I never really had a problem with weight gain from my bipolar meds until some months into the COVID-19 pandemic. A year prior, I was a group fitness instructor teaching Zumba and Beachbody’s TurboKick and PiYo classes multiple times a week. On top of that, I was participating in a 300 hour yoga teacher trainingContinue reading “Bipolar, Weight & the BMLie”
Monthly Archives: July 2021
Healing Journey: Staying in my Lane
Given that it is a full moon in Aquarius, I thought a reflective post would be fitting. Full moons can be charged with so much energy, excitement, and anxiety making it difficult to stay grounded, focused on the present, and stay in our lanes. I love Rachel Cargle’s Instagram post “On: Staying In Your Lane”Continue reading “Healing Journey: Staying in my Lane”
Thinking with Ashanté Reese: Grief as a Black Feminist Methodology
In my blog post Peer Ethnography: My Theory & Method, I think through my decolonized approach to research inspired by Black feminist theory. An example of this is the way Ashanté Reese discusses grief as methodology in her ethnography Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. As a mental state andContinue reading “Thinking with Ashanté Reese: Grief as a Black Feminist Methodology”
Op-Ed: Extended Medicaid Benefits Provide A Lifeline for New Moms
The United States has an embarrassingly high maternal mortality rate compared to other highly industrialized nations. The majority of maternal mortality happens after childbirth — close to a quarter of pregnancy-related deaths take place between six weeks to a year after childbirth. So, it is baffling that federal law only guarantees 60 days of pregnancy-relatedContinue reading “Op-Ed: Extended Medicaid Benefits Provide A Lifeline for New Moms”
3rd House Astrology: My North Node in Scorpio
Astrology is one of the key tools in my mental health arsenal that has provided me language to process my experiences of madness as well as my more subtle daily intuitions and impulses. For instance, moving along my healing journey, I have becoming increasingly aware of how much I gravitate towards the uncomfortable, the unknownContinue reading “3rd House Astrology: My North Node in Scorpio”
Healing Journey: Mad Pride
As I learn more about the various experiences of people with mental illness, the more I appreciate the complexities we encounter when naming ourselves. Out of the global psychiatric survivor movement of the 1980s and 90s emerged different language to describe our experiences as survivors of psychiatric abuse, ex-patients who recovered or were misdiagnosed, andContinue reading “Healing Journey: Mad Pride”
Peer Ethnography: My Theory & Method
During a workshop on how to conduct “liberated research projects,” Dr. Nadine Naber walked the class through an exercise to help us students and emerging scholars personalize our own theories and methodologies. After thinking about what makes my research distinct, I came to the terms “peer ethnography” and “lived experience research.” This is because ofContinue reading “Peer Ethnography: My Theory & Method”
Nadia Naomi Mbonde 