Joni Edelman

Joni Edelman

Bio

Joni Edelman is a 40 year-old mother of five (ages 3 to19!), wife, RN, and freelance writer. Also notable, had a baby in her kitchen. Favorite activities include: gardening, hoarding yarn, cake (baking and eating). Less favorite activities include: laundry, laundry, laundry. Joni has appeared on The Today Show, Inside Edition, The Rachael Ray Show, Weekend Sunrise Australia, Canada AM, and Sirius Radio. In print you can find Joni's story in The Daily Mail, The Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Yahoo, and a host of others, but you're probably bored of all this nonsense by now. Completely understandable. Joni aspires to inspire. You can check out her personal website here.

Joni Edelman Articles

Even the fierce love I have for my family doesn’t mean I don’t feel utterly hopeless sometimes. Image: Thinkstock.

Suicidal Ideation And The Complication Of Motherhood

[CN: suicide, overdose] Gratitude stops me from ending my life, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to end my life. Even the fierce love I have for my family doesn’t mean I don’t feel utterly hopeless sometimes.

Read...
Credit: ThinkStock

5 Differences You May Find Between Your First Baby And Your Fifth

By baby three, well let’s just say things are a little anticlimactic, at least where furnishings are concerned. Hand me down crib. Check.

Read...
image credit: Mariah Aro Sharp @mightymooseart

I Take So Many Psych Meds, I Don't Even Know Who I Am Anymore

I am tired of taking medication. I am tired of relying on the manufactured versions of the chemicals and hormones my body could — should? — make for itself.

Read...
Credit: ThinkStock

I Grew Up With A Bipolar Mom—Then Learned I Have The Disorder Myself

I'll never forget the day I discovered the name for my mental illness.

Read...
The Spirited Child

All Grown Up: What Becomes Of The Spirited Child?

I don’t think anyone who has been to the spirited child parenting rodeo would call a mother who screams, “bad,” or who loses her temper, a “failure.” I think we all understand parenting is really really hard from the get go, and parenting a kid who won’t sleep, who screams and kicks and says they hate you, is its own challenge

Read...
I'll let you in on a little secret - being thin didn't make me happy, but being "Fat" does!

Being Thin Didn't Make Me Happy, But Being "Fat" Does 

I'll let you in on a little secret - being thin didn't make me happy, but being "Fat" does! Be fat and happy. Be unapologetically fat.

Read...
Christmas can be downright brutal if you're financially hard up already. (Image Credit: Thinkstock)

It's Christmas And You're Broke: How To Survive

A weekly trip to Walmart would end in tears — first theirs, then mine. Them pining in the toy aisle. Me saying no. Over and over. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to buy my kids whatever they wanted, it was that I couldn’t.

Read...
Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

What Would You Do With Your Cat If You Were Committed?​

She says she’s worried that the cat, whose name is Jack, doesn’t know what’s going on. She tried to explain to him that she was leaving for a while.

Read...
My heart was broken. I could not imagine life without her in it.

She Is All Around Me: The Story Of My Granny, My SHEro

I didn't get a lot of mothering as a child, but when I did, it was from her. She taught me how to sew, how to crochet. She taught me how to stand up for myself, to be tough. She taught me how to make fried chicken and fried okra, which I will never make, because it's fucking gross.

Read...

"I Can't Stand The Sun": My Struggle To Find The Right Bipolar Meds

My cocktail is wrong. It’s a gin and tonic with only gin. It’s a martini with 10 olives. And I can’t stand the sun. Not today. Not this month.

Read...