About Me — Jasmine Smith
Diving into Parenting, Travel, Mental Health and More
Hello Dear Readers! My name is Jasmine and I write about parenting, city life, mental health, writing, and travel. I’d love to share my experience with each before we get down to the deep stuff.
Parenting
I gave birth to my son in 2016 and was immediately crushed by Postpartum Depression. On top of that, he is a capital-S Spirited, extroverted kid, while I am a sensitive, introverted mom. It’s been a journey, but we’ve learned a lot. I like to talk about the hard stuff, even though these days it’s more than balanced by the good stuff, just because I never knew how rough it could really get — I thought I was just doing it wrong. I strive to help other parents avoid that self-blame trap.
Mental Health
I first knew I was depressed when I was 16, was first diagnosed at 20, and spent the next 20-some years trying to figure out what to actually do about it. When my dad was diagnosed with bipolar II, I started getting serious about learning more. When I was hit with PPD and my dad committed suicide all within a year, I was too crushed to even try to help myself. Now that I’ve clawed my way out to a better place, I try to be open about my mental health struggles so I can help others get help before they get desperate.
Travel
I took my first international trip (my first plane trip period) when I was 16, without my parents or anyone I knew. I was hooked and became a lifelong traveler. I went to Ecuador on a medical mission. I went to Italy and Ireland. My husband and I took a year off of our lives (although with a bit of digital nomading) to travel across Europe and Israel. Here I studied with cheesemakers and worked in a cheese shop (more on that if you follow my stories) while my husband visited his father’s birthplace in Romania and traced his footsteps during the Holocaust that lead him to the U.S. Having a kid (and COVID) definitely put a cramp in my travel style, but I did rediscover the joy of traveling around your own state.
Writing
I have a B.A. in Creative Writing, but more importantly, I’ve been doing it on and off for 20 years in nearly every form you can imagine. For many years I focused on short stories and writing a novel, then I shifted to essays and nonfiction, and most recently I’m focusing on children’s literature, both nonfiction and fiction. I love it all. Storytelling, and the study of it, are one of the great joys of my life.
City Life
I spent 16 years living in San Francisco, where I had moved from New York City. I just recently moved cross-country once again to the mid-Atlantic to try out suburban life. I have strong feelings about both, and I love writing funny essays about my experiences on both sides.
But who are you? Where did you come from?
I grew up in rural Northern Wisconsin, and yes, it was on a farm. The farm I grew up on was originally purchased by my great-grandparents, who passed it to my grandma, who passed it to my dad. There are tractors and maple syrup-making equipment from generations ago still out in the woods there. Our house was right next to a river (with a swimming hole!), where I spent hours and hours all summer.
I loved our farm, but I never felt like I quite fit in at school. I dove deep into books — my parents were once called in because I refused to stop reading books so much, even during class and at recess.
In high school, I loved being in the school plays and musicals, but mostly I just couldn’t wait to go to college. I attended UW-Madison, studied Communications and Writing, and the rest is history. Or, I should say, the rest is my story that you can hear about in my essays.
This is one of my favorite essays of mine, and it covers several of the topics I talked about above:
I can’t wait to keep connecting with you all. If you are one of my fellow Medium writers who also write about one of the topics above, give me a shout in the comments so I can check out your writing too.
