Friday Five

1. Damon is now 12 weeks old!

Went and visited with him on Wednesday but he might still have to stay as he's not all the way weaned off baby formula.  So here's crossing fingers I can bring him home next week!

2.  Been working on revision.  Yesterday at favorite Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf with an iced mocha blended drink with NSA chocolate.

3. And omg on this week's episode of EMPIRE:

Lucious's new spin on his music video BOOM BOOM is haunting as it reveals his painful childhood and his bipolar mother.  I love Cookie but I admit I was kind of shaking my head:

GIRL, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Of course seeing the 'truth' about his Grandma who kills herself would trigger Andre's bipolar disorder.

Speaking of bipolar disorder...

4. This week I've been reading books that address bipolar disorder to help with my guest blog post.  I found that the DMS has changed the diagnosis since I had abnormal psychology back at BYU.  Now there's Bipolar 1 and Bipolar 2.  I also been concerned that by sharing my own painful experience with my bipolar father, some would think I'm only reinforcing a painful stigma that bipolar = violence.  That's all I saw though.  So I needed to read more.  Now I found that certain things can trigger episodes--kind of like that music video with Andre.  Also you can have both the high(mania) and lows at same time.  But the biggest reveal had to be that if someone witnessed violence?  That chances are they'd also do the same thing.  Kind of like what I grew up with.

One book that I highly recommend:

This is a first-hand account of one teen's experience of being bipolar.  It also goes over the terms, meds, and his time in a psych ward.  It also pushes aside misconceptions of this mental illness.

I also really enjoyed this:

The author nails the emotions a teen feels living with a bipolar family member.  I totally got the embarrassment, shame one feels.  I felt this way about my bipolar father.  At times I even felt I set off his anger.  Now I know differently.  Talking about Dad's condition was met with silence and hush voices.  You just didn't talk about it.  I feel that in order to lessen the stigma, we need to talk about it.

Another recent book:

What worked had to be the accurate portrayal of a teen's mania after she tosses her meds.  The descriptions of being hypersensitive to the surroundings were very similar to my older brother Ricky's.  I could see my brother in Vivi.  Also there is a parent dealing with severe depression after the death of her husband.  We see how the children deal with this.  The emotions reactions are right on.

5. Been kind of bummed this week after hearing yet another friend is living our area.  Yes, it's really nice living in South Orange county but it's also crazy expensive.  I know that when we retire?  We plan on moving out of state.

**Guilty pleasure:

Plan on volunteering with family at Harvest Pack.  This is an organization that helps pack food for families in need and also refugees overseas.