Gum on My Shoe

By Janet Coburn Of course, blogging didn’t exist when I started writing. It was quite a journey ending up where I am today. Even mental health services were a big blank to me when I was young, something that no one I knew experienced or even talked about, except to make jokes about going to “Wayne Avenue,” the location of the nearest insane asylum (as we called it then). But it’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t write. Childish poems fueled by voracious reading. Hideously depressive poems fueled by burgeoning bipolar disorder. (I still commit poetry from time to time, writing sonnets and villanelles about bipolar disorder.) But before I returned to poetry with more structure, I indulged in free verse – unrhymed, unmetered verse that relied on the juxtaposition of images rather than formal style. I studied creative writing in high school and college. But the bipolar disorder was undeniably with me, influencing the topics I wrote about: “Two Ways of Looking at the Same Pain” a...

In the latest in our series of themed posts , I’ve selected articles from our backlist which cover various aspects of blogging. Scroll through them all or click a link to jump to the relevant section. Blog Topics and Prompts Blogging Workflow Blogging Q&As Practical Tips The Personal Touch I’ve provided a short excerpt from each post, with a link to the original article. I will update the list as relevant posts are published in the future. Blog Topics and Prompts Struggling to come up with a compelling idea is one of the inevitable frustrations of blogging, especially if you publish frequently or to a set schedule. The articles in this section offer a variety of topics and prompts to help get your creativity flowing. 40 Mental Health Blog Topics From the Caring Friend's Perspective Whether you’re an experienced blogger or starting out on your blogging journey, one thing I can guarantee is that you’ll sometimes struggle to find a new or engaging topic to wr...

Check out our top posts for the past month. Posts are listed by the number of page views they attracted during the month, most popular first. 10 Ways to Spend Quality Time with Your Friend That Don’t Involve Talking about Mental Health Our Top Posts of the Month (July 2022) Because You’re Worth it! A Curated List of Self-care Posts Our Top Posts of the Month (June 2022) A Few Thoughts on Taking My Own Advice Time to Care: A Curated List of Posts for Mental Health Awareness Days and Events Everyone Gets to Be Who They Are I’m Weak and What’s Wrong With That? 40 Mental Health Blog Topics From the Caring Friend’s Perspective This Isn’t a Mindfulness Book, or Is It? A New Book by Sarah Fader Our most visited pages were: Contact Us Resources About Us News and Appearances Our books Testimonials  

When we speak we educate and also free ourselves from a silence that surrounds mental illness. — Brynn McCann Organised by the World Foundation for Mental Health and observed each year on October 10, World Mental Health Day (WMHD) is an opportunity to raise awareness of mental health issues and mobilize our efforts in support of mental health. Fran and I have shared pieces in the past to mark WMHD and other mental health awareness days and events . I was keen to do so again, but when I saw this year’s theme — Making Mental Health and Well-Being for All a Global Priority — I was unsure what to focus on or how to proceed. The topic is hugely important, but that was the problem. It felt too big, too wide-ranging, for me to address it meaningfully. Surely, anything I wrote could do no more than touch the surface. I was pondering this when my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson asked if I’d like to go with her to a local WMHD event. I said yes immediately. We atte...

Published by Annecdotal Press, Anne Goodwin’s latest book Stolen Summers is a novella prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home which I reviewed last year in the form of an open letter to a friend. My only criticism was that I felt not all the loose ends were tied off, noting that this left room for the promised prequel. Now that it’s here, I’m excited to discover more of Matilda’s backstory. I don’t have a review of Stolen Summers at this time but I’m happy to share all the details so you can check it out for yourself. I’m grateful to Anne for a review copy. The following information has been provided by the author. Stolen Summers: A Heartbreaking Tale of Betrayal, Confinement and Dreams of Escape All she has left is her sanity. Will the asylum take that from her too? In 1939, Matilda is admitted to Ghyllside hospital, cut off from family and friends. Not quite twenty, and forced to give up her baby for adoption, she feels battered by the cruel regime. Yet she ...

Some time ago, my friend Liz Kay wrote a blog post about a “motivational” quote she’d come across that struck her as particularly unhelpful and inappropriate. I recommend checking out her post . It’s a great example of how an idea, suggestion, or piece of advice , can be interpreted very differently, depending on your personal history, lived experience, and situation. Something similar happened to me the other day. For several years I’ve followed the Twitter account of author and entrepreneur Marsha Wright . I especially like the messages and memes that are shared every Sunday under her #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha hashtag. I often participate by tweeting a quote or message with that hashtag; either a quotation from our book or something by other writers. I also check the hashtag feed and retweet content I find interesting or relevant. Some of it is too upbeat, even for me (I well remember Fran calling me pathologically positive not too long after we became friends — and it wasn’...

This post was inspired by a recent conversation with my friend Brynn. I was talking about the piece I was working on at the time; a collection of articles on self-care . She asked, “Do you take your own advice?” I paused before answering. “Sometimes! You know, that’s such a great question. No one has ever asked me that before.” I knew it deserved more than a fleeting response, and resolved to explore it further. This article is my reply to Brynn, and anyone else who’s ever wondered if people who share their wisdom publically ever take their own advice. What Kind of Advice Are We Talking About? I’ll start by saying I don’t consider myself in the advice business. I’m wary of offering advice to anyone unless it’s been specifically asked for. For the purpose of this article I’m going to use the term as a shorthand for “ideas, suggestions, wisdom, and guidance.” I’ll focus on the contents of our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder and this blog, b...