• Book Reviews,  mental health

    Checking In: book review

    June 8, 2021

    Title: Checking In

    Author: Michelle Williams

    Publisher: Thomas Nelson

    Publish date: 5/25/21

    Pages: 240

    Genre: Depression/Anxiety Help, Celebrity Biography

    Synopsis

    “I need help.”

    Acclaimed musical artist Michelle Williams shares the intimate, never-before-told story of how, even in the midst of enormous fame and success, she battled depression, leading her to find her true calling as an advocate for mental health–especially her own.

    As a member of Destiny’s Child, one of the top female R&B groups of all time, Michelle Williams felt blessed. After the group disbanded, she continued to create bestselling albums, appear on television shows, and star in theater productions. Though she had always struggled with low moods, in 2018 her depression deepened, and when she found herself planning her own funeral, she checked herself into a treatment facility. There she found the help she needed to live out the incredible story God was writing for her life.

    In her first book, Michelle courageously shares the hidden secrets that nearly ended her life; the importance of her faith, family, and friends; and the lessons she learned about prioritizing her mental health. She is on a quest to increase mental health awareness and urges others to understand the importance of “checking in” with themselves, God, and others. Her candid, often humorous, and incredibly brave book will inspire readers who desire hope for their own difficult times.

    Review

    This book is an honest and refreshing look at depression. I have personally battled depression for many years and anytime I can read something and fell less alone, it’s a good read for me.

    To be upfront, I’m working my way through this book and I’m not finished with it yet. It’s that kind of book – it demands your attention, thoughts, and an honest look at your own life.

    I love the idea of checking in with yourself – a foreign concept to me. I’m not good at self-assessing my own feelings and struggle with prioritizing my mental health.

    That previous sentence – it caught up with me in a big way in the past year but I’m getting better everyday at setting boundaries and paying attention to my physical health and my mental health.

    Michelle also writes about checking in with others – something similar to what I wrote about last week. Many of us have lost touch with each other.

    This book is one I would recommend to anyone that struggles with trauma, depression, and/or anxiety. The author tells her own story beautifully and provides a feeling of hope to the reader.

    Want your own copy of Checking In?

    Enter my giveaway on Instagram or Facebook! 

    Thanks to TLC Book Tours and Thomas Nelson for the gifted copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

    Purchase Links

    Thomas Nelson | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

    Connect with Michelle

    Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

     

    Read More

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  • Bookish,  mental health,  Writing

    Mean Girls & Mental Health Awareness

    May 26, 2021

    Mean Girls: the cult classic

    Mean Girls: the memes

    Mean Girls: the musical

    Mean Girls: the pandemic

    March, 2020

    I remember when everything shut down a little over a year ago.

    There was lots of talk of when we could be back together, how things would be different, and the appreciation for human contact.

    But as the year continued another storyline developed – the mean girls (and guys) who emerged from the pandemic.

    Plot twist

    It was easier to be a Mean Girl.

    Hiding behind a computer keyboard in an email.

    Texting passive/aggressively and ending said text with a smiley face.

    Or the worst, hiding in plain sight on Zoom calls. Prime time to say things in a public forum to someone’s face without in-person consequences.

    All because of distance and screens.

    I loathe Zoom

    The last scenario recently happened to me and it was a virtual face slap that hurt worse than a real one.

    Why?

    I was alone. I had no one sitting next to me in that meeting.

    And because we have all grown so numb to these virtual interactions, no one knew what to say.

    No one stood up for me as a person.

    No one told this woman to stop her baseless attack.

    It was only after she finished her attempted assault on my character and reputation that I was able to get a word in to defend myself.

    I am convinced that this never would have happened had this been a meeting where we all physically occupied the same space.

    And even if this person had been so bold, I believe the consequences would have been very different without screens to separate us.

    Eventually one person did speak up and told this woman why she couldn’t get her way. But the damage had already been done.

    Mission accomplished, drama mama.

    Context

    We have lost our context, our human frame of reference.

    We get our groceries delivered, we wear masks, and we stay home to hide behind technology.

