And The Winners Are ...

Thank you to all who entered to win a copy of "Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis." 

Congratulations to:

• Brittany from Illinois
• Melissa from Nevada
• Sandra from North Carolina. 

Thank you to Goodreads for hosting the giveaway.

Giveaway! Good Reads Giveaway! Giveaway!

Today through Wednesday, May 24 

GoodReads Giveaway is underway. 

Because it is Mental Health Month. 

Because I love readers.

Because stories matter. 

THREE! will WIN a signed copy of 

"Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis." 

Enter here!

A Word on Wednesday: Awareness

Awareness is a noun; 

it is the state or condition of being aware; having knowledge; consciousness. 

Its synonym, mindful. 

Its antonym, oblivious. 

For decades, organizations have claimed colors and months to bring awareness to a particular disease or cause. Awareness is so popular; yet, action remains rare. Change is slow. 

Since 1949, Mental Health America and its affiliates across the county have led the observance of May as Mental Health Month by reaching millions of people through the media, local events, and screenings. (Nearly SEVENTY YEARS!) 

For nearly three years, I traveled to university class rooms, church basements, community health fairs, hospital training rooms, libraries, book stores, and homes sharing a single story. My story of a bipolar diagnosis and the hope found only in treatment. I have met thousands of people and attempted to bring awareness.

Yet, each time it is really I who gains awareness. I meet another patient, parent, teacher, doctor, spouse. I see another face with pain-filled eyes looking for meaning and strength. I see resilience. I see collapse. I see despair. I see hope. 

We go to these "awareness" events and hold hands with those who wear the same color ribbon, it is not because we are unaware. It is because we know all to well mental health is gravely misunderstood, grossly underfunded, and largely understaffed. We mourn those who died and offer comfort to the survivors. We know. We are aware. 

As May continues, I will examine additional mental health words including stigma, recovery, patient, and diagnosis. 

A Word on Wednesday: Should

Should is a word I am attempting to BANISH! from my vocabulary. Should sows procrastination. Should breeds dread. Should reeks of judgement.

Should is classified as an auxiliary verb, with meanings including must and ought. Auxiliary verbs are used in forming tenses, moods, and voices of other verbs.

I am unable to bring to mind an instance when should conjures up a positive emotion.

- should go to the car wash

- should write a letter

- should call my dad

- should go to the gym

- should send a query letter

- should make a sales call

- should consolidate my credit cards

- should calm down

- should be happy

- should take a class

- should try a new recipe

However, washing cars and trying new recipes and calling my dad are activities that do bring  happiness. Adding the verb should elicits the feeling of something unpleasant. It implies that whatever is being done in the present moment is "less than" or "not enough."

Should also implies indecision. It fosters crippling self doubt. As I work to eliminate should from self talk and how I talk to others, I am reminded of my mother's familiar summertime refrain: 

IN or OUT!

My mom did not say, you should be either in or out. No she commanded I decide; I wasn't born in a barn after all.

As I work to rid should from my vernacular, I work to trust myself and stand by. I will decide to accept or decline, to do or don't, and to follow through or move on. 

A Word on Wednesday: Heliotropic

Heliotropic: 

Turning or growing toward the light. Heliotropism can be easily seen in sunflowers, which slowly turn their large flowers so that they continually face the sun. However, the adjective heliotropic can describe any noun and any light source.

A heliotropic student turns toward 

the light of knowledge.

A heliotropic flower turns toward 

the light of the sun.

Plants classified as heliotropes have flowers and leaves, which turn toward the sun. Marigolds, poppies, sunflowers, and daisies are examples of heliotropes.

Daisies are commonplace both as a wildflower and in the beds of intentional gardeners. The daisy’s hardy character survives perennially. Many a season of indecision has been soothed by pulling petal by petal — loves me, loves me not. I consider the daisy to be my favorite flower. Despite it’s simple, common presence, it stands out to me.  Perhaps, it was the daisy that really picked me to guide me in moving to the light.

There is grace when one can turn to face the light and absorb its radiance. Like the daisy, I long to move toward the lights of inspiration, the lights of my life, and the light offered each dawn.

Turning to the light, and thereby from darkness or shadows is not a new bright idea. The phenomenon of heliotropism was known by the Ancient Greeks, demonstrated with the word heliotropium, meaning sun turn.  

As spring builds momentum, I am again reminded to turn to light, to chart with optimism, to navigate with intention to the moving source of good. 

Workshops for Writers

I love meeting writers! Please contact me to book a workshop for your group. 

My top workshops are:

• ·         Mining Memories: Jump Start your Memoir
• ·         Intro to Creative Writing
• ·         Common editing tips to improve your writing

Designed as interactive, hands on learning, these offer plenty of time for putting presented techniques into practice.

