Last night I posted a list of some of the things I achieved while I was 42, and it was an impressive list. I’ve been keeping lists of my achievements almost every year now for many years, whether around my birthday, the new year, or both, and I’m incredibly proud of myself as I watch my growth, in ways that matter more than how much money I make, which still isn’t really much of anything, but money has never been a goal except that I wish to be able to live at least as well as I do now, but independently. My life is no magnificent thing as it is, but if it were mine rather than being dependent on the government, that would make me happy… but even while I need help, I am still a person. I still matter. I still make huge waves in the universe with my contributions in many forms, and most of them are positive. I work very hard to be able to give back to the world in whatever ways I am able, because giving back is a priority for me…and I want to give back love and hope and joy and inspiration. I do not wish revenge, even for the people who hurt me most. I want to give back good to the world, in hope that I can be part of the revolution and help us work towards peace and a better world. I don’t know what that will look like. I have my doubts that peace on earth is even possible, but I work for the Universe and I do it in the name of peace and balance.
What can I do this coming year at age 43 to grow even more as a person? I have some ideas…
daily meditation (to my best ability)
get outside for air and a little walking (daily, but also to my best ability.)
if I don’t get outside, I absolutely MUST meditate, even just for a couple minutes
regular gratitude lists
keep creating art, trying new things and trying to master old things… one thing I wanna work on especially is drawing hands.
create at least one suite of tarot cards for Inktober….pot leaves, records, paint brushes, or microphones
do a book signing and reading at the gallery
do the craft show at my mental health center in December.
get to my cousin’s wedding party for a family event
redo The Godchild Part 1 and call it “My So Called Delusions: The Godchild”, “My So Called Delusions: The Mixtape Years”, and “My So Called Delusions: Becoming an Artist”
publish “My so Called Delusions: The Godchild” around Easter
get stress test
start walking to the pharmacy to get my own meds again, and maybe walking to the pond, and making an event of it each time… even if I have to buy myself a little toy from the toy section or a candy bar. It’s only once or twice a month.
get back to losing weight. After my med increase, I’ve gained weight for the first time in months, but I wanna turn that around and get under 200 pounds, or at least fit into my Skidz, which I only need to lose about 10-15 more pounds to fit into
start seeing friends more… inviting people over and maybe even going out
possibly work on new books “Moo, the Cat” and “Good Catholic Kids”
get back to music in some major way, whether it be writing and performing more hip hop songs (even if I can’t do it live at first), learning a song on bass or keyboard, or learning to make beats. Ultimately, I’d love to perform my rap in front of an audience again, but we will see how that goes.
start dancing and lifting weights again
possibly get one of the many tattoos I’ve been putting off for a decade, if not something completely brand new… but maybe that brick wall I was gonna get as a sleeve with VERA in graffiti letters.
stretch more often and maybe even try yoga
do another art show
attend art shows at the gallery
go to reunion or get together with Beacon friends
see the ocean
have a friend or two come visit me from out of state
watch some of my all time favorite movies to help inspire me for when I try to turn “Good Catholic Kids” into a screenplay
get to know some new music, since I haven’t paid as much attention to new stuff the last couple years
go experience live music
walk in the woods in autumn
add my own graffiti to the graffiti wall
see family more
finish reading the book I’m reading, and read at least a couple others. Seeing as I didn’t read any at age 42 except for my own, nearly 20 times and a few books about publishing. If I finish “On Writing” by Stephen King and read a couple others, I’ll be happy to start there.
cook at least once or twice a week and keep up with cleaning!!!
