The Difficulties of Mental Illness in Young Adult Novels

This is the longest post I will probably ever write, but bare with me.

I think a lot of people can understand that mental illness is real, but I think the misunderstanding of mental illness begins when we start searching for reasons why so-and-so is depressed or why so-and-so struggles with anxiety. We naturally want to seek out reasons for why people feel the way they do. We think that all mental illness has to be completely situational and that at its heart, mental illness must stem from some sort of trauma that would have anybody understanding why so-and-so is so ill.

I’ve just rid myself of that curiosity. Yes, I think it is important to find the root cause of mental illness so the healing can begin, but now I’ve shifted my mindset so that instead of asking mentally ill people why they feel the way they do, I now realize it is more important how they feel and not why they feel that way. It’s traumatizing in itself to feel so depressed you can’t get out of bed, or so suicidal you want to tear yourself apart so you don’t have to deal with yourself.

Yet, some people are not going to share this mindset. Some people are going to fish for reasons and compare one reason to another.

I bring this topic up because now that I am doing a book giveaway of 13 Reasons Why, I want to discuss mental illness in young adult novels and why it’s such a difficult topic to tackle. A lot of reviewers for Jay Asher’s book pointed out that Hannah was being a bit pathetic for committing suicide over the reasons that she did. They lament there are people so much worse off than Hannah and claimed her reasons for wanting to die were stupid. Even MC Clay wants to place the blame on Hannah, which is a natural thing to do. However, Jay Asher does his best to explain the snowball effect, whereby so much stuff just builds up, eventually snowballing and crushing the person under the weight of that snowball. If stress is not reconciled, it’s going to build up and break you. I thought Jay Asher did a marvelous job at explaining this, and when I read it in high school, I understood it. I don’t think there are any good reasons to commit suicide, but I understand why Hannah broke. And Hannah was probably depressed from all the stress, something Jay Asher did not explicitly state but rather implied. What is more tragic than Hannah’s death is that no one saw Hannah coming apart.

But the problem with 13 Reasons Why is that not every teen who reads it is going to understand that–and I am excluding adults from this equation because the book isn’t meant for them. No matter how much Jay Asher stresses the snowball effect, our society wants us to believe that tragic individuals are tragic because of severe trauma.

Mental illness has a root cause, but everyone’s breaking point is different. My breaking point occurred due to a bad time with my fibromyalgia. It is much better now, but it seems to freak out around the fall. I was working, doing ballet, and taking classes, and eventually all the stress piled up to the point where I found myself having to drop ballet in favor of naps because I would be so fatigued from fibro flares, and work wore on me because I’d get flares during work, and eventually I started feeling pathetic because all I did was sleep, sleep, sleep, and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything I loved. So it was work, work, work, and sleep, sleep, sleep, and ouch, ouch, ouch. That snowballed me to the point where I became depressed and suicidal because it didn’t feel like there was going to be an end to the pain. So there wasn’t just one cause, and it never is for mental illness.

Hannah’s breaking point occurred because it’s obvious she was a lonely girl in the first place who struggled with poor self-esteem. So all this stuff happened to her that never got reconciled, built up, and broke her. She likely became depressed and dwelled heavily on these things and blamed herself for everything that happened. Since she is a teenager, she has no wider perspective to realize that high school is not all there is to the world, and so she saw no way out. She never reached out to anyone, and so she felt trapped.

Rethink Mental Illness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is not the fault of 13 Reasons Why but the fault of a society that believes tragic individuals are tragic because of severe trauma, not because of vulnerable personalities shaped by a society that believes hardening individuals to the “cruelties” of life is the best way for them to survive, rather than creating compassionate individuals who help one another out of love and not some desire for something in return. So a lot of criticism in young adult books is aimed at the mental illnesses themselves because people want a reason for why a character is depressed. Frankly, by the time one has reached the stage of depression the syndrome, it no longer matters why that person is depressed. It is the fact that that person is depressed in the first place that matters more than the reasons.

