My blurred opinion

In this episode, we come back to an old familiar face. It's Allison from a previous episode. She tells us what she's been up to, how she's been getting through her struggles, and her different outlook on life.

My name is Cheryl McKelvey and I’m a married dog Mom living just outside a small town 50 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri. I’m recently retired and trying to redefine my identify and my new purpose.
I also have struggled a long time with depression, weight issues, chronic pain and a poor self-image.  But I try to find ways to encourage self-improvement and keep a positive attitude.

In this episode, I get to catch up with my old friend Madeanna. He's someone I went to school with through middle, and high school. There was an appear in our lives while we were pretty inseparable, and always compared to each other, but after high school we kind of lost touch. Now we're catching up and I asked him to be on the podcast, and he said yes. We discuss his upbringing, his past, his working career, his eye issues, and growing up in foster homes. 

I've known our next guess Layla or sometime now, I've always enjoyed hanging out with her, and talking to her. She has a great sense of humor, but it's very dark at times, like me it comes from a dark place. In this episode, we talk a lot about mental health, childhood drama, chronic pain, and much more. 

I met Andrea, and we instantly clicked. She's an author, a mother, and a really smart and loving person. Even though her work is primarily about politics, we focused mostly on her being a mother to a child with special needs. We talk about how hard it is to be a parent to those with learning disabilities, but how awesome they are, and how they make your life so much better. 
 
If you would like to get her book, please click the link below
https://frlcnews.com/
 

This episode is with my good friend Colleen. I met her one day when she came into my TikTok live, and she was just so kind, and we instantly became friends. Colleen suffers from systemic lupus, and Shogun syndrome. We talk a lot about what those conditions are, how they affect her life on a daily basis, and how they counteract with her mental health. Colleen indoors a lot of pain every day, one thing admire about her is that she is a very positive person, she may struggle, but she is strong.
 

In this episode, we returned with another very open transparent conversation with Sarah and I. we talk about the usuals which is mental health, or physical health, in any updates in our lives. 

Jenn has lived with Rheumatoid Arthritis since she was six years old. While she was an active and athletic child, as an adult, her arthritis has become more limiting. It’s been a challenging process for her to redefine her sense of self and to accept these limitations, while still trying to move forward and to work around them. Despite her disability, she has been able to remain active. For most of her professional life, Jenn has been an English teacher and school leader, and has loved the time that she spent with the teenagers that she taught, many of whom she still has in her life. For the past seven years, she has worked as a DEI and disability advocate. In her work as a disability advocate and educator, she brings disability awareness into all of the work that she does. Too often, serving people with disabilities is not part of the national conversation. She helps the people with whom she works to consider how we can create a world that is more inclusive of all people, including people with disabilities. Jenn works to educate people about the strengths and gifts that people with disabilities have. Everyone has something that limits them, and success asks that we simply move forward even with the limitations that we have. That said, we need allies, systems, and structures that ensure our inclusion and success. Jenn has also earned certification as a listener poet and is invested in working with organizations to use the listener poet process as part of a support system for those in careers with a high emotional demand. Jenn loves writing, and collaborated with her husband, Kevin, on a poetry collection last year. She has also completed a book that profiles people with disabilities. See Us, Know Us; Profiles of Disability tells the stories of 30 diverse individuals with disabilities. Each profile consists of a portrait, a narrative biography, an original poem and a poem origin story that gives context to the poem. The book will be available in October
 
https://jenniferchassmanbrowne.com/
 

I met our next guest Vance on TikTok. He came in with a very positive attitude and he sent me and everybody in my life some Grace and some good advice. In the episode, he talks a lot about addiction, mental health, and how it has affected his life and his family. He also discusses how his sobriety means so much to him as a person and how he wants to make his family proud.
 

This week we have two guests, MARI, and Tony. MARI and I sat down and talked, and she realized that Tony would add some expertise as a disability advocate, and someone who started their own business to help employ those with disabilities. They both have started their own companies, and I've done so much for the disability community, especially for employment. Though neither has a disability themselves, they have a passion for helping those with disabilities.