Well, I heard back from the publishing company who wanted to read my book, and they said that 1. they can’t publish it as quickly as I hoped, so it wouldn’t work anyway…2. that in the future I probably shouldn’t try to rush a publisher (oops… but, of course I was only trying to be fair and tell them I was already planning to self publish and had already sent out press kits announcing it, so if I didn’t hear from them by the 20th, I would need to begin uploading to Amazon. I sent the query to them 5 months ago….but I get it, and knew it was a risk to attempt it) and 3. right now publishing companies almost exclusively only accept memoirs from subject matter experts, celebrities, and popular social media influencers. They did not end up even reading it, so no feedback on the actual book, but I’m proud of myself for getting the callback response from them. It is a sign that I am a good enough writer, with an interesting sounding book to get the attention of a publisher. Most never get this far, so I will take the achievement and move forward with the regularly scheduled programming…
I’m really not too upset that I’m gonna be self publishing again. A lot of people say it’s actually the best option for mildly successful authors who write the kind of books that speak to a certain type of people more than mainstream society. It’s not like a blockbuster film or summer reading…That kind of stuff does well with a publisher but indy type authors can get totally taken advantage of by publishing companies sometimes, and while I know the place I heard from was a legit small company, I don’t have a clue what going with them would look like, or if it would even be something I could make work. I already know how to self publish even though I’m planning to use my own ISBN’s this time and have to figure all that out, but I’m in control and I mostly know what I’m doing and what to expect, so it’s a lot less anxiety right now to just self publish anyway, and I can release when I said and not be like Kanye.
I’ve been doing a lot of editing, and tonight I made a video of myself reading a chapter from my book, about my first time in the psych ward, and I will post that in a couple days. One day at a time, one thing at a time, I am getting there.
Here’s a picture I took of my street art. It’s hot as fuck out there.
I’ve been living with Bipolar Disorder and Complex PTSD for most of my life, and one of the most common things about people with Complex PTSD is that we’ve often been given at least ten other diagnoses, and I have been…
The other day when I went to the doctor over my high pulse and stress, she asked me if I was ever diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. She was very nice and was asking a number of questions, so I told her, yes, that I have been diagnosed but that I don’t believe I was born with a personality disorder. I do think BPD is real and there are people who have that, and I do know I have a few of the symptoms, and used to have a lot more, but that’s the thing… a person with a personality disorder can’t really recover, yet with DBT, I believe the majority of us who are misdiagnosed as Borderline as a result of trauma CAN, and I have in most ways, but I’ve been extremely stressed and triggered lately because the way things are going, my needs are being put last and forgotten about, as per usual because I’m a poor, trans, mentally ill, unemployed person on disability and section 8 who’s at the bottom of society with no money or power or anything giving me any upper hand. I’ve spent my life as a professional lab rat and psych patient and I’ve been destroyed in the process.
When my doctor asked me that the other day, I started asking myself “Why did she ask that? What did I do that made her ask that? Was it my tone of voice? My mania? The fact that I talked so openly about my trauma like it was nothing?” I felt like I’d done something wrong and fucked up for her to ask that. Sometimes I wonder if I DO have BPD since I feel like my life has been a challenge since day one and that people have always been working against me, and that type of belief is common in people with BPD, but let’s examine MY Day 1 in this world. What happened to me that day? My fucking dick was cut off! Okay, so if that’s not traumatic enough, from that very moment on, I was basically brainwashed by my family and society to believe I was a girl, which never felt right, and when I came out about being trans, my family said I brought shame on them and many of them wanted me dead. Then, when I began getting locked up against my will for asking my family questions about my intersex condition that they didn’t wanna answer, they called the cops on me just for asking questions and had me locked up where I was tortured, beaten, and sexually assaulted by staff members who wouldn’t allow me to use the men’s room. Then, when I began saying that I thought there were gangs working in almost every type of position throughout the system (because I know for a fact there are) I was given the diagnosis of Borderline, and when I started pointing out who was actually working for the gangs, I got diagnosed with Schizophrenia, and yeah if you don’t know what I know you probably think I’m crazy to say these things about gangsters in the system, but the best way to explain what they do is basically Matt Damon’s character in The Departed. In that movie, he is working for the police, and there are absolutely gangsters working for the police, but the police in and of themselves are a gang to begin with, so that’s not the best example…. but the same way the Mob payed Matt Damon’s character to work as a cop to get inside information, there are secretaries, social workers, hospital staff, janitors, nurses, doctors, security guards, teachers, and others inside the system who are being paid extra to do some illegal inside investigating along with their jobs. I’m not crazy to think this and I’m not a liar or delusional, but I’ve been given these diagnoses to take away the power of my word. All anyone has to say is “he’s crazy” or actually, they often say “she’s crazy” just to piss me off extra, but that is all they have to say. It’s been used against me when I was beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, & harassed. I tried to report it as they said was my right but the staff who did it said I was crazy and that was that. Their word over mine. The police do it to me too. I have absolutely no power except to tell my life story, and that’s what I have done in my books, and why I’m a little paranoid for my safety and afraid to go out. I’ve been scooped up off the street by cops for no reason except that my parents were looking for me and I was locked up for months and nearly sent to a state hospital for two years… so to be asked “Have you ever been diagnosed Borderline?” has me buggin’ the more that I thought about it. Like, I was literally born both male and female, which is as common as being born with red hair. Did you hear that? Yes, it’s THAT common, and yet we have been completely erased from society. Our existence is not acknowledged and when we start to question the extreme corruption going on and the fact that wars are being fought over this issue without it ever being talked about or acknowledged and I’m in the middle of it all, and was born into it, hated by so many from the day I was born, as if I had been marked by the devil, but IIIIIIII have a personality disorder????? I’m sorry but I just don’t agree.