Workshops can be tailored for 2-hour, half-day or full-day, depending on the depth of content requested.

 

If you are looking for a topic not listed here, please contact me. It might something I'm interested in, but just haven't designed a workshop for yet. Let's explore the opportunity together. 

Contact me at tara@tarameissner.com 

Alleluia

On this day in my history, I was hospitalized for a psychotic break. I didn't know it at the time; I thought I was going to a birthday party rather than the ICU of a psychiatric care center.

Today's five-year, post-breakdown anniversary is a bittersweet reminder. I celebrate the absence of a re-occurrence, but recall vividly the horror of the injury.   

The cause of the psychotic episode was determined to be bipolar disorder.

The name of that disease, its category of illness, and the shame of it all felt like more than I could accept in the spring of 2010. I certainly didn't feel I would ever be right or normal.

However with medical treatment and a loving support system, I did learn I could be healthy and most importantly happy, genuinely happy even with a feared and disrespected illness as part of my whole.

I came to realize the man-made construct of control can be destroyed through a force outside of oneself. The savings account, the physical ability to work, the false sense of security.

I also learned how to rebuild with a more solid foundation.

I do not feel stronger for having survived. I am weaker — more timid, more hesitant, more fearful. I literally have come to accept I am, in fact, not strong enough to live without the help of medical treatment. I have learned I am not strong enough to live without love and support, which I both give and receive.

A sense of gratitude did emerge from the rubble. I thank God for each day I am able to wake up symptom free. I appreciate my family, my friends, and my vocation as a writer. I am indebted for the men and women who came before me to study,understand, and treat mental illness so those afflicted can live with health. I learned to see the beauty of nature, and through this I recognize the evidence of divinity.

The title of my book, "Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis" speaks to the temporary nature of psychosis, a fracture, something that can be repaired. A stress fracture — differing from other bone fractures — results from repeated pressure put on a bone, which over time causes a break. Psychosis can be like that; the repeated pressure of living with an untreated or mistreated mental illness forces a fissure in sanity.  

The book was shared so others can recognize many of the symptoms of a chronic mental illness can heal. People with mental illness can live well and enjoy the view from a place of a healthy mind, body, and soul.

Happy spring; happy new life. For my Catholic friends, on Easter Sunday sing those Alleluias jubilantly. 

Come write with me!

Have you ever thought about writing memoir? Not sure how to get started? As part of the amazing Lakefly Literary Conference, I will be presenting a Mining Memories breakout session to get you started. The conference is held May 8 and May 9, 2015 in Oshkosh, Wis. Come for Keynote Speaker Michael Perry, stay for the breakout sessions, book fair, and connect with like-minded people.

Learn more about the conference here: Lakefly Presenters


I have read a lot of books on memoir writing and my favorite was "Old Friend from Far Away" by Natalie Goldberg. For general writing inspiration, I recommend "On Writing" by Stephen King (direct and, at times, funny) or "Bird by Bird" by Ann Lamott (a more Zen approach to inspiring the craft).

Congratulations!

The Goodreads giveaway ended last night. Thank you goes out to the 430 who entered.  The three winners will receive a signed paperback, which will be mailed this week.


 Congratulations to:

•  
• Krystal from Wisconsin
• Jennifer from Minnesota
• Cheryl from Sough Dakota

Please note "Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis" is available to all public libraries and
bookstores. It also is sold at all online outlets. Thank you to those who entered.

Tara 

Goodreads Giveaway

Goodreads Giveaway!

It has been a great start to 2015.

I joined the board of directors of a local chapter of Mental Health America. As part of this organization, I am to give back all that I have gained from the advocates, researchers, and practitioners who came before me and made my health possible.

Letters, book club invitations, and public speaking requests have appeared in my mailbox, which serve to further humble me as I realize how large the need is to support those living with mental health conditions. Reviews on Goodreads and Amazon continue to trickle in from strangers near and far affirming that the work "Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis" has value. A little thing I can do to spread my story and expand empathy for those living with bipolar is to give away three paperbacks. Click the link Goodreads Giveaway!  for your chance to win.

Please note if you don't win a copy of my book, it is available to all public libraries. Talk to your favorite librarian to get "Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis" on those library shelves.

Thank you and good luck.

- Tara 

Words, Crazy Words in Earnest

While writing a memoir, I thought can I really reveal that much of myself. It is easier now for me to talk about my own mental health, because it does not define me. I am not bipolar. I am a person living with the chronic condition. The stories I tell of the disease do not betray my privacy in its entirety. This condition of bipolar is no more defining of who I am, than the fact that I have brown hair. The difference is my hair color can be seen and the mental illness must be revealed.

