Sheila Hamilton is a five-time Emmy Award winning journalist and the author of “All the Things We Never Knew.”
Sheila’s storytelling resume runs through film, commercial television, radio and print.
All the Things We Never Knew is a boldly beautiful page-turner about loving and losing someone with mental illness. With unblinking honesty and profound compassion, Sheila Hamilton brings us vividly into her confusion, sorrow, and ultimate healing. I’ll be recommending this absorbing memoir for years to come.
If you’ve ever asked the question ‘Do I need help?’ or ‘Does my loved one need help?’ then read this book. Merging her gut-wrenching personal story with all-pro journalistic acumen, Sheila Hamilton gives us the who-what-where-when-why of mental illness and what you can do to get the help you need. Most of all, this book gives us permission not to go through hardship alone, no matter what crises we face.
Sheila Hamilton’s All The Things We Never Knew is one of the most candid, heart-wrenching, and deeply moving accounts of the wake of destruction caused by the suicide of a loved one. Her book reminds us of those we’ve lost to suicide. The book casts the dark shadow that is depression, then rises from such darkness, reminding us to ‘Look to the living, love them, and hold on.’ Finally, it gives survivors tremendous resolve to continue in their quest for prevention.
All the Things We Never Knew is so beautiful, so raw, and so powerful. It is, in a word, spectacular, and Sheila Hamilton is so generous and brave to share this story with the rest of the world. Anyone who has struggled with mental illness—their own, their family members’, their friends’ (which is to say, all of us)—will come away from this deeply humane book feeling less alone.
All the Things We Never Knew is the rare memoir that’s as harrowing as it is heartwarming, and Sheila Hamilton is the rarest of writers—a disciplined reporter with a masterful understanding of the workings of the human heart. This extraordinary story, about the mystery and scars of mental illness, is sobering and compelling and simply unputdownable.”
Journalist Sheila Hamilton has written a bold and honest book that takes the stigma out of mental illness and explores the terrible and beautiful angles when a loved one suffers from bipolar disorder. Hamilton’s reporter’s eye and lover’s heart give us a valuable perspective on how the grip of this insidious disease can destroy families and lives. Hamilton’s story is not only a cautionary tale but another example of the resiliency within all of us, and our ability to make the choice to heal.”
An honest, compelling read that chronicles Sheila Hamilton’s personal story of what it’s like to live with and love a spouse with mental health challenges. Written well, accurately describing the depression and mania of what later becomes a bipolar diagnosis, she captures the struggle of piecing together biological, psychological, and environmental factors that ultimately lead to a hard but hopeful ending. It is one of those books you don’t want to put down.
A brave and honest memoir of mental illness and the many people it can affect. Read more →
Thank you, heart. For still beating when we were broken.
Thank you, brain, for words that heal.
Thank you body, for enduring.
Thank you, spirit. Without you,
Nothing.
This day, this breath—perfect.
Earlier this week, I sat in the sauna next to a woman who seemed quite agitated and unable to control her emotions.
I asked her to tell me what was going on.
And then I listened.
She said the simple act of being heard walked her away from the edge of despair.
Today at lunch with an Iraq war veteran, he confided that his best friend’s daughter had texted him to say she’d found her dad dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound. This was the second friend he’d lost to suicide this year.
He didn’t want to hear the grim statistics on veteran suicide, he didn’t want advice as to how to survive the next few days, weeks and months.
He wanted to talk. And he needed someone to listen.
I’m not a psychiatrist. I don’t hold advance degrees in counseling, but I know the power of listening. And there’s plenty of data to suggest that being heard helps people in crisis feel validated and calmer.
The smallest act of caring has the potential to turn a person’s world around. So listen. At the very least, it’s an act of love.
Sheila Hamilton -- I've wondered about that. I remember at your Powell's presentation, at least two audience members spoke to you about their serious mental illness. It seems like an unintended service of where you started.
1 month ago · 2Thanks to Keep Oregon Well and American Program Bureau Inc for giving me the opportunity to talk about why #mentalhealthmatters
Creating an Open Discussion about Mental Health - Sheila Hamilton
Sheila Hamilton is a five-time Emmy award winning journalist and the host of Portland, Oregon's #1 radio program, Kink.fm. Sheila's storytelling resume runs ...
One of my favorite interviews about the risk of depression and anxiety in otherwise healthy young adults.
Ross Szabo: Taking Charge of your Mental Health-A guide for Young Adults
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Ross Szabo is the author of Behind Happy Faces: Taking Charge of Your Mental Health - A Guide for Young Adults, which includes Szabo's narratives of his own struggles. (At age 16, Szabo, a football st
Say it out loud. #MentalHealthMatters
SHEILA HAMILTON ON MENTAL ILLNESS
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In the week before Robin William’s death, a news story broke in Portland about Jennifer Huston, a stay-at-home mother who went missing mysteriously. A few days later, she was discovered in the woods...