In other news though, here are some photos I took today. I’ve been trying to slow myself down and not do too much so I don’t explode, but it’s been a rough ride lately and I can’t help but feel a bit angry.
This last picture is me cheering for the Red Sox who I can’t watch right now cuz I don’t have cable, but I’m hoping to watch them in the playoffs and World Series.
I haven’t made a blog entry in about a week. It’s been a rough one. I believe in my last entry, I tried to keep the focus on what I was grateful for, and I don’t wanna get carried away with the negatives now either.
I’ve been very busy; so much so that I’m kind of concerned for my mental and physical health. It’s been a real challenge, and lately my health CARE has been the main cause in making my health WORSE, and seeing how I have a history of that, like being sexually assaulted, beaten, tortured, experimented on, drugged, lied to, laughed at, etc. by my health care workers at times over the years, I find it very triggering when my health care is the cause of my stress. To be a professional psych patient for thirty years is not a great life. Luckily, I am fortunate enough to be blessed with many amazing people in my life who help bring me some joy, just as I am blessed to be the type of person who is easily self contained. Give me something to write and draw with, an instrument to play with, a book I’ll like, a good movie, or access to a variety of music, and I’m good for entertainment for awhile. A combination of all those things, and you may never see me again, as has been the case this year. Unfortunately I do need a lot more social time than I’m getting. With as much stress as my old friends used to cause me, I hardly had any rage for all those years when we were hanging out, other than a few times here and there. It seems like so much more the last few years since I kicked them all out of my life and began to put my own life together.
I guess being an artist in a gallery can be extremely stressful for me unfortunately, and all the other stuff I’ve taken on since choosing to give my life an honest shot. Plus, I had a full blown psychosis breakdown just a couple years ago, not long after the art gallery moved from Medford, which was accessible to me, to Allston and Cambidge, which is not. The fact that we may be losing the new gallery in Somerville which is extremely accessible, and forced back into the space in Allston is not helping my stress. The fact that everything regarding our space at The Armory went to shit right before the show I spent five months preparing for and putting a lot of my stimulus money into didn’t help my stress either. Speaking of which, please sign and share this petition.
Other stuff has been stressful too though, as I plan to put out another book that I’m hoping will have more success than The Godchild Trilogy which was not a total failure, all things considered, but I feel I have the potential to do much better, and this next book could reach a lot of people, and my family may not like it, similar to The Godchild, which I was afraid I’d be disowned because of. While that didn’t happen, and the world didn’t end, like I also feared, I don’t know if that was just because of how few people have read it so far. I don’t know if I do end up having some success and begin to get read, if that’ll affect things differently. I suppose things will probably be okay, but I worry. I also mentioned my sister was in the ER last week for a heart issue, and I’ve been having them too, and my pulse was extremely high when the nurse was here the other day. I’ve made an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow though, as well as with my psychiatrist and nutritionist. I also weighed myself the other day and I’ve gone down a few more pounds in just a few weeks. I continue to be heading in the right direction with that on a slow but steady pace.
