Q&A with Therapist Matthew Reinhart About Trauma During a Pandemic

Trauma

How are you doing? I feel the weight of the world so I reached out to some experts on trauma to offer some insight into navigating our personal challenges, our encounters with the anti-maskers, and more as queer people. These are really long reads because the topics are intense and novel (couldn’t resist.) I hope […]

On Day 170, I am missing Eat n’ Park

Eat'nPark

Today marks 170 days of quarantining here in Pittsburgh. At first, I didn’t track this particular statistic, it would only be sad to watch the number climb. That was in March. By the time August rolled around, I wanted to be conscious of that number so I started posting to my Instagram daily, a photo […]

Home Alone – Day 145

working from home with cats

So today is already weird. Ledcat had to go into her office for an all-day training. She’s had to go in for bits and pieces before, but never before mimicking her before-pandemic schedule. Since March 17, she’s been home and in the kitchen doing her magic. I dropped her off at her usual spot. Traffic […]

You Gotta Wear a Mask

Mask up Pittsburgh

I am exhausted. Every single interaction with other human beings requires a complex series of negotiations and calculations that include the scientific facts, the interpersonal dynamics, the safety, and more. Earlier this week, we had to go to Lowe’s to purchase an in-store only item for our kitchen. I step out of the car, triple […]

This week, I turned a curve (I hope) and began to emerge from a ten week struggle with symptoms of bipolar disorder. First, I was hypomanic followed by a nasty depressive episode and wrapped up with a bout of a mixed state fusing depression with irritability and anxiety through my various mood statuses. During a […]

A mother’s love

Content Note: sexual violence, mental illness, family violence I was born on October 22, 1970. By mid-July 1971, my mother was pregnant again with my brother. Somewhere during that time, she was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit. I was left with my paternal grandparents. By my third birthday, we were all reunited under the same […]

The Destructive Creativity of Hypomania

I am what some call bipolar. Bipolar is not a respectful way to describe my disorder or identity. I have bipolar disorder. I live with bipolar disorder. It is part of me, but shortening a diagnosis to a single word is not efficient or effective. It’s just lazy. Don’t describe anyone as ‘bipolar’ I was […]

Small Business Loans in Response to a Global Pandemic is not Relief

This piece was co-written by Shanon Williams & Christian J. Hughes, two small business owners COVID-19 has officially set in and the nation has been scrambling to establish various types of support from food to mental health and everything in between as we all hunker down and prepare to be in semi/full isolation for the […]

Day Seven of COVID-19 Quarantine: Critter Version

I”m using Monday, March 16 as our personal starting point because that is the day Laura was officially told to work from home as much as possible. I’ll be honest with you, most of my anecdotes and tales involve cats. If that’s not your jam, scroll away to another blog. Our basic goals are to […]

New #ThingsToDo – A Project for Kids to Help Each Other During the COVID-19 Pandemic

New Things To Do Project

We have a new project. Today, we heard from our friends with kids, our family with kids, and neighbors with kids – all struggling to juggle keeping kids engaged and safe while taking care of other tasks as well. Some are working from home, some are without work, all are feeling the anxiety of these […]