I am worried about how my WIP Stolentime will one day be received. It deals heavily with depression and suicidal ideation. Gene dwells on suicide a lot. It is my hope that my book will help people better understand these dark feelings, but I realize a lot of people won’t. They might perceive him as whiny, that he needs to get over it, but I am going to do my best not to convey him that way and just convey him the way people suffering from suicidal ideation actually are. Most are not whiny. I certainly wasn’t. I was quiet and withdrawn, left to my own thoughts. I want my book to reach out to the ones who are quiet and withdrawn, and I want my book to reach out to those who judge mental illness and help them better understand it. My book isn’t just about a depressed teen, but a depressed teen who understands depression all too well and even mentions that depression is a trauma unto itself, that the reasons for depression don’t matter as much as the illness itself.

Inspiration From Inpatient Psychiatric Hospitals

This will be the working hook for the revision of Stolentime.

My first hospitalization at Summit Ridge greatly influenced the most recent book that I am working on. While I hated being there because I felt like I was in Kindergarten, I always enjoyed the group therapies because everyone had a different story to tell for why he or she was at Summit Ridge. There were people who attempted suicide, people struggling with suicidal ideation and self-harm (like I did), people who were there because they had violent breakdowns, people who wanted to be kept safe from themselves, people unstable on meds, or people just unable to care for themselves.

There was one man I met who inspired my main character’s, Gene’s, diagnosis. This man was struggling with treatment-resistant depression. He had already undergone three treatments of ECT (electric convulsion therapy) when I arrived there. I asked him if he felt the treatments working, and he told me he didn’t.

This was terrifying to me, to think you could be depressed forever with nothing ever working for you. You can have therapy and positive thinking, but it doesn’t change the fact that you have to work 100x harder than a mentally healthy person to get things done. Or to live. To even just breathe.

Being who I am, I was terrified that I’d be one of those people, especially after my second hospitalization. Finding medication stability with bipolar is not easy. You can’t be on antidepressants–any type–because you could go manic. So you have to rely on mood stabilizers to get you to where you are, but they have crappy side effects, so you really spend time trying to find the right medicinal cocktail with the least crummy side effects. But it was these experiences that shaped my main character, Gene.

There are plenty of YA books that deal with depression, but I haven’t found any that deal with a teen who must learn to live with such a morose disease. It’s always books about teens with untreated mental illnesses that once they are diagnosed, the doctors make the treatment seem so easy. So I decided to be the one to write that book where the treatment isn’t easy. So my fears and my dealings with psychiatric units have shaped what it would be like to live with treatment-resistant depression. People with hard-to-treat depression often have to learn how to live this way. It is unfortunate many believe that suicide is the only way out because it is tough to live with depression. It’s a terrible disease that warps your thoughts and has physical effects on you too. So in order to create Gene, I asked myself, ‘What would it be like to be a teen living with treatment-resistant depression?’

I want Gene to exist for teens, for anyone out there who feels he or she cannot go on because he/she knows the depression is forever. Gene’s depression is pretty much terminal, but he has to learn how to live with it. So Stolentime is a book about a depressed teen going through trials that will teach him the value of his own life. I know in real life people aren’t going to be tested the way Gene is, but I hope they look into Gene’s character and find the hope they need so they can live to be the hope for others going through similar trials.

To me, suicide is tragic not because it is the end of a human life but because it is the end of hope, the end of potential, the end of someone else’s reason to live.

Currently I am 32,000 words into the book. If I continue writing a chapter a day, I will have the book finished the week after next. Once I begin revisions, I will be able to start talking more about this book. And hopefully by then I will have more information on When Stars Die.

 

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What Does It Really Mean for Me to Have a Mental Illness?

I’m not on Lithium, thank goodness.

Sometimes I ponder why the most vulnerable of us often find ourselves afflicted with mental illnesses we don’t deserve. Imagine dealing with the death of a loved one. Your depression starts out as a symptom of grief. Soon you come to terms with the loss of your loved one, but for some reason you can’t shake this deep, aching emptiness within you. You try to tell yourself it’s because you really haven’t gotten over your loved one’s death, but then the pain just persists. You can’t push through it, or move on from it. Something dark has grown in you, and you steadily begin to lose yourself. Your appetite dies, your sleep either becomes too much or too little; out of nowhere you think you’re worthless, unloved, unneeded; you might want to die, you might not want to do anything at all. Your symptom has turned into the syndrome. Not only are you grieving your loved one, but now you’re battling another monster known as mental illness.