 
Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis is an unpublished manuscript. I wrote it essentially stream of conscious style in a matter of four months in 2010. I spent the next two years, off and on, revising it and trying to make scenes that came alive through fiction writing techniques. The result was a pretty damn good story. With that in my mind, I started to query big literary agents with the naïve notion they would represent an unknown former journalist.

After a round of defeat, I accepted that I would simply be content having written it; I resolved to consider the process cathartic and that its value was to help in my healing process. I didn’t see it as commercial product that deserved space among bookseller’s shelves — physical and virtual. The manuscript, then 260 pages and 70,000 words, was stored in a two black binders out of sight. As much as I tried to place it out of my mind entirely, it continued to nag at me.

Nearly three years after my episode of psychosis, someone very close to me suffered a serious physical health event. The result was a life sentence of coping with a chronic illness, and I needed to learn how to be a support. The similarities of coming to terms with any chronic illness could not be denied. The isolation and confusion that comes when you are knocked off your pedestal of ignorant normal life is the same regardless of the category of ailment. Support and answers are hard to come by in an accessible way.  

The result of my psychiatric inpatient stay was a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which can be treated, but not cured. The result of my loved one was a disease with a different name. We both were left with no choice but unending daily treatment to manage our health in the context of disease impairment. We are both healthy today, because of treatments. Yet the disease persists.

I see my story, not so much as about myself, but about the things that break us and how we heal. I anxiously set out on another round of agent seeking, again without satisfying results, this past spring.

This summer, I rewrote the memoir in its entirety with the reader in mind. The story was no longer part of me; I simply became the narrator to an event that happened. The result is something that is accessible to an audience. With a clearer understanding of the purpose of the work and its place, I sent it to better targeted agents and indie presses representing psychology memoir.  I am trying not to check my email excessively waiting for a response.

I am resurrecting my blog returning to its original goal. Words, Crazy Words was inspired as a place to talk about mental health. I chickened out and published other work. Regardless of the result of the publishing world to pick up Stress Fracture, I must find a way to contribute to the discussion of mental illness.

Every illness needs stories. People with mental illness often walk silently afraid to appear crazy. I am more fearful of secrets and vowed to live my life out loud. With prose, I have found a whisper that reveals the tragedy of psychosis in the context of a bipolar illness and the hope that treatment offers. My voice is quiet and capable of telling just one story of a disorder that manifests itself uniquely in each person who is afflicted. I aspire to lucidly reflect on an illness which has crippled my mind and efforts to the point of insanity.

 

 

Self Publishing Vs. Indie Press

Today guest blogger Donald Dempsey, author of Betty’s Child, shares his experience with publishing. He first self published his memoir and later published with an indie press. Following are his thoughts on each of those processes.

When I decided to write my book the thought of publishing it wasn't a consideration. I thought it would wind up like most of my other projects, either a pile of notes or a few chapters sitting in a folder gathering dust. Unlike previous attempts to put my thoughts or ideas into words, my memoir poured out of me. I've often said this story virtually wrote itself. Often, I reread something I’d written and found myself surprised by the content.

 
After I finished Betty’s Child, I had no idea what to do with it. My wife and some close friends urged me to try and get it published. I put together query letters and submitted them to agents and publishers, rarely hearing back from them. The closest I came to tradition publishing success was garnering some interest from an agent who was about to retire, but she couldn't get anyone else to take on the book due to a downsizing of publishers and agents. Eventually, I gave up.

I don’t remember who first suggested it or how self-publishing became an option, but somehow I became involved with a self publishing company. From the very beginning, it was a very unpleasant experience. I never worked with the same person, and there was always another fee to take the next unexpected step. Undisclosed charges were frequent. If I paid for this service, it would increase my chances of attracting a publisher. If I agreed to pay more money for certain packages or services, my book would be available to a wider market. There was always one reason or another to pay more money.

My frustration mounted. It wasn’t very long before I wished I had just left my book in the drawer where I’d tossed it. Nothing they promised me was ever delivered. Betty’s Child sold a few copies now and then, but not much else happened. Even though I felt the book was meaningful and had a message worth putting out, I soon gave up again. I stopped answering calls from the self publishing company. Months passed. I threw all the extra copies in a box in my office and forgot about the book altogether.

And then, out of the blue, Mike O’Mary from Dream of Things called me and asked to take a look at my book. He liked what some of the reviewers said. I sent him a copy and everything moved pretty quickly after that. Mike has been a publisher, editor, marketer, valuable source of information, and a friend. His belief in Betty’s Child rekindled my own. Mike’s knowledge of the ebook market opened up windows of opportunity I didn’t know existed. Without him, there wouldn’t be a Betty’s Child, so I find myself often saying the book is just as much his as mine.

