Welcome to my blog!

I am a Mental Illness Advocate but most importantly I’m a loved one to people diagnosed with a mental illness. I have watched and walked with my loved ones as they have navigated the cruel world of mental illness.

I have lived through the school of hard knocks with mental illness. My now estranged sister, my teenage son and my significant other all have struggled with mental illness. I have had mental illness orbiting me my whole life. I have witnessed what mental illness does to a family and to the people trying to manage it. I have seen my loved ones in psychiatric hospitals, threatening suicide, aggressive and violent, depressed for months, unable to work, unable to go to school, resisting treatment, unmedicated, undermedicated and overmedicated.

The only thing that has kept me going at times was love and hope. The love for that person and the hope for a better tomorrow.

I have cried. I have worried. I have prayed. Mostly alone.

But I believe I have been chosen. Chosen to tell their story and importantly the stories of those who support the mentally ill.

Join me on my journey.