My fibromyalgia was already bad enough to deal with and depression is a common symptom of pain, but then when does the symptom become the syndrome? My fibro was getting better, but my mental health was declining, and I couldn’t understand why, when before I valiantly fought through my fibro.

But someone like me can only take so much before she breaks.

I’ve learned, through mental illness, what an incredibly sensitive person I am. I don’t even have to know you and your pain will strike something so deep within me that I’m compelled to tears. While I am better, I am still easily triggered by anything that has to do with death or suicide.

When you’re depressed and suicidal, you don’t think how traumatizing the feelings are. You’re used to them. Your brain has tricked you so well into thinking you want to die that you accept being suicidal without question. You want to die. You crave it. You want to end your pain because your illness doesn’t want you to see a way out.

Now that I am better, I look back on those feelings, and a heavy pang spears through my heart. I could have given into those feelings, and I wouldn’t be right here telling you all this. They’re terrifying feelings. I’m terrified that I felt that way. Sometimes I want to cry just knowing I did because the truth is that I am still vulnerable to feeling that way again. All it would take is for one of my medications to stop working, and I could go from screaming that I don’t want to die to wishing I would the next day.

Bipolar disorder is a traumatizing illness. Mental illnesses in general are traumatizing. You start out with one problem, and then for some reason that problem makes you sick, and you wonder why others don’t get sick from the same problem. My brother went through a traumatic divorce, and while he was depressed, it was just a symptom. He pulled himself together and now he’s better. Me, I just cracked under the weight of stress and the depression spiraled out of control until it became its own monster.

But there is nothing I can do but to accept it. I accept that it makes me a deeply sensitive individual. I accept that I could become sick again. But most of all, I accept that it has given me the power to empathize so deeply with other people that I would do anything to soothe their pain.

The Dancing Writer is An Attention Seeker

Okay, so Amber Skye Forbes loves attention, but The Dancing Writer is my brand, and so I’m trying to build off that. I talked a little bit about the monicker in this post. In any case, I’m going to admit I love attention. When I’m going out to work or anywhere at all, I dress as a pseudo Lolita: either sweet or casual or a little gothic. I love the attention I get from it, I’m not going to lie. As someone whose self-esteem was crushed by depression, it really does help me when I get outside affirmation from others. I mean, my self-esteem is pretty much back now that I am no longer depressed, but the attention, I still love it.

My face is very face-like.

I like the attention because I want to be noticed as a person, and I think we all secretly do but are afraid of the social stigma of being called attention seekers, or, even more unkind, “attention whores,” or narcissists. As long as you’re not walking around thinking you’re the best darn thing on the face of the planet, I see nothing wrong with wanting attention. I’m not running around screaming “Look at me! Look at me!” I’m wearing my favorite style of clothes and enjoying the attention I get because of it.

I think as writers we need to get it into our heads to seek attention. We’ve got books to sell, after all. If we don’t become attention seekers, how can we expect to succeed? Plus, I have a brand I’d like to build, and I’d like people to know both my name and my brand because I’m going to use my brand for more than just books.

I want to be loud, noticed, and remembered. I don’t want to be some afterthought to someone’s day. But I don’t want to be remembered just because I’m a writer. I want to be remembered because of the things I do for people, or the things I will do for people. I’m not doing things for people just for that reason, but it’s a plus if I can go down in history somehow.

Where did this craving to be remembered come from? I think it came from depression. Depression can turn fatal if not treated–don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Not everyone who is depressed is suicidal, and vice-versa, but you can become suicidal if you’re the type to dwell on who you used to be before depression sapped the life from you.

When I was depressed, I felt insignificant. I felt like I’d never leave any mark on this world and that my illness was going to sap all my potential of ever being someone who can make a difference in people’s lives. So I guess this fervent desire for attention is my way of laughing in depression’s face, saying, “Yeah, you tried to get me, to kill me, to drag me down, but I’m going to show you I’m not insignificant, and you’re going to regret ever coming into my brain.”