I realized that this month is 25 years since I graduated high school in 1996, from Beacon High/New Perspectives in Coolidge Corner Brookline, in a class of eleven kids, which was the record for the largest graduating class there at the time, yet was doubled with 22 kids the next year, I believe. There were only 44 kids in the whole school, and many never finished. I loved the school, but my last year there was rough after gaining over 100 pounds from psych meds, and a number of traumas and hospital visits and loss of friends and other difficult shit…
Here is a picture of me at my graduation party in 1996 where I was smiling because I was surrounded by friends and family who were celebrating me, but I was extremely sad and chronically suicidal, and on the right is a pic taken a couple days ago, when I was grumpy due to some recent stress, but am overall a much happier person now.
I got away for a few days of sunshine with the family this weekend…
Moo was demanding attention when I got home
I am grateful for my few days away, the good food, sun, fresh air, family time, and my dad got my car inspected for me with a new sticker before I even woke up.
I’m getting lots of work done on the web site, I’ve spent hours working on press kits, I’ve been eating mostly healthy but delicious food, I’m getting support from all kinds of people in all kinds of ways, and life really isn’t that bad, even with all the stress and the recent symptoms that have been bothering me.
One of the ways someone helped me this week was something that I didn’t even need, but I thought I’d ask for help if anyone didn’t mind. My friend Luke went to Newbury Comics and picked up a record I wanted from Record Store Day, and I am now the proud owner of a limited copy of “Peace Beyond Passion” by MeShell Ndgeocello who was one of the only openly queer artists in the 90’s. I love this album, and she is in my top 5 bass players along with Flea, Roger Waters, Victor Wooten, and Les Claypool.
I will leave you with a song from the album and wish you a good rest of the week…
Today was a struggle and I don’t remember much of what I did yesterday except that I probably did a million things. I’ve been pretty busy and that’s basically been good for me but the lady next door who sings opera noises every day was going on for five hours, and it was piercing my ears and driving me mad because it woke me up and I couldn’t sleep. I got out of bed and immediately checked my email and social media to find a lot of junk mail, no news from any agents, and a reply to a post I made about my book and book cover in an author’s group in which I didn’t ask for opinions, but someone said “You’ll get more clicks with a professional cover.” I felt shot down, and started to doubt my cover, which does have a few flaws. When I shared it on my page last week, some of my friends said they loved it, including some who I know would buy the book regardless of the cover, and they are my friends, so were they to be trusted to be honest? Some part of me thought they were, because I decided to post my cover in a memoir group and a group for trans men over 40 and asked them if they’d be interested in a book with this cover, and right away, two people in each group said no. One said it was unprofessional, two said it was too busy, and one person said no, because he wouldn’t know what the book was about from the cover; as if any book cover really explains a story! I felt shot down and immediately took down my post in both groups because the opera woman was still shrieking and I wasn’t in the mood for any more negative comments. My cat came up on the couch next to me and started crying non-stop. I shoved her off the couch and my rage was growing as the opera woman had been practicing since noon and it was after five. The noises kept getting worse and worse, and I could see her in the house right next to us in the room with all the windows open. I finally snapped and ran to the window. Part of me didn’t wanna destroy her spirit, but most of me just wanted the noise to stop. I have PTSD and it’s literally caused me to punch walls and break things. Just as I was about to scream “Would you shut the fuck up? You suck!” the guy downstairs from me literally yelled out seconds before me “Is that you who’s doing all that singing? You’re terrible!” and I chimed in “you should really get some sound proofing or something because I have PTSD and the noises are driving me into a rage every day!” She apologized and said she’d shut the windows, but I can hear her all winter when both our windows are shut. I dunno if it’ll make a difference but she’s been driving me mad for years now. Every Spring, I used to look forward to opening all the windows, but now I have to keep them closed to drown out as much as it allows. I don’t wanna crush her spirit, but I’ve honestly had violent thoughts, not that I’d act on them. I’m not a violent person, but the fact that I even fantasize about it makes me feel awful about myself and is toxic for me to have that kind of rage, so it’s about time she had a rude awakening as to how bad it is for the rest of us. There are all kinds of musicians in my building who do all make noise, but hers goes on for hours and it’s so high pitched it feels like nails on a chalkboard.
