Shows / Holding It Together (Kinda)
Holding It Together (Kinda)
Holding It Together (Kinda) is for people who look like they have it handled on the outside while knowing damn well it’s messier underneath.
Host Michael Mackniak has honest conversations with caregivers, clinicians, advocates, experts, authors, and people who have learned something worth sharing by actually living through it. We talk about caregiving, mental health, illness, loss, relationships, broken systems, difficult choices, and those moments when you find yourself wondering: What the…
Episodes
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Rev. Barbara Ann Michaels: Humor As the Harbinger of Hope
Send us Fan Mail You can be exhausted, heartbroken, and still human enough to laugh again and that tiny laugh might be the first sign you are coming back to…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
#9 Companion A Brain Injury Survivor’s Guide To Pacing And Preemptive Rest
Send us Fan Mail Your brain can look “fine” on the outside while it fights a silent battle on the inside. I sit down with Matt Galati, a med student turned…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
The Thin Line Between Care And Control
Send us Fan Mail A conservator refuses to sign consent for a pregnancy termination because of personal religious beliefs, so a client’s medical decision gets…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
The Kidz Are Alright (Kinda) with My Kids
Send us Fan Mail The kids are not confused about what they need. They’re tired of performing, tired of being reduced to a checklist, and tired of pretending…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
#8 Companion Caregiver Myths, Real Limits
Send us Fan Mail The fastest way to get stuck as a caregiver is to cling to “simple” legal lines that feel protective but turn out to be misleading. We are…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Nesh Pillay: Be Kind To Little Man
Send us Fan Mail A brain injury can steal your past without touching your personality, and that gap is where so many families get lost. I sit down with Nesh…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
#7 Companion Caregiver Burnout Is Information
Send us Fan Mail Dementia doesn’t just change memory. It changes family roles, daily math, and the emotional weather in your house. On this midweek unpack, I…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Claude Racine: Postpartum Is Not The Baby Blues
Send us Fan Mail The postpartum period can look normal from the outside while it feels like a full-body emergency on the inside. After the headlines around the…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
#6 Companion Who Gets To Decide When Minds Are Unsteady
Send us Fan Mail Client choice can feel like a clean principle right up until the moment symptoms surge, risk rises, and everyone around the person feels…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Allan Houston and Tamara Houston: What Does Radical Acceptance Look Like At Home
Send us Fan Mail A hospital discharge can look like “problem solved” on paper while a family is still staring at the real question: where does our loved one…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
#5 Companion If You Say Calm Down, We Fight
Send us Fan Mail Your nervous system can’t “just calm down” if it’s still scanning for danger. We do a midweek unpack of our conversation with Danielle Worthen…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Annette: A Mother Learns That Survival Is Not The Same As Living
Send us Fan Mail Severe mental illness can turn a household into a command center overnight. One day you’re parenting, working, and planning for the future…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
#4 Companion: Youth Mental Health Without The Fixes
Send us Fan MailMost adults want to help kids who are stressed, anxious, or shutting down, but we often reach for the fastest fix: another app, another…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Reclaim Calm in the Chaos: Time Mastery with Walt Hampton
Send us Fan Mail What if “busy” is the shield that keeps you from what you most need? We sat down with Walt Hampton—executive coach, author of The Power…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
# 3 Episode Companion Memory Is Not A Care Plan When Stress Hits
Send us Fan Mail Caregiving can feel like being the only person holding the whole system in your head and it’s exhausting for reasons most people never see. We…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Kala Allen Omeiza: I Got Bullied In An Autism Lab
Send us Fan Mail Watching someone succeed can fool us into thinking they’re fine. Then Kala Allen Omeiza says something that stops us cold: she worked in top…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Episode 2 Care Companion: You Can Love Them And Still Feel Worn Out
Send us Fan Mail Loving someone who is still alive but no longer feels like the person you knew can mess with your head in ways most people never see. On this…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Justin Ray: Hospitals Without Walls
Send us Fan Mail The scariest part of a mental health crisis is not the diagnosis, it is the moment you realize the system can see the problem and still tell…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Episode 1 Companion: Six Hospitals Later And Everyone Still Acts Surprised