Wanting to be noticed is my way of fighting. Looking back on how I felt during depression, I realize what a traumatizing illness bipolar disorder can be. Some people, I believe, can develop PTSD from being depressed or suicidal or manic or going through psychosis–it’s that frightening. I don’t think that will happen to me, but I do have my worries of my meds not working anymore because I love the person I am when I’m not depressed. I hate the person I am when depression has me.

So, Stars, go out there, seek attention, be loud, make a difference, and don’t hide.

 

The Other Side of Depressed

For the past few days I have been having to remind myself that I’m not manic. When you’re bipolar and you start to feel great, you often have worries that you’re becoming manic because you’re not used to being in between. So when you start feeling great (and sometimes it’s not gradual), you have to take a step back and examine symptoms of mania with your normal mood.

Yesterday at work I was so confident, outgoing, and competitive that I had to wonder if mania was fueling the heat in my veins. But my thoughts weren’t fast, my brain wasn’t telling me to “Go! Go! Go!”, I didn’t have thoughts of reckless behavior, I didn’t have psychomotor agitation, I wasn’t over excited, and I wasn’t overindulging myself in my work.

I am a naturally hyperthermic person, I have come to realize. According to psychology, hyperthermia is a step below hypomania, which probably explains why even a small dose of an antidepressant or even an atypical antidepressant makes me either hypomanic or manic. I am a naturally driven person. I am naturally optimistic and sociable. But after everything that has happened, I am much stronger.

Bipolar disorder has taught me a lot. I am not romanticizing this illness, but I might as well make the best of an overwhelming illness. I am a much more thoughtful, sensitive person. Mania can remind me that my life can be great–just not to such an extreme degree. Being able to compare my current thoughts to my depressive thoughts makes me realize I am a much more confident, caring person. Yesterday at work I gave up my coat to a co-worker who was barely dressed for the occasion. Certainly I was cold, but she probably would have started crying with how she was dressed. I also don’t smile and bare things anymore that I don’t need to tolerate. My co-worker was playfully criticizing the way I tried to get people over for the drawing, and I just said, with confidence, not meanness, that I’ve been at it for more than 6 months and my method works with my personality. I don’t want to add a Southern drawl to my words when that is not me. And I was proud. Before I probably would have just done it to appease, but no more.

I work today at 12. I woke up just before 9. No longer am I thinking I don’t want to get up because everything feels pointless. I am waking up, and even though I am still tired when my mind shakes me awake, my thoughts are positive. They are not irritable, grouchy, upset, despairing, or hopeless. I am also appreciating the fact that I am alive when my mind tried too many times to count to kill me. I have a joie de vivre, joy of life. It’s so surprising to me how extreme I can become. I go from hating life to loving life so much I am grateful I have never even attempted suicide.

But there is the fear of becoming depressed again because of how I am right now. Why would I want to go back to feeling suicidal, hopeless, angry, hateful of myself? It’s hard to accept there is a possibility of that happening again. I was terrified it was happening yesterday, until I realized my anxiety was doing it to me–for no reason. I might need meds to help with the anxiety side of things, but I also know getting up and doing things helps it. And caffeine. But I’m no addict, I swear.

It is nice to be able to enjoy this life again.

In any case, today promises to be a good day. I will work hard at work to make extra money for a few surprises, I will come home and proofread my novel, I will possibly watch Naruto with the fiancé, and I will come home and blog again, possibly proofread some more, and go to bed for the surprises of tomorrow.

Victoria’s Asylum of Maggots

This was published in issue 4 of Sorean: A Gothic Magazine. There is also a part 2, and I may continue it with a part 3 and whatever else I can conjure from this mind of mine so that way all of you can have a taste of my writing style. Sorry for the one column, but I just copied and pasted it directly from the magazine because I lost the thumb drive this was on a long time ago, so I have no copies myself. Here we go!

VICTORIA’S ASYLUM OF MAGGOTS: PART ONE

Alice, from American McGee’s Alice: Madness Returns. This is similar to what Victoria faces.

Unwanted wife, suicidal, prone to hysterics,

abnormal–that is what my chart reads. My

mind says otherwise. I am an unwanted wife

who never wanted to be one. My husband is

abusive, so hysterics are to be expected.