Anyway, I’ve been busy editing the book some more and I think I’m gonna keep the cover I made. I may take one more stab at designing the same basic thing, but if it doesn’t look better, I’ll keep the one I have now, which was my second attempt after the first didn’t feel professional to me at all. The second one didn’t feel like it was that bad though. I liked it and was bummed others didn’t, but I mean, I don’t know what their interests are or what kind of books they like or anything about them, and my art is an acquired taste. Like a lot of great art, sometimes people have to see it over and over before it starts to resonate with them. I thought the idea was cool, to show the flawed and rigged system through the claw machine, and pictures of me pre and post transition showing my gender journey over the years. I wrote a post on my own Facebook after being shut down, and my friends encouraged me to keep the cover unless I wanna change it, because it was my vision and it goes well with the book. One person also mentioned that I’m likely to mostly just get my fans to read it if I self publish, and so they’ll be the ones who will want it and love it, and while it may not exactly attract the masses, the people who most relate and most need the book will probably be drawn to my cover. So, it really just depends on if I get it published through an agent and publisher who may have other thoughts on it, but one of the things I like about self publishing is having the control to make my own covers and choose my release dates and stuff like that, which are part of the whole presentation for me, even if others don’t even recognize it. I really wanna release this new book on my birthday this year, which is the 20 year anniversary of 9/11. It’s to the degree that while I obviously wanna be professionally published, part of me hopes I get to do it all myself again since it was fun for me the first time around…but I’ll definitely take an agent and professional publishing if I can get it. It’s just not looking likely right now.
I have a Pride Sale going on at my Threadless Store for 15% off until the 23rd
That’s a couple of the items. You can get them here…
I got an idea for a new book that would be mostly fiction, although based on a true story about my cross country trip to see the Pope at World Youth Day in 1993. It would be called “Good Catholic Kids”, and would be sort of like a classic 90’s teen story about a queer kid with mental illness, coming of age type thing. Ideally, I envision this one as a film, but I think I wanna write it as a book, in hopes of it becoming a film, since a book is easier to get out into the world than a screenplay. Plus, I have a lot of details I wanna put into the story that would be hard to include in film, especially if it were low budget, so I’m gonna make it a book, but it was this photo I recently hung in my kitchen which gave me the idea to write the story. this was at World Youth Day in a desert in Colorado. We had to walk seven miles to get there and there was a sea of people, as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Last but not least, I got this awesome record this month to reward myself for all my hard work and stress and everything. It is an incredibly rare record and a miracle I found an unopened copy for a price I could afford (although was pretty much the only thing I could buy this month) but the CD version changed my life in the early 2000’s when it introduced me to the Boston underground hip hop scene which is the best out there.
I will leave you with a few favorite songs from the album… I highly recommend you try them, even if you don’t like hip hop, but especially if you like really great quality underground hip hop with “conscious” lyrics
There’s been some stress the last few days, but I’m trying not to let it get to me and I’m being as assertive as possible to get my needs met. There’s a skill in DBT to help with communication and getting your needs met and stuff. There are two sides with similar charts; “asking” for something, and “saying no” to something. On both sides, you evaluate what’s most important, getting your needs met, keeping the relationship good, or feeling a sense of self respect. Depending on what your biggest objective is, this can can change how you ask or say no. Like, if you need a favor from someone and you mention it and they sound unsure… if your objective with that person is to keep the relationship good, and you can find someone else to help you, then you decrease the intensity of asking, but if they are the only person who can help and it’s something you really need, then you increase the intensity of asking. There’s a lot more to it. It involves charts and acronyms and all sorts of stuff, and it takes a lot of practice, but learning to use it effectively can really improve your interpersonal relationships. I found myself using it a lot today, and am grateful for it because I’ve had some challenging moments with people and handled most of it a lot better than most people would have in my position. I was proud of myself, but at the same time, I feel a little guilty about “increasing the intensity of asking”; especially with my mental health worker. She’s the best though and I’m grateful. I’m just feeling overwhelmed by all I do in the world for almost nothing in return.