When an unexpected note from a friend is the best thing you’ve read all week. Thank you, Laura Stanfill❤️
My friend sent me a styrofoam 8-oz cup that she sent to the depths of the ocean with a research team, and the pressure of all that water crunched it into a really small version of its original self. But it held—the structure held. I’m thinking about that a lot these days: all the pressure, how it changes us, how the weight pushes out the air and fillers and condenses our power, makes us different, but stronger, and still holding our shapes.
We All feel Pressure every day, how we balance it daily is key to a Happy Life. If it causes stress & or anxiety (causes of illness & disease), then one would benefit by finding root cause(s). Yoga works very well for me. Thanks to my beautiful wife for introducing me this missing link in Life.
5 months ago · 1It IS a wonderful metaphor on how a person can feel their life's own pressures, that it's trying to crush that person almost into 'nothingness', dependent on each persons' circumstance. The wonderful part of it is, what you mentioned, Sheila.. That it(you), can STILL maintain it's structure. "Your structure, your inner AND outer strength, will show you, TELL you, how to deal with the pressures that you have to, NEED to, react in any and every possible situation throughout the course of your life." (quote, Me. 😀)
5 months agoImagine being able to identify and reduce toxic stress and childhood adversity. It's happening with BCR - Building Community Resilience , Trillium Family Services and Keep Oregon Well in the schools, in your churches, and on your streets.
Building Community Resilience with Sheila Hamilton
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What do we do about some of the most ingrained problems in our society; poverty, gentrification, child sexual abuse, mental illness, early childhood trauma and food insecurity? We start in communitie
Logan Lynn❤️❤️❤️
5 months ago
Remind yourself of the beauty of quiet, simple things.
For my friends who are struggling, may the path forward be the sound of your feet taking the next step toward something that matters.
And if that seems impossible, ignore the wild firings of your brain, and listen instead to the beating of your quiet but hopeful heart.
You are never alone in your feelings
And it’s okay not to feel okay.
Adolescents and young adults, now living at hyper speed and undergoing radical change, seem to be at higher risk of mental illness and addiction than ever before.
The very students we thought were destined to be our best and brightest are also calling out for help. A big part of their lives, or at least the part that allows us to feel a connection to one another, has gone missing.
Part of the message going forward hopefully includes the notion that we are not perfect. We all fail. We lose jobs, we lose friends, we lose girlfriends and boyfriends. We may have an awkward phase in jr high or high school, but that doesn’t define the arc of our lives. It gets better. The allure of the Instagram world is that everyone is having a better time than we are. They are richer, smarter, wiser, cooler. These notions of "the perfect life" are as photoshopped as the images we scroll past.
The best friends I know have been shaped by their setbacks, and the acceptance that very few lives turn out exactly as we intend--in fact, it is the coping methods we are forced to adopt after loss or trauma that make us more approachable, more vulnerable, and yes, more human.
We must embrace our humanness and the parts of us that may not be viewed “successful” by an outside world. My friend, Cheryl Strayed, the author of the bestselling memoir, WILD, described it as developing the qualities people talk about at your funeral, not the achievements listed on your Linked In profile. We must teach our kids that the qualities of vulnerability, empathy, resilience and compassion are far more important to health and happiness than their SAT score.
I hope you'll join us at 1440 Multiversity Dec 8-10th to talk about bouncing forward at every age. Signups are below:
1440.org/program/bouncing-forward-mindful-resilience/
1440.org
Through storytelling, meditation, & writing, you will begin to reshape how you relate to crisis and find a way to thrive even when life seems overwhelming.
Keep working it, Sheila Hamilton 💙
6 months ago
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Nice words Sheila..thanks!
4 weeks agoWow!! Stunning photo.
4 weeks agoSo happy for you and your daughter 💞
4 weeks agoYou are radiant as always! Even when I saw you out running last week I was inspired by your delight and joy at life (and even running 😉 Shine on!
4 weeks agoOmg... so much beauty and joy!! Love you both 🙂
4 weeks ago · 1Absolutely beautiful!❤️❤️
4 weeks ago · 1Beautiful!
4 weeks ago · 1Good Words of Love Of 2 beautiful spiritual loving souls With 2 beating hearts Flowing through space In time together As one Spending timeless Togetherness On a glorious sunny day With pretty toes n feet Covered by pebbles of sand Walking on the sandy shore Healing hearts abroken With unspoken Words of eternal love Radiating positive light Healing and mending Soaring spirits free to fly Free of any disease As U2 fly like Jonathan Livingston Seagull In the oceans Living breathing breeze Living love In your personal Paradise
3 weeks agoThank you
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