How My Father Escaped Jail for Christmas
My mother and father never married. This meant, as my mother explained, that I was his legal next of kin, responsible for making his medical decisions. This responsibility, already complex because of his lack of a living will, would prove to be even more fraught...
A Gift? I’d Return My Mom’s Alzheimer’s If I Could
Though not technically estranged, our relationship was tenuous at best, stitched together only by threads of my guilt and desire not to be someone who had no contact with her mother. She had driven my father, my sister, her siblings and her friends away decades ago....
The Stuff That Came Between Mom and Me: A Story About Hoarding
[S]ometimes the world would get the better of her, and her strong, fighter’s spirit would be dragged down deep, drowning in the smallness of the situation. Held near the bottom, unable to gasp for air in the liquid uncertainty of these passing moments, she never knew...
The Twentysomething Cliff Is Much Worse When You’re Autistic
In many ways, Law sounds like a stereotypical millennial—unwilling to work a dull job to pay the bills and preferring to spend time on his creative interests. But Law’s path to an adult role and responsibilities is complicated by the fact that he has autism and...
A Mother’s Heart-Wrenching Story Of Loss That Offers Hope For Recovery And Healing
A mother of five and grandmother to nine, married and divorced four times, and a clinical social worker in private practice for nearly forty years, Joan Childs thought she had experienced or seen it all. But nothing could have prepared her for the death of her...
Queer Crip Love Fest: Nobody Can Go Through This World Alone
From that point on we threw ourselves into the swing of things while we slowly figured each other out and what our dynamics were going to be. In some ways it was really easy, both of us being trans women, and nonbinary trans women at that. In others we were different,...
The thing they never named
When did the problems begin? By high school she ran away from home. She told me about it. Listening to Bach, windows rolled down, hair streaming in the breeze, done with her old life, driving without stopping, destination Florida. That’s what I now know to be a...
My brother’s mania is featured on Facebook
I recently came across the Kim Kardashian/Dr. Drew produced show #Redflag on HLN. While I have a certain distaste for Hollywood, I was somewhat taken aback when I found myself relating to the first episode, which premiered at the beginning of the month. It featured a...
The changing nature of relationships in caregiving
Being a caregiver for my mother, brother, and boyfriend has given me a unique perspective on the shifting nature of relationships and partnerships. Here’s what I learned…
The Mental Health of Caregivers and Care Patients: Introducing Amy Atkins
Sometimes these interludes are the greatest gifts I can offer a family who’s struggling.
My Boyfriend Stuck With Me During One of the Toughest Years of My Life, Which Makes This Breakup Especially Terrible
How do you break up with someone who loved you and supported you at your worst? A young woman with a mental illness shares her experience falling in love, moving across the country, starting a new career, and ending her relationship with the man who supported her...Top Posts
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