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
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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.
For All the Reasons I Wanted to Tell Her…
For all the reasons I couldn’t tell her, but wanted to…
…and then I told her and braced myself…
…a few friends, family and advisors in our life saying “maybe”, “no”…”you can’t”…our daughter said “yes, I need this”.
The Impossible Decision
This past week I have grappled not only with a decision my husband and I might be forced to make, but a decision we cannot even accept or rationalize exists. A decision beyond unfair for parents that may be forced to make it and even more unfair for the child that lives with a mental illness they did not choose.