    Here’s some context for the Zoom interaction I had: my mental health was at its lowest point in over a year.

    I struggle with depression and anxiety and always will. I have PTSD that will never fully resolve.

    Guess what is a trigger is for me?

    Being blindsided and attacked. And all this happened at a time where pulling myself out of bed some days was an accomplishment.

    Did this woman feel bigger? Better? More important in that square on the computer screen? You bet.

    But back to the context. Did anyone know where I was coming from?

    Sure, a few knew that I had spent the better part of the year being bullied by this person.

    But no one knew the context – where I was standing or functioning on a daily basis.

    Or how I felt that night in the meeting, alone in my study, facing a screen of many who I thought to be friends.

    Or what it’s taken in these past weeks to pick myself up and move on for my own health.

    Off/Mute

    When this incident happened to me on Zoom, I was mortified.

    People who didn’t know me at all and certainly had no context saw me as someone called out, questioned, and attacked.

    I was in tears but I could turn my camera off, hit mute and exist in a dark square that only displayed my name.

    But the day is coming where that won’t be possible and these pandemic mean girls won’t be so brave.

    Half the time I dread this and the other half – bring it, girls.

    Mental health awareness month

    So why share this story and parts of my own mental health struggles?

    May also happens to be the month we focus on mental health.

    The month we talk about removing the stigma.

    The month we talk about having open conversations with our friends.

    The month we acknowledge that many struggle with mental illness.

    This month – as the pandemic hopefully is winding down – is the perfect time to really be aware of those around us.

    Because some of us have been wearing more than one mask during COVID.

    Return to “normal”

    As life slowly returns to whatever our normal is going to look like, be gracious with one another.

    We have little or no context for the lives we are entering back into for the first time since COVID began.

    Take the time to understand. Talk. Ask questions. Don’t assume that everyone came out of this the same as you.

    And certainly don’t continue the entitlement some felt as they were hiding behind technology, doors and masks.

    Enough hiding.

    No books, no sequels, no musicals, no memes… Mean Girls: the pandemic is coming to an end.

    Read More

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    Love Her Well: a book review

    August 27, 2020

    About: Love Her Well

    Paperback: 240 Pages

    Publisher: Thomas Nelson (August 18, 2020)

    Moms are eager for tips and wisdom to help them build strong relationships with their daughters, and Kari Kampakis’s Love Her Well gives them ten practical ways to do so, not by changing their daughters but by changing their own thoughts, actions, and mind-set.

    For many women, having a baby girl is a dream come true. Yet as girls grow up, the narrative of innocence and joy changes to gloom and doom as moms are told, “Just wait until she’s a teenager!” and handed a disheartening script that treats a teenage girl’s final years at home as solely a season to survive

    Author and blogger Kari Kampakis suggests it’s time to change the narrative and mind-set that lead moms to parent teen girls with a spirit of defeat, not strength. By improving the foundation, habits, and dynamics of the relationship, mothers can connect with their teen daughters and earn a voice in their lives that allows moms to offer guidance, love, wisdom, and emotional support.

    As a mom of four daughters (three of whom are teenagers), Kari has learned the hard way that as girls grow up, mothers must grow up too. In Love Her Well, Kari shares ten ways that moms can better connect with their daughters in a challenging season, including:

    • choosing their words and timing carefully,
    • listening and empathizing with her teen’s world,
    • seeing the good and loving her for who she is,
    • taking care of themselves and having a support system, and more.

    This book isn’t a guide to help mothers “fix” their daughters or make them behave. Rather, it’s about a mom’s journey, doing the heart work and legwork necessary to love a teenager while still being a strong, steady parent. Kari explores how every relationship consists of two imperfect sinners, and teenagers gain more respect for their parents when they admit (and learn from) their mistakes, apologize, listen, give grace, and try to understand their teens’ point of view. Yes, teenagers need rules and consequences, but without a connected relationship, parents may never gain a significant voice in their lives or be a safe place they long to return to.

