that some families would rather hide their children suffering from seizures than risk public shame. They simply are never sent to school, or withdrawn once seizures set in. As if the epilepsy was not enough, I learned barely two months before my brother’s death that he had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This made sense to me because I had witnessed firsthand several highs and lows of his behaviour, but I was left speechless. I remember a blog post I did on my blog in June 2014 on the occasion of his 33rd birthday, crying out loud: “ Somebody tell me what is wrong with my brother ”. ...

In honour of our readers and all the fabulous writers who have guested for us, we felt it would be great to showcase the ten most viewed posts of all time here at GumOnMyShoe.com . Interestingly, there is a 50:50 mix of our posts and guest contributions. Whether you are discovering them for the first time or revisiting a favourite, our top ten offers some brilliant and challenging reading. Which is your favourite? Fancy writing for us yourself? Check our Guest Post Guidelines and get in touch. We’d love to hear from you! Our Top 10 Blog Posts of All Time 1. Get It Right When Asking for Help with Bipolar Disorder, by Julie A. Fast In our most popular post ever Julie A. Fast, author of Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder: Understanding and Helping Your Partner , Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder and Get it Done When You’re Depressed , discusses how to ask for help, a topic close to our hearts. ( More ) 2. michigan , by Mickey Solis Actor and screenwriter Mickey Solis discu...

I am delighted to announce I will be a guest speaker at the Talking FreELY Pop Up Cafe event, to be held at Ely Cathedral Conference Centre, Ely, Cambridgeshire, on Saturday November 4, 2017. Talking FreELY is a community in Ely which promotes mental wellness, and empowers those suffering the effects of mental illness to seek the help they need. For full details of the event check the Talking FreELY website or Facebook event page . Although it’s still almost two months away, I’m already excited! I’ve spent much of the past week planning my trip, including booking a room at the four star Nyton Guesthouse which is only a short walk from the Cathedral. My invitation came through one of those delicious social media happenstances that keep me coming back for more! The first connection came earlier this year on Twitter when I saw something retweeted by a friend of ours, mental health author and speaker Rachel Kelly, about the Happy Café Ely. I’m a fairly happy chap myself (I have ...