And suicidal is normal when ones husband beats her for forgetting to put out his tie.

As for my abnormality, I see nothing wrong

with pouring boiling tea on my husband’s

crotch.

That’s not what Bethlem Royal Hospital, or

Bedlam as we victims call it, would have me

believe. If I’m considered mad now, I’d like to

see just how mad I am when someone decides

to let me out.

Four gray walls stare down at me. An eave

sits above my head to keep me down. There is

no window, no light. The floor is marred wood.

A layer of dust sits like a quilt, tucked neatly

into the cracks of the floor. Moss creeps across

neglected walls and grows through fissures.

Unknown creatures twist and turn in the walls,

as well as my nightmares.

I have been staring at these walls for the

past two weeks. I have not seen the light in

four months. I don’t know what the sun feels

like, or what the flowers smell like, or what the

sky looks like anymore. Wetness devours my

body in the form of bodily fluids, and ice strips

away my skin, replacing it so that I am forever

shivering. My hair is a pile of brambles. My bed

sheets haven’t been changed in weeks. Chains

hold me down.

Why am I in chains? The scenario happens

as such:

‘Victoria Wilson. Age fourteen. New arrival,’

the nurse says. ‘Attacked her husband. He

couldn’t handle her anymore.’

‘What should we do?’ the other nurse asks.

I am on my bed, staring out the window. I

used to be in a room with a window.

‘The only thing we can do.’

‘Leeches?’

‘Yes. Fetch them for me.’

Emilie Autumn’s Leeches

One can imagine what happens afterwards.

I lacerated those beasts, and they removed my

fingernails for it, a procedure that turned me

into a twitching fiend. My nail beds are dried

pieces of bloody skin.

I am a rose that has lost its thorns.

I can’t be insane, though. The insane ones

are outside of Bedlam. They choose to ignore

the fog infecting London, the dark creatures

slithering through their minds. They ignore it

by gambling, drinking, and buying prostitutes

and children for themselves.

I should have lost my sanity by now. I

should be grazing the air with my stubby

fingers. I should be mutilating the slimy

creatures in me. I should be screaming,

writhing, moaning, panting. Yet, I haven’t felt

the urge to. If I did, I wouldn’t hesitate to

unleash the black worms from my mind, let

them glide across my body, wrap their slickness

around my limbs and take control of me like a

marionette.

Instead I stare up at the eave, thinking too

much, waiting for sleep to consume me. Present

thoughts are comforting. Memories are

despairing. I purged myself of my memories

when I heard my husband was sending me to

Bedlam. I let all my insanity out at home before

I came here.

But I believe maggots clogging my veins are

delaying this inevitable lunacy. Soon they‘ll

turn to flies, and begin to buzz within me. It

won’t be long before I find these chains too

tight.

A girl screams in the cell next to mine.

Startling me, jolting my eyes wide. The

walls are hollow arteries, so sounds are never

muffled. I should be used to these screams; this

one is just too near. Thudding emerges behind

my head. Like everyone else, she just wants to

pull her brains out and ooze away her

memories.

Thud, thud, thud.

A steady, hollow rhythm.

No one answers her cries. She’s a banshee in a

hollowed-out body. Two black coals for eyes. No

heart. No soul. Every girl here is a banshee.

Some day, I’ll be one as well.

It must be nighttime, which is why no one

comes for her. One can never tell if it’s night or

day in here. The darkness is eternal.

The thudding stops, but the screaming

doesn’t. A simple word follows the screaming.

“Why?” Her voice is hoarse and cracks as

she draws it out.

That’s the simplest question, the word with

the most impact. Why is she here? Why is she

subjected to this? Why does no one care? Why is

she alone? Why isn’t anyone coming for her? I

could ask that same question, too.

“Why indeed,” I whisper.

Alice from American McGee’s Alice: A Madness Returns.

Footsteps resound down the hall. Must be

daytime then.

The footsteps stop at her cell. A lock clicks

open. The screams crescendo, then die down.

“Tabitha,” a female voice says.

She lets out a string of incoherent words.

Only the mad ones understand her.

“Tabitha,” the woman says again.

“Get out of here!” Tabitha says.

