I am not a therapist. I am speaking here only from experience, but I get asked the same questions about my marriage over and over.

My husband and I are part of the fastest-growing demographic in the US — the blended family. So it makes sense that there are many women (and some men) curious about my marriage. An estimated two-thirds of all women will be a part of a blended family in their lifetime.

The main questions I get asked are: How do you make it work? And is it worth it?

Here is how I always answer: First, marriage is never easy. My first marriage was a disaster as were my husband’s first three, but somehow we rose above our separate relationship demons to create a happy and relatively normal blended family, which is made up of three children, two dogs, two rabbits, a tortoise and a horse. 

And second, it is totally worth it. I did not even really want to have children until I became a stepmom and realized how much I loved being a parent — in my case, a full=time step-parent.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

I met my husband, Phil Bronstein, in 2003 through our divorce attorney. This is what I have learned over the last eight years:

Lay down the law. Get your parenting rules and style agreed upon before you walk down any aisle — even an airplane aisle — together. Who disciplines (him for at least a year), how you discipline, who is responsible for which kid-related duties, what are the rules around meals and food, what are the rules about technology and do you have date nights when you have visitation are all issues you need to address.

Rewrite your vows.  The vows for becoming a blended family should be changed to: “I will love you and your child and I will honor you and your child all the days of my life.” Marrying a man with a child (or children) means that you are also entering into a life with that child (and that child’s mother) for as long as you both shall live. You are agreeing to love that child like your own, while respecting that there are two other parents who have all the legal rights. His vows should include, “I honor the added responsibility you are taking on and will do all I can to respect and appreciate that.” We bought a matching wedding ring for my stepson when we got married to include him in our marriage.

Get sporty. Custody disputes do not have to tear you apart. They can in fact bring you closer to your partner. We went through four and a half years of pretty constant legal issues and we managed to do it in a way that brought us closer together. Each legal letter strengthened our marriage. It was our team sport for those years. No time for tennis, just working hard to make good decisions for my stepson and for our whole family as best we could. Clocking many hours lobbing late-night emails and enduring endless evaluations together. It sometimes felt like a combat sport, but nonetheless we did not let it come between us.

Respect insanity. If you have the good fortune to follow in the footsteps of someone who is wacky, mean, or generally unstable (these are very common traits in divorcing people), know that this is not a negative. It is a fantastic benefit to you because no matter how wacky or unstable you may get from time to time, the bar has been set so low that you will always look sane. Even when you are PMSing, screaming obscenities at the TV, crying into your Ben & Jerry’s — or, in my case, throwing an éclair at a beeping car — I promise you will be rewarded with the benefit of being seen by your mate as wonderfully normal even at your worst.

Call in the cavalry.  Bringing in experts before any parenting or relationship problems escalate is imperative. More than 70 percent of blended family marriages end in divorce. These complicated relationships require more adult supervision due to the many moving pieces. Bring in experts and don’t beat yourself up about it. 

And know that it is tough and wonderful and if we can do it, you can too.

Resources for more information:

• National Step Family Resource Center

• The Blended Family Survival Guide on Getting Married with Children

Anxious, fatigued or depressed? You are not alone — one in five Americans is popping pills for these issues — but pills, exercise or diet shouldn’t top your list of treatments, says Bay Area author, founder of OwningPink.com and integrative medicine physician Dr. Lissa Rankin. “What if I told you the medical profession has it all backwards?” Dr Rankin asked in her recent TEDx Talk. “We’re suffering from an epidemic that modern medicine has no idea what to do with. People suffering from this epidemic are fatigued, anxious, depressed and suffering from vague physical symptoms…” At a time when one in five Americans is taking prescription medication for these maladies, there is no question that there is an epidemic happening, and even more so among women. According to a report from MedCo, a pharmacy benefit manager, one out of every four women has a prescription for some form of mental health medication. In fact, these medications are the most widely prescribed of all medications here in the U.S. according to a Wall Street Journal article:

Psychiatric medications are among the most widely prescribed and biggest-selling class of drugs in the U.S. In 2010, Americans spent $16.1 billion on antipsychotics to treat depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, $11.6 billion on antidepressants and $7.2 billion on treatment for ADHD, according to IMS Health, which tracks prescription-drug sales.