Send us Fan Mail Six hospitalizations in nine months can look like “care,” yet still leave a family right where they started: scared, depleted, and forced to…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Communication and the Cost of Silence
Send us Fan Mail A single missed conversation can be the most dangerous part of treatment. We start with David, a 62-year-old man living with schizophrenia who…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
When The Doctor Becomes Family with Dr Mohamed Elziam
Send us Fan Mail A white coat can make people think medicine is all control, clarity, and clean answers. Then a crisis hits your own family, and you learn how…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Elder Care Is A Life Plan with Shanika Batchelor
Send us Fan Mail “A nursing home” is one of the most emotionally loaded phrases in caregiving and it often shuts down the real conversation we need to have. We…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
The Dilemmas of Addiction
Send us Fan Mail We explore the hard edge between autonomy and suffering through Jamie’s story and the wider reality of co‑occurring addiction and mental…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
The Great Earwax Contraband Caper with Jolene Breinig
Send us Fan Mail Caregiving gets called a “labor of love,” but that phrase can hide the bruising reality: the physical work, the mental load, the split-second…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
The Future Proof Parent: Special Needs Planning Without Panic with Rebecca Iantuonni
Send us Fan Mail The scariest caregiving question isn’t medical. It’s the quiet one that shows up at 2 a.m.: “What happens to my loved one when I’m gone?” I…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Understanding Hoarding
Send us Fan Mail A home packed with newspapers, dogs, broken toasters, or “valuable” scraps can look like a simple cleanup problem until you hear what the…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
All the Wrong Doors
Send us Fan Mail “No wrong door” is one of the nicest promises in mental health policy. It’s also the line that can break you when you’re living the reality…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Set Boundaries And Still Love Them with Dr Michelle Sherman author of Loving Someone with Mental Illness
Send us Fan Mail Your loved one can be struggling in plain sight, and somehow the whole family learns to whisper about it. We sit down with clinical…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Caregiver Stress Reset with Alicia Feller
Send us Fan Mail Your shoulders are up near your ears, your jaw is locked, and you are running on adrenaline again and calling it “fine.” If that sounds like…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Make The Strawberry Bunny Then Eat It with Kathy Micheel
Send us Fan Mail Caregiving can look heroic on the outside while you’re shaking behind the safety gate on the inside. We name that gap and get honest about the…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Is This Mushroom Edible with Emerson Kerr
Send us Fan Mail AI is everywhere right now, and the noise makes it easy to assume one of two extremes: either it saves healthcare or it destroys it. I sit…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Why Your Brain Wants Jelly Beans with Dr Matthew Galati
Send us Fan Mail Your brain is not a fixed object, and neither is your future. I sit down with Dr. Matthew Galati, a family medicine and rehab physician who…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Caregiver Misconceptions with ("Host") Victoria Cuore
Send us Fan MailHIPAA gets thrown around like a brick wall, guardianship gets sold like a silver bullet, and families get blamed for not having “the right…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
A Daughter’s Guide To Dementia and Caregiver Burnout Recovery
Send us Fan Mail Silence is one of the cruelest parts of caregiving. When a parent has cancer, people show up with food and texts. When dementia or a mental…
Holding It Together (Kinda)The Cloak of Client Choice
Send us Fan Mail A locked door, a hoarse voice saying “go away,” and a body on the brink of failure. We dive into the harrowing gray zone where autonomy meets…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
An Off Switch For Neurospicy Brains with Danniel Worthen Cullumber
Send us Fan Mail Trauma doesn’t always arrive like a lightning strike. Sometimes it settles in, becomes routine, and starts shaping the way a whole household…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
This Is What It Takes with Victoria Cuore
Send us Fan MailCaregiving doesn’t just exhaust your schedule. It rewires your brain into a constant loop of meds, appointments, forms, and fear and then the…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
Caregiver Grief And The Pain Of Loving Someone Who Changed with Dr. Joann Schaeffer, Author of The Unspoken Side of Grief
Send us Fan Mail Caregiving can break your heart in slow motion. When a loved one lives with dementia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or chronic disease, you…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
6 Hospitals. 2 States. 9 Months
Send us Fan Mail A straight-A teenager with color-coded plans becomes a revolving door patient in six hospitals across two states in just nine months—and her…
- Holding It Together (Kinda)
MIGMA: Make Involuntary Guardianship Mandatory Again!! With Rebecca Iantuonni
Send us Fan Mail A policy can sound compassionate and still be dangerous when you read the fine print. We’re talking about Project Safe Harbor, a reported VA…