“Wot’s she ‘ere for?” a rough, masculine voice

asks.

“She’s here after attacking her husband. No

reason given. No reason asked. They talk

about her as though she isn’t in that cell, as

though she isn’t human. We are rats and not

patients. “Her father wants her here until she

is wholly sedate. Then he wants custody of her.

She’s twenty-three.”

Not a girl, but a woman old enough to care

for herself. A woman is never a woman, though,

no matter what age. She’ll forever be a girl.

“We’ll have to act fast with this one.”

“Should we try the leeches?”

“Yes.”

“Wot if those don’t work.”

“Cliterodectomy.”

For a moment all the suffering in the world

makes itself known to me. There’s a torture

somewhere, a woman getting raped. A babe is

dying in its mother’s arms. Men are killing

each other faster than rabbits reproduce.

Someone commits suicide. Slaves are whipped,

girls molested, boys abused, mothers killed,

animals tortured.

Maim, rape, torture, kill, abuse. Repeat.

Living is impossible if one is not doing any of

those things.

“Come on, Tabitha,” the woman says.

The screaming starts up again. It sounds

like Tabitha’s now clawing the wall as though

she can create a hole, crawl through it, and run

away. Someone slams the door to the side.

“You’ll have to get her arms,” the nurse says

in a hurry.

Tabitha screams louder. The sound of two

bodies colliding meets my ears. One of the

bodies hits the floor. The sound of tussling

mixed with screaming ensues. I imagine

Tabitha’s a tiger clawing at a gazelle, rending

its flesh with sharp claws.

“Nurse Hayes, grab ‘er legs!”

The screaming stops. The struggling ceases.

There is only the sound of whimpering.

“I’ve got ‘er from ‘ere.”

“Are you certain, Carlisle?”

There are no words. I assume Carlisle

replies with a nod.

Carlisle grunts. He must be hoisting her

over his shoulder. Boots scuff across the floor.

Heels click. The door shuts.

The boots scuff down the hall. The heels

click in my direction.

The lock clicks on my door.

“Time for your medicine, Victoria,” Nurse

Hayes says.

No. Not the medicine. Please not the

medicine.

My heart swells to the size of a boulder and

drops through the earth, taking my stomach

with it. I soil my bed.

When Nurse Hayes comes into my room, I scream.

Working Hard With Difficult Illnesses

Now that I’m back in the writing world, I’m really realizing just how exhausting it is. Before fibro claimed me, doing Twitter and blogging weren’t a big deal. In fact, social media was a respite from working on my novel and school work and all that. Now I’m a spoonie and anything I do takes a spoon from me (read about spoon theory here). I’m certainly not as bad as some people with fibromyalgia. Some people with fibro are exhausted just getting dressed in the morning. I’m not that bad, but I do require a nap after writing a chapter or doing a synopsis or editing a query letter or doing something that requires intense concentration. I never needed naps before. I could plow on through and keep doing things. Being depressed doesn’t help either. But guess what? I’m doing it! I’m working hard and getting done what I want to get done. And I’m satisfied with that.

This guy sits behind me as I’m working. He threatens to tear my head off if I don’t, so he’s a good enough incentive to plow through. He at least allows me five minute naps. Isn’t this Jabberwocky generous?

Unfortunately, both my bipolar depression and fibromyalgia are very unpredictable. Sometimes I really am just too depressed to be able to sit up in bed and concentrate on trying to write even half a chapter. Sometimes I just need to nap longer than usual to calm down and shake some of the sleepiness from me. With my fibromyalgia, it’s been doing pretty well. It generally starts to level out late winter/early spring. Then the fall comes and the flares become daily, and so I’m pretty much in crippling pain a lot in the fall. But when a flare hits, I can’t do anything until the ibuprofen kicks in, and I take 6 of them, and you can’t even take more than 6 in a 24 hour period. Even then the ibuprofen only take the edge off. They don’t kill the flare.

