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Loving Someone Through Mental Illness: Grief, Resilience, & the Stories We Tell Ourselves with Sheila Hamilton (E205)
Description
Today’s conversation is a tender one. I’m joined by Sheila Hamilton — journalist, speaker, and author of All the Things We Never Knew, a memoir she wrote in the aftermath of her late husband’s descent into mental illness. This book is part story, part resource — and it captures the confusion, grief, hope, and fierce love that come with navigating a fractured mental health system while trying to hold a family together.
If you’ve ever loved someone who was struggling…this episode is for you. We talk resilience, motherhood, sisterhood — and the powerful books that shaped Sheila along the way.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Sheila felt compelled to write All the Things We Never Knew after her husband’s mental health crisis.
- How her background in journalism shaped the book into both memoir and resource.
- The realities of navigating the mental health system while trying to support a family.
- Why honesty about struggle can help people find connection and community.
- What resilience really looks like in the middle of grief and uncertainty.
- The role motherhood played in helping her move forward.
Connect with Sheila:
Books and authors mentioned in the episode:
- Virginia Woolf books
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
- McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh
Book Flight
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
- Wild by Cheryl Strayed
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
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Three books. One common theme.
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