Denise A. White
Speaker, poet, and author of You Don't Look Bipolar.
As a member and advocate
of Neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities, sharing my experience navigating life outside tidy boxes and subjective definitions, became an urgent calling. Through six decades of journal entries, poems and commentary I shed light on the paradox of growing up in a world that celebrated Bessie Smith, Mary Oliver, James Baldwin, Freddie Mercury, Harvey Milk, and Lily Tomlin but imprisoned individuals with mental illness in barbaric institutions and tied gay people to farm fences and beat them to death as recently as the early 90's in the United States.
Denise from 1000 Feet
by Jessie McLaren, © 2024
Eventually, after years of treatment and personal growth in all areas, she slowly exited her cocoon, long since outgrown, and accepted the asymmetry of her wings and the patterns of her heart. Denise and her partner of over 25 years married in a park. This was a rite of passage she had long thought to be impossible. She was afraid that her bipolar disorder would hurt the people she loved. Denise finally chose herself and accepted the decades-long soul marriage that was already hers.
Now, at 75, Denise is battling leukemia with the hope, acceptance, and confidence of a person familiar with private war. The courage and power to get up over and over despite adversity are cherished symbols of learning to love herself and her scars after countless battles with her mental and physical health. Her most recent book, You Don't Look Bipolar, is her bravest writing. It is an open door into the naked heart of her teens, twenty-somethings, and middle-aged years. Journal entries, narration, and poems invite you to retrace her path, however soft or briar-covered, from day to day. It is a template that proves we can survive, learn, overcome, and accept anything bravely while being exactly who we are, the women and men we always hoped we could show the world while proudly dismissing the voices of those who fail to see our sparkle and the fiery trail that our stardust souls leave.
May you find humor, inspiration, and comfort in her experiences, however they mirror or contradict your own.
Denise is an author, poet, and speaker who taught mathematics, created alternative pedagogy and curriculum in the classroom, and co-authored a geometry book during 34 years of teaching. Her calling is writing about women's experiences from decade to decade: passions, heartbreaks, who they love, and self-care. These unique challenges include neurodivergence and sexual identity in a culture that only recently began with intention embracing other's differences. Words, music, poetry, art, photography, and, at one time, drinking were all tools Denise used to express or distract herself from the pain of feeling "other."
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