In any case, I remember when I got home from my second hospitalization in December how I wasn’t doing anything at all–only ballet. I stopped painting, doing photography, and writing. It’s not that I didn’t have it in me, it’s that I didn’t think I could have it in me. I had no incentive to do any of it because I did not feel they would yield me immediate rewards. But ballet did. Even an hour of ballet could lift my mood for at least half the day. So when I woke up in the morning, I pretty much stayed in bed all day and napped a lot. I’d mess around on my Surface or read or play on my 3DS, but as far as productivity, you can forget it. I was only productive with ballet, preparing for my recital, and waiting for the day I could perform on stage.

The recital ended though. I sobbed for the next three nights because it was over, I felt empty again, and I was seriously conflicted about whether or not to end my life (bipolar depression can be a very dark place). I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t think I wanted to live, but I had done so much research and suicide is not as easy as the media paints it. I had to get it together. I kept thinking about the girls at my dance studio who look up to me.  I kept thinking about the one girl who looks up to me the most, who had to endure several suicides in her life. Could I really do that to them? To my parents? To my fiancé?

No.

I had to pull myself together, which is when I decided to get back to my novel. I was hesitant, but I began reading through it and suddenly realizing I could. Sure, I got tired, more tired than usual, but I did it. Then I started doing more. I got back to The Corner Club Press. With Mariah’s help, I got issue 9 out. Then I made a new website for myself. I planned a new novel. I started blogging once every day, and now twice every day. I do Twitter for 20 minutes (my therapist came up with this number so I wouldn’t stress myself out with this, frankly, annoying website) a day. I’m trying to write a chapter a day in this new novel. I’m going to get back to painting shortly. I’m still doing ballet. And this is such a massive improvement from where I even was last month!

It’s not that I couldn’t do any of it. Depression just tells you that you can’t, and you have to get to a point where you separate yourself from your depression. As I’ve said, I have to take naps. I can’t keep pushing myself like I could before. But that’s okay. My therapist and I are doing goals for me, and I am exceeding them.

It’s hard work, but it’s worthwhile work. I’ve just got to keep pushing myself to do this so I don’t let depression control me with such negative thoughts as, “You’re useless, a waste of space. Why are you even trying? It’s not going to get you anywhere. You’re not remarkable, your existence is insignificant. Not even your friends care enough to find out what is going on with you. They’re doing remarkable things without you, and you’re stuck in a rut. Let me soothe you to sleep, a deep, long, long sleep.”

It’s the little victories that keep me going in spite of it all.

I’m dead serious about the little victories.

On the Edge of Silence

WARNING: This post does have the possibility of being triggering. Stars, this comes from the rawest parts of me, but I assure you I’m a fighter and I will keep fighting. Don’t be afraid.

Suicide has the largest stigma among any other mental health problem out there. It’s because suicide involves death, a permanent state where you cease to exist, where there is no more you, where there will never be another you. It’s sad, it’s terrifying, but people need to be able to talk about it without being silenced just because someone is uncomfortable.

I considered this method at one point, but it’s a rather painful and ghastly way to go.

People who feel suicidal should not be ashamed of feeling suicidal. It is a feeling. Feelings cannot be helped. The important thing is that people who feel suicidal do not act on these feelings. Never tell a suicidal person who they will be making sad should they decide to follow through with their plan. I understand some people do this to make the person seriously consider said actions, but it’s not about you or anyone else: It is about the person in crisis. You only instill guilt in that person–and I can guarantee you the person feels guilty enough for feeling that way because he or she knows the suicide would have an impact on loved ones. But suicidal people are already in pain. They’re in so much pain they believe their loved ones will get over their suicide and that they’d be better of dead because they’re in so much pain and they don’t want to continue living that way for the sake of everybody else. They may even think they’re a burden. I know I sometimes feel this way.

Suicide is tragic, but it is a feeling that needs to be accepted in order to be dealt with. Do not feel ashamed for feeling suicidal and do not shame others for feeling suicidal. Suicide does not feel selfish to the person in pain and no one needs to make it out like it is. You will only make things worse because then the suicidal person will think, “See? I don’t deserve to exist because I am so selfish.”

Let the suicidal person know that he/she is loved and how valuable his/her life is. Life doesn’t feel precious when you’re suicidal, but suicidal feelings are easier to deal with when you’re not alone and with someone supporting you and encouraging you to cope.

