Kriti Mehrotra
Directed by Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley, Netflix’s ‘Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story’ lives up to its title in every way conceivable by delving deep into the titular comic. It traces everything from her childhood in a small town in Minnesota to her discovering her love for performance, and from her complex mental health struggles to her community today. Her elder sister, Sarah Bamford Seidelmann, is thus significant in the documentary as she underscores precisely what it has been like to be around her authenticity, honesty, and satire.
Sarah Seidelmann Has Had Her Fair Share of Ups and Downs With Maria Bamford
Born around 1967 in Cooperstown, New York, as the elder of Marilyn Halverson and Joel Thomas Bamford’s two adorable daughters, Sarah Bamford Seidelmann grew up in a loving home. She was followed by Maria Bamford on September 3, 1970, in Port Hueneme, California, only for the family to soon permanently relocate to Duluth in St. Louis County, Minnesota. According to the sisters, their mother was always the strict and serious one, even though their father was a disciplined Navy doctor, so what she believed or said really mattered to them. However, neither Sarah nor Maria ever felt a real competition between them – despite Marilyn once allegedly stating she loved the former more – because they knew they were different people.
All they ever shared was sisterly affection and annoyance, with the elder also realizing quite early on that Maria struggled with her mental health because she found her having faked her suicide. The youngster received some help, but her sibling came to believe she was so “delicate and vulnerable that the world was going to eat her alive. I really felt like it was my job… to toughen her up.” Therefore, misguidedly, there was a time when she and her friends tied Maria under a bed with socks and asked her to stay there, which she did for a few long hours. “Looking back, I feel terrible,” Sarah candidly shared in the documentary. “But for (Maria), it was like a really terrible experience then. I wish I could take it all back.”
As the years passed, the differences between the sisters became much more apparent, as the elder entered the medical field while the younger chose to be risky and vulnerable on stage. There was still mutual respect between the two, which persisted even after Sarah chose to drift away a little upon realizing their personal conversations were becoming Maria’s comedy material. She tried to express her concerns, but the professional didn’t register what she was doing or how much she was hurting her sister until a few decades later, around the late 2010s/early 2020s. Since then, Maria has avowed to keep their personal matters largely private, enabling them to start afresh with a real sense of belonging, comfort, love, and understanding between them. In fact, today the sisters are not only closer than ever before but also talk every day, determined to continue developing their bond.
Sarah Seidelmann Was Once a Medical Professional Specializing in Pathology
When Sarah graduated from high school in 1985, the 18-year-old chose to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors and pursue a career in medicine, becoming a 4th-generation physician. She thus enrolled at Kenyon College to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry before attending the University of Minnesota Medical School for her Doctor of Medicine (MD), which she earned in 1992. That’s the same year she kickstarted her Pathologist Residency in the Abbott-Northwestern Program at Hennepin County Medical Center, where she thrived for more than 5 years. It was during this period that she also completed a year-long, self-created Dermatopathology fellowship, only to then rise the ladder in a way she always hoped. She joined a multispecialty practice in her hometown, Essentia Community Hospitals & Clinics, as a Pathologist/Director of Cytopathology in 1999, a role she proudly held until 2013.
With close to 25 years of experience as essentially a professional disease hunter under her belt, Sarah was craving something more by the time the 2010s rolled around and chose to shift gears. She undertook a course called Martha Beck Coach Training from 2010 to 2013, during which she also began a program in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies from 2012 to 2015. She had grown curious about what creates health rather than just negatively impacts it, so she decided to investigate the parameters through a deeper, spiritual, shamanic, and intangible lens. That’s when she uncovered her niche in fostering a connection to spirit through animals, all the while also helping others do the same.
Sarah Seidelmann Turned From a Physician to a Shamanic Healer and Artist
Sarah has been operating her own business, Follow Your Feel Good, since 2009, through which she serves as a Shamanic Healer and Spiritual Mentor to clients across the globe. She has since also evolved into an author, releasing ‘Born to FREAK: A Salty Primer for Irrepressible Humans’ in 2012, ‘Swimming with Elephants’ in 2017, ‘The Book of Beasties: Your A-Z Guide to the Illuminating Wisdom of Spirit Animals’ in 2018, ‘How Good Are You Willing to Let It Get’ in 2020, and ‘Where the Deer Dream’ (2021). She has since also released ‘Boundaries Make Love Possible’ in 2024, an interactive book offering insights to help readers foster authentic relationships and deeper human connections.
As if that’s not enough, Sarah is also a visual artist in every sense of the term, since she believes self-expression through such mediums is a fundamental aspect of one’s health, longevity, and vitality. Therefore, the former Curriculum Creator and Instructor at Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach Training from 2017 to 2023 is a painter who often displays her work in solo exhibitions. She has now wholeheartedly made it her mission to make healthy love more visible in the world, so her art reflects this by being intimate, playful, real, and vibrant. Moreover, from what we can tell, she is currently working on her 7th book – an illustrated piece about boundaries for healers – and co-leading a community called Shine to help people rediscover joy through creative retreats.
Sarah Seidelmann is a Happily Married Mother of Four
Although Sarah is no stranger to the limelight, thanks to both her own and her younger sister’s careers in the creative fields, she began gaining a lot more traction a few years ago. That’s because her paintings blew up through exhibitions; she added prints/merchendise to her website, and she found herself the subject of a short documentary titled ‘Follow Your Feel Good: The Art of Sarah Seidelmann.’ Throughout this period, focus also turned to her personal life, especially since she became quite vocal about her ADHD and has been married to the love of her life, Mark Seidelmann, for around 35 years. From what we can tell, the couple met back in the late 1980s while attending the University of Minnesota, had a whirlwind romance, and tied the knot just two years later before settling down in her hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. “(Mark) seduced me with his dry humor and a chicken and rice casserole,” Sarah once shared on Instagram.
They eventually welcomed 4 children into their lives – George Seidelmann, Katherine Seidelmann, Josephine Seidelmann, and Charlie Seidelmann – all of whom are now well into adulthood. The couple has always treated their kids the same, but we should mention 3 of them were adopted from Colombia and Guatemala. It’s also imperative to note that while Sarah and Mark are stronger than ever these days, with undeniable love, respect, and trust between them, they did go through a rough patch in the early 2020s. After 32 years of marriage, they took a 7-month “sabbatical” to reconnect, during which they continued to live together and were often intimate, but they were just in different bedrooms. This small break did wonders for their romance, so they are really content with where they stand today as individuals, as a couple, as parents, and as dog parents to their pug, Oliver James.
Read More: Uncle Jack Charles: Where is the Indigenous Artist and Mentor Now?
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