Never Go to Bed MAD! I got a bunch of crazy wedding advice from my best friends! Well meaning, thoughtful, sincere lies. I’m sure you’ve also heard most of them. A good relationship must be based on trust. Always take your arguments to the bedroom. You should be on the same page when disciplining children. Never go to bed angry. Good communication is essential in every relationship. These are all lovely ideas that have possibly worked for some people, but what makes advice “good?” I vote on the part where it serves to improve your life or increase your emotional wellness. If well-intended ad ..read more

How a Cheerleader Changed My Life  Mrs. Kendall glanced down again at her new seating chart. “Jill, behind Debbie,” she called. I groaned silently to myself as I got up as inconspicuous as I could, which probably made me more noticeable. I picked up my backpack and social studies book, and moved to the indicated seat with my head down. I could feel the eyes of the whole class on me as I walked to my new assignment. I sat down, placed my backpack on the floor and studied my desk. Not too many gouge marks. Debbie turned around in her chair and said, “Hi, Jill.” She smiled warmly. “Are you ..read more

I think you all know by now that the point of life isn’t to feel happy or content all the time. When you’re miserable, it doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. Right? You’re just having an unpleasant moment. Or a bumpy span of years. The point of life is to have a human experience that means the world to you and helps others along their way. Sometimes your journey is blissful, and other times, it’s heartbreaking. Lots of the time, it’s somewhere in the middle. You don’t want to stay where you are, but you aren’t running away from all the lessons. You’re building a life that gets richer all ..read more

It Starts Before my coach found me, I thought my life had gone terribly wrong. I wanted my husband to be like he was before his service in the Gulf War. I tried to find doctors to fix him. Psychologist and MDs were puzzled. No answers, just recommendations for more tests. But Joe was done with examinations and poking and prodding and tubes everywhere. What was happening to my husband was tragic. I wasn't trained to handle PTSD or schizophrenia, GI bleeds, severe anemia, fibromyalgia, or debilitating anxiety. He'd been a wonderful husband and father. Our boys were incredible, and we had lo ..read more

The Funny Thing The things you can’t control, what’s going on around you, dementia, what other people say or do, schizophrenia, and the weather are things you can’t control. But those are often the things you get the most stressed out about. You usually can’t control whether you get sick, injured, or abused. Those things are either outside of you or happen to you. Seriously, I had a patient that was the ultimate health foodie, gardener, exerciser, and happy person, and she had a stroke. Those are things you can’t control. Worrying and freaking out about them is pointless ..read more

  What Were You Thinking? Have you ever said this to your kids, your spouse, your employees, a friend? My husband, Joe, used to say this frequently to me and to our boys as they were growing up. And it drove me nuts. I HATED it when he said it, because it felt like he was insinuating that we weren’t thinking correctly (which would have been how he thinks). He also loved to say we didn’t have any common sense. “Oh, you’re smart,” he’d say, “you just don’t have the ‘horse sense’ I do. You don’t see things reasonably or logically.” This coming from the guy with schizophrenia. And I was the o ..read more

  How do you want to feel right now? - Maybe you want to be happy, maybe not. Can you write about wanting to be frustrated or disappointed or any other emotion without judging that you "shouldn't" feel that way, or pushing it aside in an attempt to be "positive"?  List five things you did well in the past 24 hours. - This stumps a lot of people. If you continually work on writing five things each day, it can change your life.  What are some of your values in life? - After writing several of them, go over each one a day at a time and ponder them, noticing whether these value ..read more

How 2-year-olds Act A typical toddler really wants to do grown-up things but doesn't do them well yet. Toddlers may get upset when they're told "no" or when they try and fail to do things like pour their own milk, get dressed, or play games. Some of us care for parents, spouses, dependent children or others who don't "act their age" or they think they can still do things they've done all their lives and now they can't. This might be because they have mental illness, dementia, mood disorders, traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, or other cognitive or emotional problems. We scratch our heads, cr ..read more

The Things They Say When you begin your caregiving journey, whether the change is sudden and rough or gradual and gentle, people in your life will have ideas and opinions that might not always feel supportive. They might think you’re in over your head. wonder whether you’re capable. feel like you’re abandoning them as you take on new tasks. question your judgment. try to advise you about things they know nothing about.  want to solve your problem when you confide in them.  worry that you’re going to lose yourself . . or that they’ll lose you.  A tip to get you through all of ..read more

  Does the world need equilibrium? Does the bad and good have to be balanced out? Is humanity’s thought that the world really cares about us also humanity’s hubris. Do we think we matter that much? We put ourselves above animals. We put ourselves above each other. We’ve also put ourselves above the plant, which is what provides us with everything we need to survive. Am I just trying to feel like the writers and philosophers who’s words resonate with me? I’ve lived my life wondering when the next shoe will drop. There always has to be bad to go with the good. You don’t deserve the good rig ..read more