I had never really considered what being Latino meant to me until Lance Rios of Being Latino asked. It’s something that I have, at times, taken completely for granted and at other times I have resented as an unasked for burden. I love my culture, don’t get me wrong, but there have been times in my life where other people have left me feeling that I have something to prove. That I have to prove my worth as an individual because I was poor, because I was from the Bronx, because I was Latino. There have been times where I have felt that I had to even prove that I was Latino, or Latino enough, to people who were old enough and educated enough to know better than to categorize something as ephemeral as cultural identity.

» Continue reading “Being Latino”

I think my father lived in the shadow of a brother with whom he could never compete. This brother was well-liked, affable by all accounts. He died in combat in 1966, a casualty of the conflict in Vietnam. He died just shy of his 21st birthday and thus, he will always live and loom larger than his life in the memories of our family, frozen in time as someone who never did any harm, if only because he never had a chance. He’s untouchable. My father never stood a chance.

» Continue reading “Remembrance Day”

The last month or so, I have basically been underwater. In addition to work, school, pets, kids,  enduring the absence of my husband, finishing out the church school year, choir, and trying out a new extracurricular activity (soccer), I also have weathered a few health issues, including chronic back pain due (apparently and surprisingly) to mild scoliosis, “benign labyrinthitis” which I can tell you does not feel at ALL benign, a really stubborn tooth that has me scheduled for my FOURTH root canal tomorrow, and, of course, my ever present friend, depression.

» Continue reading “Where I’ve been”

I have witnessed first hand the bootstrap conundrum. There is a prevailing attitude in our country that people who have problems need to learn to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, snap out of it, and “just do it.” A typical bipolar response to this attitude, however, is “how do you pick yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t even have any boots?”

» Continue reading “Part 4: The Bootstrap Conundrum & Personal Accountability”

In ye olde days, doctors used to call it “compliance.” You were prescribed medication and if you took your meds, you were compliant. If, for whatever reason, you did not take your meds, you were labeled “non-compliant” with all the attendant bad juju that went with it. Non-compliant was fairly well synonymous with “difficult” or “untreatable.”

» Continue reading “Part 3: Treatment, Adherence, Crisis, and Stigma”

“Denial is an unconscious defense mechanism used by those faced with a painful reality. It is an automatic reaction in an attempt to reduce anxiety by denying thoughts, feelings, or facts that are consciously intolerable. It is common for those who are diagnosed with a life-long illness to go through periods of denial.”

» Continue reading “Part 2: Denial”

Someone recently related to me that they had received a diagnosis but weren’t sure they accepted it. I have seen this scenario played out in the bipolar community many times: “But I am not psychotic/manic/suicidal” etc. The “problem” with diagnosis, with any kind of labeling or categorization of a person’s personality or identity or deeply ingrained mental characteristics, is that it is an incomplete way to communicate information.

» Continue reading “Part 1: Diagnosis, Misdiagnosis, and Manifestations”

This site evolved from a previous site called Pendulum Parenting which was specifically written as more of a support site for people who were working through issues with mental illness while parenting children. I eventually found the format too narrow and oppressive to keep up with and abandoned it. I maintained an interest in writing, however, and decided that a new domain that more accurately reflected my identity and not one small part of it would better serve me in the long run. I started lunasmom.com so I could write about anything that struck my peculiar fancy, but with my personalized stamp.

» Continue reading “A Spammer Asked Me Why I Started This Site”

I see a therapist to help me achieve specific goals in my life. I am past the point in therapy where I want to talk about my daddy issues; I don’t need insight into my illness, I have it seeping out of my pores. What I need now are results. I know what’s broken; I am looking for tried and true approaches for achieving a higher level of function. I need to replace old coping mechanisms, or areas of my life where I have no coping mechanisms at all, with ideas and practices that work. I need an action plan!

» Continue reading “Turning Thought into Practice”

Not in my top ten list of things I want to discuss loudly while on the pot in a crowded tourist bathroom:

“What is that thing with the blue string?”

“That’s a complicated question. Can we talk about it later?”

“What is this box on the wall?”

“It’s a little garbage can.”

“What is it for?”

» Continue reading “Mothering Dilemmas: Sharing a Toilet with My Son”