Welcome. This is the story of a mom, daughter, and family on a mental health journey.
Welcome to the La Vie Est Belle blog. Written by our founder, Kristin Rohman Rehkamp, and guest contributors on similar journeys,
it seeks to serve as a testimony to life braving pediatric or youth mental health and illness.
Inspired by Kristin’s Blogs…
Finding Us: A Mother’s Memoir of Braving Mental Illness with Her Daughter is now available in our shop and launching with major national and international retailers (Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble, Walmart…etc.) on October 15, 2022!
Kristin gives a memoir that is personal and passionate; it is contemporaneous, insightful and wise. “Finding Us" is unerringly truthful to the experience for those who have never had mental illness in the family, and those who HAVE will recognize their own stories within it. -Dan Parnell, NAMI Affiliate Leader
Back Cover Preview
Kristin was terrified she was going to lose her daughter. Her daughter could not breathe, her chest hurt, and she was experiencing loss of sensation in limbs, dizziness, and disorientation…all rolling up to a state of terror she had never before witnessed. It was September 16, 2020 and her life changed, suddenly and without warning, with her daughter’s onset of a panic disorder.
Living with a mental illness is a journey that is messy, complicated and often misunderstood. Despite our best efforts, an experience we cannot control, but instead bravely learn to live with, learn from, and feasibly teach others.
In Finding Us, Kristin Rohman Rehkamp shares her story to educate and bring visibility to what living with a child braving a mental illness looks like and feels like. Her hope is that her memoir normalizes the mental health conversation, while providing others comfort and support in knowing their unique challenges and journey are understood.
Welcome to our collection of blogs. Raw testimony, unique insight, shared perspectives. We hope they provide hope, inspiration, and comfort. Please know, you are not alone. We hear you, we see you, we are standing next to you.
Welcome To Holland
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
By Emily Perl Kingsley. c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved.
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability [or medical condition/mental health condition/different ability] – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
Heart and Compassion
Mental illness is rarely rational or predictable. You cannot rationalize something that is irrational, nor can I advise how our daughter’s illness might present this afternoon, tomorrow or a year from now…or why.