#238: Mental Health and a Sweet Boy with Kate James
Struggle Well School
Emily Thomas
5.0 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2020
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s every young parent's nightmare and it’s some parents' reality. My guest this week shares with us her family’s story through her son's addiction, overdose, and recovery. She describes what it looks like through the eyes of a faithful mother who did all of the right things but still found herself in the middle of a war. We talk about her struggles with bipolar disorder and her husband's experience with Coronavirus. She has sweet encouragement for all of us moms - we are not alone in these struggles!
Katherine James attended Columbia University, where she also taught undergraduate fiction. Her debut novel, Can You See Anything Now?, won Christianity Today's 2018 Fiction Book award and was a semifinalist for the Doris Bakwin Award. Her new book A Prayer for Orion is out now and is very beautifully written. She lives in West Chester, PA with her writer-philosopher-preacher husband, they have three adult children who are more awesome than everyone else in the world and she prays for them every night.
WHAT WE CHAT ABOUT:-
coping with the pandemic with your family geologically spread out
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Kate’s husband’s battle with COVID-19, recovery, and what God taught them through it
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Kate’s bipolar diagnosis and journey
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the “shoulds” while going through with depression
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altering the definition of joy from feeling to faith
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how medication has helped Kate
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the misconceptions and guilt of having a child who’s an addict
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predispositions for addiction
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how Kate’s son’s addiction both strained and grew her faith
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the use, shame, repeat cycle
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resources for parents helping a child with drug addiction
HopeForHurtingParents.com Clean by David Sheff You Are Not Alone by Dena Yohe
CONNECT WITH KATE:website | instagram | facebook
CONNECT WITH EMILY:website | instagram | facebook | patreon
EPISODE SPONSORS:Purple Mattress: visit purple.com/msw and use promo code MSW to get $150 off any mattress order over $1500 (terms apply) Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: a fairytale podcast for kids about extraordinary women from all over the world Hope Writers: take the 30-second quiz for writers today at hopewriters.com/msw
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know I am what you like to call fungus prone, which I think is rude, but also very true. |
| 0:09.0 | I don't remember saying that, but I don't deny that that but I don't deny that is very like me. |
| 0:14.8 | I have psoriasis. |
| 0:17.2 | So the weird thing is it travels right now it's showing up in like circle patches on the middle of my knee caps. |
| 0:25.9 | Weird. I didn't know what it was. I thought I was like, man, I just kneel. I kneel a lot. |
| 0:31.3 | Summer. The doctor was like no. Good guess. Thanks for playing. Now you guys are |
| 0:41.1 | going to go look up Suriasis on the internet and please mine is cute psoriasis. |
| 0:47.1 | That psoriasis not cute. |
| 0:50.8 | Yeah, you know we are known for cute. not cute knees you and I |
| 0:55.8 | you know we are known for cute knees you and I we've got ugly knees I'm glad to have |
| 1:00.4 | knees I'm not trying to say I wish I didn't have knees. You're not |
| 1:04.2 | knocking knees. So anyway it's a traveling circus that I have and it's traveled to the inside of my ears. |
| 1:18.0 | What? |
| 1:20.0 | It's still cute in there? |
| 1:22.0 | It's pretty cute though. It's pretty cute though. Hey friends you were listening to the mom struggling well |
| 1:45.2 | podcast the show that helps you love your actual life so you don't need to |
| 1:48.3 | run away from home. We know here that perfection is nonsense and peace is a |
| 1:52.3 | perspective shift away and don't we need |
| 1:54.4 | those lovely perspective shifts in the middle of being stuck at home every day. |
| 1:59.2 | So at the top of the show you heard my sister she's got some fungus problems there's a fungus among us |
| 2:04.5 | I couldn't help it if you were in a place where you are needing some more over sharing |
| 2:11.1 | from strangers join us on Patreon. |
... |
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