This is a painting I sold at an art show 3 years ago. Here’s a few other photos from that day…
Tom Tipton: Founder of Out Of the Blue art Gallery
I’ve been doing these shows with the gallery for a few years now. This was when it was located in a house in Medford. Now they’re at the Armory in Somerville, but they need help. You can read about that here…
Today could’ve been incredibly stressful. I won’t get into all the details, but often times, days like these wreck me, yet I chose to laugh about it and shrug it off today. Maybe my weekend away helped, maybe it was the “LA Confidential” weed strain which is good for Bipolar, PTSD, anxiety, and pain. Maybe it was seeing my family or being showered with hugs now that my parents and I had our vaccines. Maybe it was a little sun and fresh air or the somewhat inspiring movie Nomadland that we watched. It was likely a combination of it all. I also found out I lost weight, I got to eat some good food, be social, got some help with my blog, and all kinds of good stuff. Today I got a book in the mail that I thought would be kind of like a how-to book about how to self publish a children’s book on Amazon, but it wasn’t quite as helpful as I was looking for it to be. I skimmed the whole thing, looking for the specific info I wanted, and it wasn’t in there, but he did have a few helpful suggestions. Honestly, I was a little turned off by the fact that even though he kept giving his wife credit for ideas, he kept saying “women are always right” which just rubbed me the wrong way because it reminded me of something my father would say to imply “I don’t actually think women are even close to always right, but my wife makes me feel like I have to say they are or we’ll argue about that too.” I didn’t enjoy that part, but I got a little bit of helpful advice, and one of those things was to make a YouTube channel to use for the books, and so I made a video of myself reading my favorite chapter from my first book, “The Godchild” and uploaded it to my YouTube… Here is that…
I trimmed my beard after I made the video. It was getting a little wild…
better
And here is an interview a blog called TZSBlog did with me awhile back about my Godchild trilogy…
1. Tell us about yourself:
My name is Jymi Cliche. I’m a 42 year old intersex trans man from Boston, Massachusetts in the US. I’m a newly self published author, an artist, photographer, poet, rapper, and human rights activist. I’m Bipolar with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and more than ten other psychiatric diagnoses. I spent twenty years of my life in and out of psych wards. I studied Psychology and Art in college and am still interested in both, as well as popular culture, especially music, but also books, movies, and TV, even though I’ve hardly had time to watch anything lately, or read for fun. I collect vinyl records and listen to music in some form all night while I work on my creative projects. I sleep during the day. I have a cat named Moo who’s been living with me for over fifteen years and I come from a large, close, chaotic family, many of whom live in the Boston area. My art is hanging at Out Of the Blue Gallery where I regularly do art shows and perform poetry and hip hop. I enjoy cooking new and old recipes and doing local Open Mics which have moved to Zoom during quarantine. I spend most of my time alone, which is what I usually prefer, although I do enjoy seeing friends and family and I text people or chat on Facebook, so it’s not like I don’t like people. I’m just somewhat agoraphobic and have severe social anxiety, so not having to go anywhere the last nine months has helped me be more productive. I love swimming at sunset, looking at the stars, enjoying live music, and dancing to shake the bad energy off my soul. I don’t do those things enough though.
2. How did you get into writing and publishing? Was this something you always wanted to do?
Yes, I’ve pretty much always wanted to be a writer. It’s been my goal since I was nine years old, and while I’ve written almost every day of my life, it took a long time before I was ready to write my books. Technically I wrote my first book when I was nine, but it wasn’t very good. I wrote another when I was eleven, and that was terrible too. Both were hand written and were pure childish fantasies, but I enjoyed the hell out of writing them, and I think that’s what was most important. I loved creating something. I had many ideas for books and screen-plays I wanted to write over the years, but they were fictional and I’d come up with a bunch of ideas but not know how to get started and make it work. When I began writing “The Godchild”, it was different. I went through some life changing and eye opening experiences in 2008 and 2010 and I knew since 2010 that I had an epic story to tell… my own. I knew that if I could just tell my story with all the details I could remember, that I’d have mind-blowing book. I started writing it in 2013 and finished a year or so later, but I wasn’t ready to publish. I was scared of the world reading something so personal, and honestly, I still am.
“The Godchild” gets off to a slow start because I didn’t even know where to begin, and I decided to start with where I was, at and go back and forth. It takes about the first third of the first book before the story fully gets going. The majority of the publishers I sent query letters to only wanted the first five to twenty pages, and I knew that even though I was sure the book got better and was worth reading, that they wouldn’t know that. I’m basically a nobody, at the bottom of society, so I expected to be rejected by most, and I was, even though many of the rejections were complimentary. I debated on whether to keep trying, but I wanted the whole trilogy to be released by July 2020, so I decided to self publish and I don’t regret it. It’s still selling and getting great reviews. I just wrote another book this past year which I’m hoping will get the attention of a publisher.