Because I am still depressed, I idealize suicide from time to time. Suicidal ideation is when you idealize a specific way to go. For me, it’d be drowning at the rock quarry at my favorite trails. Sometimes I feel so sad I think I’m never going to get better, and because I feel I am never going to get better, I often think I’d be better off dead. And my fibromyalgia pain can especially make me feel this way.

For me, idealizing drowning is almost a comfort. It’s if life gets too complicated, there is an escape. Sometimes I feel so suicidal that I want to cut myself to concentrate on a different pain, but I haven’t cut in two months and have amazing coping mechanisms now.

I still feel that way. I feel that way a little right now. But guess what? Feeling suicidal doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and do anything. Suicidal ideation is not healthy, but I don’t feel so impulsive that I’m going to act on the feelings. When the thoughts start to get too bad, I get out of bed and distract myself and the feeling goes away. It always does. It’ll probably come back, but because I know it’ll go away again, I find ways to make myself feel better.

There are people out there, right now, that have felt suicidal for years and haven’t done anything because they’re holding on for whatever reason. I am no different. I am holding on because of my family, my writing life, ballet, the hope that things will get better and my suicidal ideation will be treated. Suicidal ideation is, after all, a diagnosis in itself. It was the reason I was hospitalized the first time–that and self-harm.

I am not going to keep silent about being, I guess you could say, a suicidal. I want to be able to talk about this, to make people understand suicide more so it is feared less. There might be less suicides if we could learn to take more sensitive action instead of being afraid of the concept and chastising the person for feeling the way that person does.

I am here. I am breathing. I am alive. I will make a difference. I will get better. But right now I’m not feeling so great, and it’s okay. That’s just who I am for now. And you want more comfort? About 90% of suicide attempts fail. And a good majority of those who attempted are glad the attempts failed.

 

Stay tuned later today for guest blogger Mary Cote-Walkden who will talk about small press publishing houses!

Grasping that Motivation

I’ll admit that I probably chose the worst time in my life to launch myself on to the road of self-publication. Or perhaps there is no better time? Who is to say?

As I’ve mentioned before, I have bipolar disorder and am not stable on meds. My mania is treated, but my depression still struggles. I do struggle with suicidal ideation. I am not ashamed to admit that. I know how to cope when suicidal feelings become overwhelming. I’ve coped for months. Some days are worse than others. Some days I do feel inches away from wanting to take my life. But then I do my best to remember what I’m fighting for.

Before I made the decision to self-publish, I was fighting to keep going by using my dance recital. And it was worth it. It was worth everything. As a later starter, being in a recital was a dream come true, especially being able to do two of my three roles en pointe. Getting en pointe was a dream come true itself. But when the recital ended, I felt this deep emptiness because it was the reason I was still alive. Depression is a horrible illness, especially bipolar depression. It’s hard to find enjoyment in your life when you feel so detached, so to no longer have my recital to strive for, I found myself breaking down every night in what seemed an unending sobbing fit for the next three days.

Then I realized I needed to pull myself together. I needed to, once again, accept that I was still depressed. I still had dance, but I needed something bigger to make my heart continue beating, to make my life worth it so I could continue fighting for stability through this trial-and-error medication management. Because I am worth it, right?

Then I thought about my novel, When Stars Die. I stopped writing because it took energy and concentration that I didn’t have. I’m still not sure if I even have it, but one thing I do know is passion and a desire to live will make me have the concentration needed to self-publish my book. Using the publication of my book as an incentive to stay alive is the best thing I can do for myself right now. That is my ultimate motivation for getting back to my book: to stay alive. That is how, despite the depression, despite the desire to sleep all the time, despite the unending thirst to isolate myself, I will continue living, I will continue getting up, and I will continue fighting.

I think about my favorite singer, Emilie Autumn. She used her album Opheliac as a bargaining chip to keep living. She figured once she completed it, she’d no longer be suicidal. She was right. I feel the same way, but I know the deletion of suicidal feelings is not so easy. That will take the right medicinal cocktail for me. But my book is worth it. I’ve dreamt of being published since I was a kid. I’m not throwing that dream away just because I’m in a bad spot right now.

So that is how I grasped the motivation to get back to my novel, when I’d been away from it for so long without a care as to whether I’d get back to it or night.