Hiking is an easy outdoor activity, which only requires your ability to walk, unless you’re like me. I suffer from plantar fasciitis and my sciatic nerve flares up quite frequently when my steps go over 10,000 on any given day hiking. But I love it.

My social media accounts are separate, one for my A New Dawn podcast account and blogging and one for my writing and authors I follow. Today, while perusing through my instagram accounts, I came across a post and followed it to read the blog it referenced titled: “I don’t know how much longer I can last,” and my heart sank. I read the post and these are my thoughts.

My advocacy for students and children with mental illness has driven me to write this book. It's imperative that we continue to dialogue about the stigma placed on members of our society dealing with this illness. Living with a spouse and child has taught me ways to cope with the day to day life, through the variety of scenarios the manic states present to loved ones.

A few years ago voice technology wouldn’t involved Siri, Alexa and Cortana, but the ambient assistants are the new means to search our phones or ask inquiring questions on the go. When I reference voice technology, it’s not associated with our smart phone assistants. I’m referring to powerful and effective methods used to treat psychological problems affecting 18.1% or about 40 million adults, solely in the United States alone, not to mention statistics in other parts of our world.

My nightmares are vivid when I dream about the day my son almost ended his life. He had been arguing with his father about some issue I don’t remember, but probably over his father’s poor choice of girlfriends in his life. He had been struggling on the football team to get his position just right and coaches were harassing him. He’d been really distant, unlike ever before.