(Continued from Part 1 and Part 2) I suppose for the past five years, I've been living in my little suburban cave, sheltered by Bob's elementary school and our middle-class neighborhood. I hadn't realized just how great a gap exists within our school district, or how many children like Bob are getting trapped in that gap.

Especially in the beginning, when a family is dealing with a loved one's mental illness, it's easy to become embroiled in the emotion of it all. In this television interview, I discuss the 5 points to remember about mental illness in the family.

This week, I want to share a poem with you that was sent to me by a client. Although she and I have been working together for only a short time, she has learned so much and is changing her life. It is truly an honor and privilege to help her finally understand her ADHD brain style, begin to feel more in control of the chaos, experience confidence and finally get things done. My client is an outstanding individual who has struggled all her life with ADHD and didn’t realize why she felt so different and out of place. She is an intelligent, creative and determined woman who would not give up trying to find the answers to her challenges and as an adult with ADHD, is just now coming out of her shell to experience her own potential, gifts and strengths.

I’m an independent contractor. This means I sit in front of a computer screen, working at home, alone and writing all day. While this is the dream for many a writer, I can tell you it gets lonely. It’s tough not having work in an office where there are coworkers to chat with at the water cooler. And this lack of socializing is particularly salient because I have bipolar disorder. I have a tendency to cocoon anyway, and then you take away the day-to-day interactions with people and I suddenly find that I haven’t talked to a person in real life in a week. So I have to schedule in a personal life – whether I want to or not.

I usually choose a specific topic for these blogs and work to describe the importance of managing and accepting mental illness. Last week, I wrote a blog focusing on recovering from and recognizing depression. This week, based on my life currently, I want to talk about stress and the impact it has on those who live with mental illness. I am really struggling with this right now.

Finding the right ADHD medication is just like finding the right medication for any illness: your clinician evaluates your symptoms, administers diagnostic tests, and prescribes a medication; you take the medication and report side effects and changes to your ADHD symptoms. Together, you and your clinician work to gradually find the right balance. It can take weeks, months, even years. But what if the process was more efficient?

Silver Linings aren't always visible right away, and sometimes we never find them.  In our family, the silver lining of new friendship emerged this week from an awful event a few weeks ago. On his way to an "anonymous" meeting he has attended for almost eight years without incident, my son Ben became the victim of a crime.  He was thrown to the ground, threatened with what the mugger said was a knife (we'll never know, nor do I want to), and robbed. The kids (two of them, he says) took his keys, his backpack with all his belongings, his cash, and his feeling of safety.  Ben will never go to that meeting again, because the neighborhood now holds these terrifying memories . The silver lining? Well, in finding a new meeting to attend, Ben has finally met some young people his own age who also have had issues with mental health.

Is your anxiety worse in the morning? Do you think, 'why can't I just get out bed'? I'm rarely on speaking terms with breakfast. The thought of getting up, a whole new day, it can be paralyzing. I'm told it isn't this way for everyone. Nor does a cup of coffee fix it, would that it could. If you have an anxiety disorder, or experience panic, it's not uncommon to find mornings particularly tough.

(continued from Part 1) I spent Tuesday afternoon with a delightful group of first-graders, at a school more like Bob's--middle-class, mostly native English-speakers. This class had only one Bob--a little girl I'll call "Bonnie"--but that wasn't the only contrast from Tuesday.

Surviving ED really is the fulfillment of a dream: to reach out to other people who have eating disorders, and to offer them both honesty and hope and perhaps help them feel just a little bit less alone in their own journeys of recovery. Surviving ED is one-year old  this week. The road of recovery has been long and winding, with many twists and turns, lapses and relapses, and picking myself up to try just one more time. The journey of recovery sometimes feels endless and tiring, and I know that it is hard to not want to give up. However, at the end is freedom from anorexia and ultimately, a full and healthy life.