Living with mental illness is hard enough without outside interference, but no one can avoid the outside interference of everyday life. Whether you work full time, go to school, have hectic family lives, or any combination of these things; they all add more weight to what you’re dealing with already when you wake up. Recently, I mentioned how...
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Kryss Jobes
November 4, 2016
I’m 30 years old, and I go by the name of Kryss. I was born in Texas and raised mostly by my grandmother, but other family members helped as well. I have a significant other and a daughter, and I feel like the world’s worst mother at times. I also have three cats that are both therapeutic and counterproductive at the same time. I love my family,...
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Journalists Should Be Educated About Mental Health
November 2, 2016
The year is 2000. I’m working as a journalist in a small Connecticut shoreline town. I’m barely hanging on. My brain is shorting out. No one on or off staff knows how to help me. During this time, I would stay up all night working on stories, then come into work the next morning disheveled and ranting. I would laugh at inappropriate things....
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Alexis Zinkerman
November 2, 2016
Alexis Zinkerman is a freelance writer, advocate, and journalist. Her novella Brooklyn’s Song is available on Amazon. She holds an MA in Writing from DePaul University and an MLIS. Alexis loves running, meditation, yoga, photography, cooking healthy foods, and fitness. She was first diagnosed with bipolar 1 in 1996, but it took many more years to...
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It's All Good
November 2, 2016
I am a mom of three kids – four if you count my bipolar disorder, which can act just as (if not more) juvenile than my kids sometimes. I also take care of my two aging in-laws; they are both 73 years old. Then, of course, I am a wife. I take two medications for my illness; they both make me tired. This couldn’t be more frustrating. I don’t...
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A to Z Guide to Stress Management for People with Bipolar Disorder, Part 6: Find Flow
October 31, 2016
This is the sixth in a series of 26 posts covering a variety of stress management tools and techniques, starting with the letter A. For some background information on stress and bipolar disorder, the blogger recommends reading her three-part series, “Getting a Handle on Stress When You Have Bipolar Disorder,” starting with Part 1. Welcome to...
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Parenting With Bipolar
October 31, 2016
Being a parent and having a bipolar diagnosis is hard. Before I was diagnosed with bipolar, my world revolved around parenting. As a stay at home mom, that was my job. I would have to say I was a really good parent at that time. My son was my pride and joy. He always came first and I enjoyed spending as much time with him as possible. But...
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How I Built My Support System
October 25, 2016
“Get a support system.” That seems to be the number one thing I have heard since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I would look at doctors and therapists and tell them I didn’t have anyone. What about family? No. Spouse? No. Friends? They wouldn’t understand. I found my support system through classes my medical insurance provided,...
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Meth's Misery and Mental Illness: A Deadly Combination
October 25, 2016
This is a painfully personal blog post. I considered writing the sub-title as “Meth and Madness” to balance two one-word nouns, but “madness” is a stigmatizing word, in my opinion. This is a personal blog post because six members of my family (immediate and extended) fell under the spell of crystal meth (short for crystal methamphetamine). The...
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Poem: The Warrior
October 25, 2016
She rubbed her pretty little eyes with cold clenched fists, and collapsed to her knees in angst and defeat on the cold and dust plagued cement. There was dust everywhere, it seemed, in every fraction of the air there was at least 10 million dust particles filling the oxygen with its misty form, there was dust on the floors and in the walls, but...
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