In both my professional and personal life, I have known people who, having been diagnosed as bipolar, tried to mask their symptoms in order to fit into the outside world. Bipolar treatment has, indeed, come far from when it wasn’t even acknowledged, just quietly medicated or hospitalized. Today, more and more people are beginning to have this very important dialogue […]
Those of you who know me, know that before counseling, before Acupuncture and TCM, I was an English teacher. For over ten years, I taught secondary and post-secondary literature. One of the more joyful lessons – at least for me – involved interpreting with my students the writings of Henry David Thoreau. It didn’t matter what grade I was teaching, […]
If Olympic medals were given for overthinking, I would definitely win the gold. In truth, I overthink my overthinking. I overthink texts and emails – wondering if I missed something, wondering what they may have meant, wondering if I miss-spoke, or miss-typed. I can overthink so much I paralyze myself into some alien frozen state. A recent post on notsalmon.com […]
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition that affects all people of all ages in all walks of life. OCD “occurs when a person gets caught up in a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images or urges that trigger intensely distressing feelings. Compulsions are behaviors an individual engages in to attempt to get […]
The irony of writing this nearly one year after Hurricane Irma pounded South Florida while the media reports on Hurricane Florence bearing down on close friends in South and North Carolina is not lost on me. I used to say that Hurricane Wilma in 2007 gave me an enhanced respect for Mother Nature when she decided to destroy my roof. […]
Also referred to as chronic shoulder pain or shoulder blade pain or shoulder joint pain, shoulder pain may emanate from the actual shoulder joint or it can arise from any of the myriad muscles, tendons and ligaments that surround the shoulders. Shoulder pain which emanates from the shoulder joint normally worsens with activity or when the patient moves the arm […]
When Simon and Garfunkel released this song in 1966, I was enough of an English-major nerd to know it was based on a poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson in 1897. It is a cautionary tale about admiring someone else and being misled by appearances. Today, the poem stays with me, shocking in its clarity about the dangers of depression. […]
One of the things about getting older is that an entire new world of illnesses open up to you. And while my friends and I do not ordinarily share a park bench – which, incidentally, common sense tells me we should do – more often or not we are sharing time and space over coffee, lunch or dinner. Sometimes, we […]
