Thank you for your letters and cards!

Getting an email from the Website or a Facebook message via my author page, and especially the hand-written cards found in the PO Box truly make my day. 

I'm so glad to hear readers are enjoying the book. Putting it out there has alreadyled to more than I could hope for. People are talking, to me anyway, about their
families' experiences with mental illness. They share they believe in wellness despite the diagnoses they or their family members have. 

I do hope these conversations spread. One reviewer on Amazon wrote, "... my view of mental illness has forever changed."  

I am fortunate to live in a time when people are becoming more comfortable with
discussing mental health. 

It is funny, however, because I am both proud of my accomplishment of having published a
well-written book; at the same time I am embarrassed. The embarrassment comes from the stigma, which is still attached to mental illness. Some days it feels as if I admitted some crime that I have committed rather than revealing a story of an illness I survived and am successfully managing.

Thank you again for your notes affirming the book is contributing to the national conversation on mental wellness. 

Live Well, 
Tara 

How I write

The beautiful and blank fancy journals. 

The pristine journals are beautiful, inspiring, arty, and full of possibility. I have received many of these notebooks to inspire me and prompt me to write, a validation my vocation as a writer is a worthy pursuit.

Pictured are gifts from friends. The one in the background was a surprise gift brought to my front door at a time when I had "quit" writing. It was a thoughtful gift to inspire me to keep penning and remind me of the value of poetry and prose. I received the one in the foreground at my book launch party, it a ribbon of accomplishment, a celebration of those 75,000 words bound in my first published book. 

The ugly work-in-progress truth. 

My current project is a big mess! Note cards, legal pads (pink, yellow, and white), composition notebooks, binders, folders, sketch pads, markers, and that's just on the desk. On the computer are jpegs of character composites and settings, One Note files, research PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, several word docs containing some of the forty-eight original poems that will accompany the novel, and The One Main Word Document, sadly shy on word and page count.

The blank, fresh sheets intimidate me rather than inspire me. I need color and mess. I need legal sheets that easily tear and can be crumpled before being tossed in the general direction of the waste paper basket. I take comfort in the clutter.  

I apologize to Laurie and Sharon for keeping those pages blank. I do love them, and keep them as pure treasures. Someday, I may feel focused enough to be able to just write directly on the beautifully bound pages, confident in the worth of my words straight from thought to page. Until then, I can rest assured no one will publish my work posthumously, as it would be impossible to interrupt.

In case you are wondering, my novel in progress has a working title: "Poetic License." Of course, there is a legal pad sheet with a list of at least twenty alternatives — was that a pink or yellow sheet and where did I file it?

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.