    By admitting her personal failures and prideful mistakes that have hurt her relationships with her teenage daughters, Kari gives mothers hope and reminds them all things are possible through God. By leaning on him, mothers gain the wisdom, guidance, protection, and clarity they need to grow strong.

    Review:

    Talk about a timely book.

    Yesterday was the first day of school and it was a start to Chaney’s junior year that I could have never imagined. Never did I think that two of her high school years would be impacted by COVID. On Monday we drove 3 hours round trip to get her driver’s permit. The DMV in Texas is by appointment only after shutting down due to COVID and when I first looked the earliest appointment in our area was in 2021. And to top it all off, her love – theatre – looks drastically different than anything I’ve ever seen.

    This is the current state we are all living in and on top of that, our family is still trying to balance freedom with well-being while realizing that the transition from a teen to an adult is already happening. And this transition, to me at least, feels even more abrupt because so much is out of our control.

    So what can I control? My actions, my thoughts, and my dialogue with my daughter. Easier said than done, I know. But Love Her Well made it a little easier by drawing my attention to certain aspects of my own personality and heart that could use some work.

    This book was an enjoyable read. However, it was not one that I flew through, despite loving every chapter. It’s an interactive book with Q&A at the end of each chapter which made my writing heart delight. I had years of thoughts and feelings bottled up and was able to unwind many of them chapter by chapter, page by page. This book is an experience.

    If you have a teen daughter, this book is a must. It covers everything from friends, to body image, to mental health – something I feel like a lot of these types of books miss. This one is going on the reference shelf because I have a feeling I might need it more than once during these next few years.

    Thanks to Thomas Nelson and TLC Book Tours for my gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

    This book is available now from your favorite bookseller!

    Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

    About Kari Kampakis

    Kari Kampakis is a mom of four daughters who writes about everyday events and significant moments that reveal God’s movement in our lives. She loves girls and believes many world problems can be solved by music, dancing, and deep conversations with friends.

    Kari’s work has been featured on The Huffington Post, The TODAY Show, EWTN, Yahoo! News, The Eric Metaxas Show, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Ann Voskamp’s blog, Hands Free Mama, and other national outlets. Her two books for teen girls, 10 ULTIMATE TRUTHS GIRLS SHOULD KNOW and LIKED: WHOSE APPROVAL ARE YOU LIVING FOR?, have been used widely across the U.S. for small group studies.

    Connect with Kari

    Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

     

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    Wednesday Words & More: Untamed

    May 13, 2020

     

     My therapist’s memo. I wouldn’t burn this one…

     

    What if we had missed The Memo?

    Or if the first person who got it, looked at it and realized it was a terrible idea and burned the memo?

    I burned the memo that defined selflessness as the pinnacle of womanhood, but first I forgave myself for believing that lie for so long…Selfless women make for an efficient society but not a beautiful, true, or just one. When women lose themselves, the world loses its way. We do not need more selfless women. (p. 75)

    I did a short review of Untamed here but I have a lot more to say. Specifically around anxiety and Glennon’s thoughts on the subject.

    Real talk: my anxiety is often all-consuming. Some of it comes from the belief that I must be selfless and available at all times. The rest of it is that I have lots to worry about.

    Some of it is real. Some of it is imagined. Some of it is planned – it is my worst case so I plan. Not because I want it to happen but because several of my worst case scenarios are no longer scenarios. They happened, I survived, but I must be on guard so they do not happen again to my family members or myself.

    I put on a good face and I try and stay busy. I love to read and I love to write. But the second life begins to flirt with the almost worst case scenario, I am not OK. I don’t read. I don’t write. And if it’s bad enough it can take me time to recover. I have always felt bad about this downtime.

    Maybe I shouldn’t.

    One of my favorite words is selah.

    Selah is found in the Hebrew Bible seventy-four times. Scholars believe that when it appears in the text, it is a direction to the reader to stop reading and be still for a moment, because the previous idea is important enough to consider deeply. (p.136)

    What are my reflections?

    What can I learn from the almost?

    What boundaries need to be set?

    What do I need to do to take care of myself?

