Until recently, I never identified as someone who went through childhood trauma. Dysfunctional family dynamics – oh yeah. But trauma? No. Until I started learning about it and talking to my counsellor, Andi.  She knows my psychiatric diagnoses but also all the juicy details of my childhood to adult history. “What you experienced is called […]

December is almost here and the pressure to have the perfect holiday experience can come along with it. Not only that, but we live in an aspirational, Instagram-curated world. Maybe we always have (minus the social media bit). The “great American dream”, “the pursuit of happiness”. Capitalist culture is based on the quest of bigger, […]

I went to Stanford. Well, ok…not in the traditional way. Like I didn’t go there for university. But I did go there to see The Manic Monolgues, a storytelling project I assisted with.  True stories may be the most powerful stories there are. When I perform my theatrical keynotes about my lived experience with bipolar […]

Indecision can fan the flames of anxiety and really do a doozie if you have an anxiety disorder. We live in a society that reveres the ‘just do it’ mentality. Allowing confusion to be part of an effective decision making process just doesn’t jive with our ‘expert-self-reliant-I’ve-got-it-together’ kind of attitude. But here’s the secret. It’s ok to not know; to […]

How do you support an adult child who has a mental illness? How do you as a caregiver hang in there when your adult child, who so clearly needs help, refuses it? I get requests from parents and caregivers just like this every week. Some of you reading this right now may be facing these […]

Wabi-sabi. (Whah-bee/Saw-bee). C’mon say it with me. I know you want to.  Just saying it makes me feel a little better. These two strange words and the concept it encapsulates, has changed the way I look at failure, my mental health, my life, humanity. Seriously. I was introduced to it by the same dear friend […]

I’ve been talking to strangers from foreign countries on-line. Wait. It’s not what you think.  They have prevented me from falling into depression, helped me avoid perfectionism, boosted my productivity, decreased my loneliness and reduced my procrastination.  Are they therapists? Nope. One has been a journalist, a computer programmer, another a business school student. Even […]

September is fast approaching. In light of this, I thought it apropos to write a post regarding accommodations for students with mental health issues in a post secondary setting.  Creating accommodations help students who have mental illness reach their academic potential. Whether you’re advocating for yourself, or helping to advocate for someone else here are […]