3. How was the writing, editing, and publishing process like for the first book?
It took seven years to write the trilogy, and part of that was because it was written as a journal. In the first book, I went back and forth from current day and into the past to tell the story of my life, so it only took about a year, but the following two books were both about the current day as I wrote them, so I had to actually live my life to find out what was going to happen, and I had to wait until enough happened to make it worth writing down. It was kind of a trip though, because everything that happened was perfect for the story. The books just wrote themselves. Of course, as I was writing my third book, I had extreme anxiety. I had faith that the universe would give me the perfect, epic ending for my trilogy, but I had no idea what that would be. I drove myself crazy with fear about the end of my trilogy coming. Was it the end of my life? The end of the world? I started to fall apart again like I had before I wrote the first two books, but it ended up bringing the trilogy full circle, providing the perfect ending as I had faith it would.
4. How has writing and being an author helped you as a person?
As a person who lived most of my life as a professional lab rat with different psychiatric treatments and medications tested on me since 1993, in and out of psych wards for 20 years, and the last decade slowly recovering after being broken, it’s nice to feel like I did something big and important, and that I count. I’m grateful that my story is being told and heard, and that people get it. It’s given me the ability to say that I’ve got a job and show people that I’m not lazy or stupid or whatever they think when they hear I have mental illness. I didn’t waste my life. It may have been far from conventional, but that’s what makes it such a great story. I have far less shame about existing and sometimes needing help than I once did now that I’ve put out my books. I hope the books will help heal the world, but I’m grateful that they started to heal me first.
5. What advice would you like to give to aspiring authors?
Just write… and live. Don’t compare, just create.
6. How long does it usually take to write a book?
It depends on what kind of book. The book I wrote this past year only took about six months for about three hundred pages.
7. Out of the five books that you have published so far, which is that one book that holds a very special place in your heart?
If I had to pick just one of the five, it would be the first book of “The Godchild” trilogy. It works alone as just one book, where you can’t really pick up part 2 or part 3 and just read those without having read the first one. It was originally going to stand alone, but I realized I had more I needed to say and life provided me all kinds of new material, but the first book of the series is probably the one that means the most to me.
8. What is your favorite place to read and write?
As much as I’d love to sit out on a deck overlooking the ocean or something perfect like that with fresh air and the sound of crashing waves, I do my writing wherever I may be. My books were all mostly written on a laptop computer, facing a corner wall on an extremely messy desk with music playing and my cat staring at me. Similarly, I will read wherever, but last year I found a green leather chair and ottoman tossed out in the trash, so I took it and put it in my bedroom, which is where I like to read before bed when I get a chance.
9. What kind of books do you like to read?
I like a variety of stuff, but memoir is probably my favorite genre.
10. What are you currently reading?
“On Writing” by Stephen King
11. If you could recommend only one book to anyone which book would that be?
The DSM-5. That’s the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for mental disorders currently being used to diagnose mental illness in the US and other parts of the world. I think people would be surprised how many descriptions they relate to and maybe question what “crazy” even means anyway.
12. Are there any upcoming launches that you can share with us?
I’m getting ready to publish my next book, hopefully in September of this year, and then my first children’s book around the winter holidays. I’m also doing a photography and art show about my mental illness from May-June at The Armory in Somerville MA.
13. Do you have any message that you want to convey through this interview?
The world is struggling right now and these are some uncertain times. Almost everyone is questioning their sanity from time to time, and I hope that my story will bring comfort to those who are. It’s an inspiring story of survival and it’s my honest guts and tears. I put myself out there to help others feel less alone.