    I live with two people who take up a lot of space. I love them and love the space that they inhabit. But with those large spaces come a huge desire to control on my part. It comes from a place a love for sure but it isn’t healthy for anyone.

    My answer? Selah. Be still.

    If I ever got a tattoo, that’s what it would be. A constant reminder that the text, the email, the phone call – they all can wait. Because if I’m not healthy I’m not going to be any good for the person on the other end.

    This book came along at the perfect time for me but I hesitate to call this book self-help. It’s far closer to a memoir or a collection of short stories. Whatever it is, her openness around addiction, anxiety and mental health are worth their weight in gold.

    Untamed is a book I will continue to revisit because there is so much good information in this book. From white privilege, to racism, to raising confident kids, to creativity – it’s all there. No, I don’t agree with everything but I don’t believe it’s the job of the author to put something out there that everyone loves and agrees with.

    But that’s another post for another day.

     

     

     

     

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    Wednesday Words: trigger warnings

    January 8, 2020

    Can we all take a moment to agree that saying “I am triggered” as a joke is actually not something that is funny?

    We don’t do this with physical illness and if you do well…. that’s not funny either.

    Because this is something I am intimately familiar with, let me explain what it’s like as someone who can be triggered; as well as a caregiver of someone of the like.

    You are going about your day. Maybe you are in Anthropologie, your favorite store. Or maybe you’re in the library. 

    A person walks past and you catch a whiff of their cologne that most love.

    You break out into a cold sweat. Tunnel vision sets in and the exits disappear. You are transported back to “that place” where the worst thing happened to you. Your heart is racing and you can’t breathe. 

    Now you’re making a self-perceived spectacle of yourself in one of your favorite stores or places. 

    If you are lucky you have someone with you who can remind you to breathe. They see what is happening. There’s the five-finger trick where you have something associated with each finger that grounds you. You use your hands to feel the floor, the chair, the person you are with and you are slowly transported out of your worst nightmare and back to current reality.

    But you still feel like shit and the public embarrassment isn’t even part of that. A surge of adrenaline does incredible and also devastating things to your entire body. An occurrence like this can render one worthless for the rest of the day.

    But what happens when you are alone, reading a book at home that everyone has raved about – or even worse, a public place?

    The same thing.

    There are movies and TV shows my family and I avoid because they have content warnings. We know the triggers and take the warnings seriously. Some rated R movies are fine while others are not because the details for the rating are listed below the “R”.

    Ninth House is a wildly popular book that is shown all over Instagram. I saw it in countless top lists of 2019 – which is fine – but I never saw a single mention of a warning about the content that quite frankly, would have upset people who don’t even have PTSD. Instagram is huge so it is always possible I missed a mention of this but it’s not just this book.

    I don’t know why books don’t carry warnings. It would take up so little space to include: child r@pe, extreme hazing, violence against women including drugging and assault… you get the point. And all of these and a few more should have been included in a blurb for Ninth House. Not to mention, the author of Ninth House is a popular young adult author. She has made it clear that this book does not fit that genre but I have seen this very book in the young adult section at multiple bookstores.

    Back to ratings: it’s not that difficult. But that may mean that a group of people don’t buy a particular book. I would hope the publishing industry isn’t as calculating as this seems but one has to wonder when all other forms of media carry warnings.

    With a warning, some may skip the book entirely. However, I would argue that a simple trigger warning would allow a reader to chose to buy the book and then come back to it when they are in a good mental place. Everyone wins – the reader is respected and the author is read.

    The last thing I will mention is context. Because as a writer that is something to be considered. Does the graphic description do something to advance the plot? Is it integral to the character and their personality? Is it being used as a message to be shared? I will still argue that graphic content may not be necessary – we leave readers to their own imaginations all the time with far more innocent plot lines.

    I don’t know what the answer is and I don’t know how this changes unless more readers speak up. But until then, my reviews will include trigger warnings. Because I know from personal experience that a praised book can take me to a dark place fast and that is certainly not the point of reading and I never want to be responsible for transporting a fellow book lover back to their worst moment.

    The world is scary enough already.

    Read More

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