My daughter was diagnosed with Anorexia and the therapist said we’d be getting homework assignments and using a “variety of techniques.
***
Mental health made simple? Phpht. Who are we kidding? It can be really complicated. Which is why we’re psyched to launch Season 1 of our new video podcast Shrinking It Down: Mental Health Made Simple, to begin to wrapping our brains around it all.
My friend Samantha called me in a panic. Her 8-year-old daughter, Lindsey, was struggling with the fact that her parents were getting divorced. There had been a lot of conflict in the marriage. Samantha’s ex-husband was an alcoholic and, though he was receiving treatment, he had been frequently unemployed.
This blog post is part of a series entitled Real Lives, Real Stories: Personal Experiences With Mental Illness.
Your child is in emotional distress. About a month after the divorce, your 7-year-old daughter Ali starts having some difficulty settling down for bed. She insists on a prolonged bedtime ritual for her dolls—tucking them all in carefully, and reciting the same “good night” words to 10 little feminine figures.
Julie is 15 years old. She’s just returned to school after missing two weeks to receive treatment for wanting to harm herself by taking too much of an antibiotic that she found in her grandparents’ house.