Of course, the irony here is that Dream of Things never would have noticed Betty’s Child if I hadn’t put myself through the torture of self publishing. And I’ve heard of some very successful authors getting their start after first working with companies like the one I did. For me, self publishing was a very stressful experience. I tend to like things straightforward and forthright. So I’d hate to dissuade someone from chasing their dream of publication. My personal experiences may not reflect the norm.   

About the Author:

Don Dempsey experienced childhood abuse and neglect first hand, but went on to have a fulfilling family life as an adult and to own his own business. "If you're lucky, you make it to adulthood in one piece," says Don. "But there's no guarantee the rest of your life is going to be any better. Abused kids are often plagued by fear and insecurity. They battle depression and have trouble with relationships. In the worst cases, abused children perpetuate the cycle." But Don is living proof that you can overcome a childhood of abuse and neglect. "You start by letting go of as much of the guilt (yes, abused kids feel guilty) and as many of the bad memories as possible. At the same time, you hold on to the things that helped you survive. For me, it was the belief that you can make life better by working at it and earning it. It helps to have a sense of humor, too."

Find out more about the author by visiting him online:

Betty’s Child website: www.BettysChild.com

Donald Dempsey Facebook: www.facebook.com/donald.dempsey.3

To enter to win a copy of Betty's Child, please leave a comment. 

Writing Memoir

 

Memories are like wet beads on a shower wall.

             One slides into another.

Streaming from the subconscious into the current,

             They amass with purpose.

Collecting from each other, they become a stream.

              Now gathered in unity.

 

One Day at a Time

Good morning! I wrote this reflection in 2011 about a year after experiencing a psychotic break, which is commonly referred to as a nervous breakdown. I kept in the present tense, because it was written that way and I like the flow of it. Today, in 2103, I am better than okay. I have experienced just a few break-through symptoms of bipolar, which have been well managed with treatment. Yet, I choose to remember those dark days when one day at a time was all I could manage. I did complete a memoir, titled Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis, which details the year of recovery. I am not sure if the manuscript will see publication, yet I am shopping it to agents and considering self publishing.

--

Today, I am okay. And really that is all anyone can have or request.

Someday, I may kill myself. It happens to people like me: people who share my diagnosis. But as for today, I am okay. The symptoms do not infiltrate with devastation.

People like me make up an approximate 2.6 percent of the population. People like me sit in prisons. People like me destroy families. People like me are feared. But, today I am okay.

I have a mental illness. It’s not just a case of the blues or an episode of extravagance. It’s something rooted with a firm grasp attempting to rob sanity.

Bipolar is what they call it today. They used to say Manic-Depressive. They think the word Bipolar offers a better description of the teeter totter of symptoms. It is classified in the mood-disorder family residing with Unipolar Depression. With Bipolar Disorder, the pendulum swings from this hopeless pole to mania: a welcome reprise from the other. Back and forth seems more accurate that up and down, but it’s a mixed bag of extremes that are often swirled together.

This companion of mine, a steady uninvited guest, is less straightforward than what is written in a text or reference book. Trumping the predictable highs and lows, have been episodes polluted with hallucinations and delusions. I have seen things that are not there. I have believed distortion. The truth was hard to recognize. They tweaked my diagnosis: Bipolar Disorder with Psychotic Features.

The researchers work. They believe. They try to find a way to understand. They seek wisdom, validity, and solution. They break this illness farther into categories I and II, which describe variations of the disorder. The outcomes of bipolar manifest uniquely in each person afflicted.  

Without a measuring stick the doctors probe and jab and question. They find commonalities to their lists, they make educated assumptions. Believing their assessment is the way to hope. The alternative hurts too much.

Denial, a cousin to the disorder, tempts logic. It casts Doubt’s shadows. Denial’s attraction is to believe instead this category of sickness is hogwash. It classifies the previous description as weakness. It serves to forego a scientific treatment and rather prescribes to dress with gumption and arm with willpower making a way without treatment.

I put my faith in the doctors. I believe the research. I owe it to myself to have a majority of days where I am okay. I owe it to society to be productive. The hope they give is balance. With this, I can navigate life with promise.

I keep a belief in a higher power. I ask the creator for grace as I carry a burden. Hurdles do not make us special: we all come across one or another. I call mine bipolar. You may have a different obstacle. Call it a cross to bear if that resonates with your education. Mine is real. It comes, it stays, and it’s chronic. I treat the symptoms; I walk with optimism waiting with anticipation for the advancement that cures this monster.

I keep hope. I trust those who love me, when I know not to trust myself. Today, however, I am okay.

--

Thank you for reading.