Hoping Against Hope - One Mom’s Story
Posted by Administrator in Mental Health.There may be no such thing as a miracle cure, but don’t tell Autumn Stringam. The Alberta mother won a life-or-death battle with bipolar disorder thanks to a controversial and unlikely treatment. In a new book, she chronicles her journey from madness to mental health We never know what we will inherit from our parents: Green eyes? Maybe athleticism. Or perhaps, a fractured mind.
Autumn Stringam grew up in small town Alberta with a mother who had undiagnosed bipolar affective disorder. With no words to describe their mother’s condition, the kids knew her either as Angry Mom or Dark Mom. The children—they were a brood of 10—never knew which one they’d encounter.
Stringam preferred Angry Mom, as she explains in her new memoir called A Promise of Hope: The Astonishing True Story of a Woman Afflicted with Bipolar Disorder and the Miraculous Treatment That Cured Her. “She was better than the mom who slumped down the stairs to take in the destruction with dull hooded eyes, her shoulders rounding toward her chest, her belly slumping forward over her hips. This mom did not talk, let alone sing. Her empty eyes said she might never sing again.”
Stringam’s mother Debora was 40 when she committed suicide, just as Stringam’s grandfather had done. Read more