Chronic Illness / Disability

This evening my local newspaper contained this sad headline: “Maryland couple found dead at home.” A husband and wife, both aged 72, died in an apparent murder-suicide. The ... Read More

Freshman year of college was a difficult time for me. Many things had changed, I was away from home for the first time, I was not among close friends, and my course load was semi-difficult ... Read More

The work of caregivers is difficult, at best. This is particularly true for those who provide care before they start the workday and after they come home in the evening. I am often amazed ... Read More

With the magnitude of demands placed on special needs families, siblings of special needs children can often feel overlooked and in need of emotional support. A “special needs child” ... Read More

Individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) often have personality features that mimic those found in depression, anxiety, and even obsessive compulsion (OC). Behaviors such as extreme ... Read More

Many who live with disabilities are burdened by a chronic sense of shame that can be as difficult to live with as the actual disability. Shame is not the same as guilt. Shame is persistent ... Read More

Kaethe Weingarten of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School recently published a paper describing her experience with four clients who experienced chronic sorrow. The clients, ... Read More

The uninvited house guest often stays on well beyond the point of “wearing out his or her welcome.” Likewise, for many people, chronic illness/disability is not a short-term inconvenience ... Read More

Depression makes it difficult to function in daily life, but adding discrimination to the equation makes it even more troublesome. A new study in the journal The Lancet stated that out ... Read More

There are many parallels between living with a disability and dealing with an uninvited house guest. If you have ever had an uninvited house guest, I am sure you remember moments when ... Read More

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) represents a uniquely challenging medical condition. Repair of the physical, emotional, and cognitive damage is a long and often grueling process. In the wake ... Read More

I recently stumbled across a new blog called Infinite Daze where the author poignantly writes about her daily struggles with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).  In a recent ... Read More