Statistics like these make me wonder whether our ideals about “mental health” might not just be skewed. They also make Dr. Rankin’s claim that she has a better solution all the more interesting. In fact, she says she has already had success in diagnosing the root cause of why her patients are depressed and anxious. She uses a wellness paradigm she calls the Whole Health Cairn, which helps patients evaluate their whole health in a paradigm-shifting way. According to Dr. Rankin:

Cold, hard scientific evidence in reputable medical journals clearly proves that to be truly healthy both mentally and physically, it’s not enough to eat right, exercise, sleep eight hours a night, see your doctor for regular check-ups and take your medicine. This is why my Marin County integrative medicine practice was full of well-intentioned health nuts who were still depressed, anxious and sick.

When asked in an interview about her thoughts on antidepressants, she told me:

At least 75 percent and in some studies, up to 100 percent, of the effect of anti-depressants has been proven to be attributable to the placebo effect — which I believe is good news. This means that the potent cocktail of hope, positive belief, the support of a medical practitioner who cares and the physiological self-healing mechanisms that get triggered by the body when it wants to heal, are ever-powerful. Some studies even suggest that placebos work when the patient knows it’s a sugar pill. So why do we need the pill? Sure, every doctor will report some case studies where it’s truly a biochemical process, and once the biochemical disorder is reversed pharmaceutically, everything else falls into place. But I’d argue that most of the time, even if there is a biochemical component, it’s not purely biochemical.

This is shocking to me as one of the “25 percenters.” My Zoloft saved me from a bone-crushing bout of postpartum depression and I can assure you it wasn’t a placebo effect. I was sure Zoloft would not work for me. I had read those reports, but with three children to care for I was willing to try anything. For my family’s sake and with much grumbling, I resorted to popping my blue pill. I remember the day I noticed it was working. Another friend of mine also says she knows exactly when her antidepressants kicked in. She was driving in a busy mall parking lot, rushing to make a return with two yipping dogs in her car, when someone rudely rushed into the parking spot she had been waiting for. She says, she thought to her self, “Oh well” and kept looking. Then she stopped her car in shock. This kind of thing would have normally led to obscenities being screamed out the window, at the least. So, we may be the exceptions to those reports of the placebo effect, however, could we be helped more by Dr. Rankin’s approach? Would looking at the whole of my life and figuring out my root cause eliminate my need for the little blue Zoloft pill I am terrified to stop taking? To this Dr. Rankin says, “Patients know their bodies better than any doctor. If the patient tells me taking psychiatric medications is what they need in order to heal, I’m all for it. I’m just not a fan of treating every negative emotional state or vague physical symptom with psychiatric medications to the exclusion of helping patients diagnose and treat what’s underlying the depression or anxiety.” According to Rankin, to know for sure whether or not I indeed “need” my Zoloft, I would need to look at my whole life — love life, professional life, creativity expression, spirituality, sexuality and see if there is anything out of balance. Once diagnosed and “the root cause underlying depression or anxiety” was found, her next step is “helping patients create an intuitively-driven, patient guided step-by-step action plan aimed at healing what is out of balance.” The number one question she asks patients is: “What do you need in order to heal?” And the answers they give are often shocking. Such as: • I need to leave my husband. • I need to move to Santa Fe. • I need to finish my novel. • I need to hire a nanny. • I need to eat a vegan diet. • I need to switch careers. • I need to quit drinking. According to Dr. Rankin, “Once the patient makes the diagnosis and writes ‘the prescription,’ the challenge lies in implementing the changes necessary to heal from the core.” But not all doctors agree. One psychiatrist I spoke to about this subject wasn’t sold on Dr. Rankin’s approach, saying that “she’s simply presenting a PowerPoint of the obvious.” “Yes, doctor, we would all prefer ‘healthy relationships, healthy professional lives, creative expression,’ but what interrupts that? It’s not so easy to simply talk/wish/guilt/’whatever’ ourselves into ‘changing.’” But Dr. Rankin says she has had success with her program, as paradoxically simplistic and difficult as it may be. One of her patients credits Dr. Rankin with newfound energy and relief from both malaise and physical illness, saying: “When I first came to Lissa I had a myriad of mysterious medical maladies and zero mojo. I had invested six years of my life into various medical tests, treatments and failed plans of action… I (now) have boundless energy… and never have I been so happy.” According to Dr. Rankin, “You can medicate someone all you want, but unless you’re helping her heal what underlies her depression or anxiety, you’re just putting a sad Band-aid on her soul, and the results will be limited.” Well, I’m not quite ready to tear off my sad little band-aid, but I am happy to know there is an alternative for the growing number of pill poppers like me.