I got some bad news today that I kind of saw coming, even though it might not be as bad as I thought, it might be. My favorite mental health worker is leaving her position and moving to a different position on the same team. It may end up being that nothing much changes between us, but it might mean that we won’t be working together anymore. I’ve sort of been waiting on this news and somewhat prepared to hate her for hurting me if she went about it the way others have, after we’ve become so close. I went through several workers in a few short years, and one worker who left around this time five years ago who absolutely broke my heart because she promised to keep in touch, but didn’t. It was a messy thing though, I won’t lie. It was partly her fault for all the boundaries she was breaking at a time when I was extremely lonely and broken, and I thought she cared about me and maybe even liked me in a romantic way. Obviously that was where things were partly mine to blame, although I never did anything inappropriate, but I think she knew how I felt and I honestly thought she felt the same, because of how close she got to me… but that was 5 years ago, and I went through several workers since her and tried so hard not to allow myself to fall for one ever again. And I’m not in love with my worker who’s leaving now. I don’t feel romantic feelings towards her and I know she doesn’t for me, but I still kind of love her as a person in a way that one would grow to love anyone who helped them so much in 3 years time, nevermind a person like her, who I clicked with immediately in our first phone call. I knew after our first 15 minute conversation that this day was going to come and it was gonna feel like hell, and I’ve been sobbing all day. I don’t know what’ll come of it though and I know the last thing she wants to do is hurt me or even leave me. She is fighting to keep me, so I appreciate that and don’t hate her, but I’m feeling a lot of sadness. When we first met, I was stepping out into the world for the first time as an adult, just about to turn forty years old after a life of being broken, and I was doing great, but within just a couple months of us meeting, I fell into a deep psychosis that lasted months. I was on bed-rest, completely miserable, and we texted every day and she came to see me every week. She was the first, and still the only one of my workers to read my first book in its entirety, and she was the one to encourage me to publish it, which was something I severely feared for far too long. She helped me through 7 months of feeling so fucking terrible that I was almost ready to give up, but she encouraged me every day and she loved my art and my songs and let me practice in front of her. I could tell that she was honestly impressed by me and that I made her job more enjoyable and worth doing, to see me recover and publish my books and perform and show my art. It made me feel good to have someone in the system that actually believed in me and who saw the artist I was and thought the world would wanna know me too. She helped me believe in myself and helped me survive one of the most difficult times of my life. I’d just achieved so much of what I always wanted after a life of being broken, and doing so broke me again, and it looked like I might lose it all, but I came back even harder and I have her to thank, but I don’t know if I’m losing her and I don’t know how to feel about it, except sad that this is how it always seems to be. I still think about Stacey and Elisa, Celie, Miss K, Robin, Michelle, Joanne, Leah, Caitlin, Leslie, Ana, Pat, etc. There are so many people who once saved me and meant the world to me as teachers and therapists that I’ve lost and my heartbreak is real. I miss them terribly. I hate that I’m forced to let go of so many great people. I felt like when she left, I was gonna tell her to fuck off, and that I’d hate her and even possibly quit therapy, because I can’t keep taking this kind of loss… but maybe she’ll be one of the ones to stick by me, as I do also have a list of people who once meant the world to me and are still in my life in a different way. They still mean a lot to me, but since they’re no longer employed to work for me, I have good boundaries and they’ve become like other friends in my life who I just talk to once in awhile. It still means a lot that they’re out there and part of my world. I hope she’ll remain in my world because she’s an awesome person who I’ll always have love for. It’s hard to think about getting to know someone else, and I’m sad and hurt but I’ll be okay.
I decided that for a little food therapy, I’d try the macaroni and cheese pizza from Za. There are two pizza places in my town that put pasta on pizza, and I thought it sounded like too much carbs and not particularly appealing, but some people love it and the one at Za has caramelized onions, which I also like, so I thought I’d try it. I mean, I do like macaroni and cheese and pizza.
It was good, but I probably won’t get it again. They have a great chicken and veggie pizza I like there too. Just as good, and probably a lot healthier, but this was fun to try.
As for the good news, my mom got her blood-work back today and she’s still cancer-free for 5 years now! That is definitely happy news! And while it’s not looking great for my memoir being published, I haven’t heard from everyone yet, and even if I self publish again, it has a chance to succeed if the right people read it. I know the writing is better than The Godchild books and it’s getting even better as I do more edits. The big craft fair at my mental health center will be a perfect place to sell the book along with some stickers and prints and stuff. Life is okay. I’m grateful for getting through it.