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics

doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” Pericles 495 BC - 429 BC

Thank god for American Crossroads’ schizophrenia.  The Karl Rove backed institution thrust Elizabeth Warren into the limelight this week with its dueling anti-Warren commercials.  Crossroads portrayed Warren first as the brewer of the Occupy Wall Street movement and then as the bailer out of the very same Wall Street banks she was supposedly responsible for Occupying.

And in doing so American Crossroads brought this senate candidate to the forefront of media debate, and for this we should be thankful.

Warren’s campaign battle for Senate in Massachusetts against Tea Party candidate Scott Brown may not only decide the balance of power in the Senate, but it also just might define the character of our nation for years to come.

The fight between big bank backed Brown and the janitor’s daughter turned Harvard law professor, Warren, embodies the current US identity crisis.

Main Street vs Wall Street.  Tea Party vs. Occupy.

You can watch the normally soft-spoken creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the former Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) release her inner bulldog, and highlighting her great understanding of the inner workings of these complicated deals- asking some tough questions of Timothy Geithner during the TARP hearings.  This is one of the many events that has turned Wall Street against her.

According to a Vanity Fair story on Warren:

“…Warren would pay a price for those hearings. ‘Geithner hated her,’ says a former administration official. Part of it was seen as personal because she had scorched him in public. But the whole thrust of her work on the oversight panel—getting the facts out to the public—was at odds with Geithner’s perceived conviction, shared by the Wall Street establishment, that the details of the banks’ TARP rescue should be hidden from public scrutiny whenever possible in order to give the banks time to recover…”

According to Open Secrets:

“Since launching her U.S. Senate campaign in August, Warren has pulled in more than $3.15 million — with a whopping 57 percent of that sum coming from small-dollar donors who each contributed $200 or less. According to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, Warren has raised just 3.5 percent of her war chest, or $110,050, from interests in the finance, insurance and real estate sector.

By contrast, the finance, insurance and real estate sector is Brown’s No. 1 supporter.

Since Brown jumped onto the national stage in 2009 when he began running to fill the Senate vacancy created in the wake of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death, Brown has raised about $23.6 million.

According to the Center’s research, Brown has relied on the finance, insurance and real estate sector for about $1 out of every $8 he’s collected.”

So now it seems that we must decide are we a nation that venerates Wall Street, hoping that deregulation at the top and cuts at the bottom will support our nation or are we a nation that respects the lives of all of our citizens enough for corporations and those at the top to pay more to rebuild a middle class at a time when scarcity pervades our collective psyche? 

Every congress person has control over how the government controls your tax dollars, protects your rights and much much more.  FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN TAKE ACTION HERE Your voice matters in this senate race no matter where you live.

Watch ABOW with Elizabeth Warren in San Francisco.