Day of Light 2014 "My Story"

Today on Feb 5th bloggers from all over are collaborating to flood social media with their personal stories about depression and how to accurately and effectively manage depression. Day of Light was created to bring depression out of the dark and to shine a light on this topic that so many feel the need to keep hidden. Day of Light is also meant to share resources with those that are struggling.


My Day of Light story is long, complicated and definitely far more in depth than what I can say on a blog post so I will summarize the best I can.


As a young teenager I always felt different somehow from the rest of the kids. I seemed to always be pursuing a "happy place" and unfortunately never finding it. I looked for this "happy" in many good and bad places. This incessant search led me to dark places and ultimately to a point where at the age of 15 I wanted to die. At school I smiled, I tried to please my teachers, I had friends and I had enemies. I had a very loving mother and a father that was never home due to work. I wore a mask on a daily basis refusing to allow anyone to see the disease that was spreading through me because I was 15. I was confused, scared, lonely even though I had friends. I was more than anything clueless to what depression was. My search for "happy" was a never-ending search that drove me to alcohol and drugs at a young age, sex at a young age and the constant need to please others caused me to find myself being used more often than not. After an unsuccessful suicide attempt at age 15 there was no pill given to me, no counseling, no intervention of any kind. There was silence. More darkness. Secrets. Why? Because back then even more so than now depression or mental-illness wasn't talked about openly. It was shameful. Dirty. There was very little information on the topic and parents really had no idea how to deal with a depressed teenager because isn't that "normal" for teenagers? Many think so but I am here to tell you, no. This is not okay and it's not just a phase that will pass in the night. I know because I have lived it.


Fast forward to my young adult life where I was still searching for that "happy", still not being able to find it and still having no idea what this hole inside me was from. Having no idea why no matter what I did I felt hollow, empty, sad, alone and confused. Again at age 20 I found myself no longer wanting to fight that disease that lurked beneath the facade I wore everyday and I again attempted to commit suicide. My 15 year old self had followed me 5 years into the future proving that this darkness was far from leaving my side. Laying in a hospital with a tube down my throat having my stomach pumped to rid it of bottle after bottle of pills I found myself at another incredibly scary precipice. This time I was given a pamphlet about available counseling in the area. I remember the day I drove by the counseling center and told myself there was no way I was going there. Those places were for crazy people. Then I remember thinking, "am I crazy?" I shook those thoughts away and decided I should just see a doctor. I made an appointment and that day I was simply written a prescription for an anti-depressant. I picked this very expensive prescription up at the local pharmacy and I remember looking at the tiny pills thinking, "I found it!" I thought I had found "happy" in those pills and boy was I ever wrong. Sure they brought me out of some of the lows but for some reason there were no more highs. I was just existing. That's not the "happy" I was looking for.


Many years later after falling in love, having children and having a life that to most on the outside would see as wonderful and happy I still fought that demon that seemed to never leave me. That darkness was still there every day robbing me of the things in my life that I should have been enjoying. It had been eating away at me for most my life but now it was doing more than hurting me. It was hurting my husband and children. I was not the mother or wife that I wanted to be and I certainly wasn't the me that I wanted to be. Some days even the smallest of tasks like taking a shower or getting myself dressed was next to impossible. The bed was my safe place; sleep my escape. While my children learned and played at preschool, I slept. I cried. I feared and I cut myself on a daily basis to remind myself that I could feel and control a form of pain that was ultimately a release to me. One day it all became too much and I sought out help myself. I did this because I looked at my children and I promised myself that I would survive for them because they didn't deserve to live a life motherless. So instead of making that final, deep, life-ending cut I called and made an appointment with a therapist.


That was the day that I saved my own life.


I stayed in therapy for a long time. I did everything my therapist asked of me. I attended group sessions, individual sessions, marital sessions and I also was prescribed a combination of mood stabilizers that did help. It wasn't easy. It was in fact very hard and some days I wanted to quit but I didn't. The therapy combined with the medications brought some light into my life and the darkness began to fade. The ending of this story is not perfect. Some days I am that 15 year old girl all over again. That 20 year old all over again. That terrified mother all over again. What most people don't realize about depression is that it will always try to push its way back into your life. Sometimes it creeps up on me when I'm least expecting it and I have to make a conscious decision to fight it with the tools I was given in therapy. I am no longer on medication and I do find "happy" a lot of days. The thing that I have learned about depression and mental-illness is that it's an ongoing fight each and every day to love yourself. To embrace your  life and to stop being afraid of what society or those around you think. Being imprisoned by stigma is an eternal prison that you will never escape until you bring who you truly are out into the light.


Talking to your family and friends about how you are feeling, reaching out to professionals about your inner struggles and seeking the proper treatment is NEVER bad, wrong, dirty or something you should attach shame to. Depression and mental-illnesses are in fact illnesses just like cancer or any other ailment that hurts our bodies or brain. There are ways to get better and there is hope for you to live a full life that you can and will embrace and enjoy.


Step out of the dark and into the light. Get help and be proud of how courageous you are to do so.


For more stories like mine and resources for help check out one of my favorite bloggers HERE


Or you can call Lifeline 800-273-TALK to speak to trained professionals

Therapy Release Day Announced

THERAPY

Release Day

MARCH 1st

Release Day party information can be found HERE.

 

In The Stillness by Andrea Randall

There are those books that are good. You like them, you’re not regretful for the money you spent on them and you feel content about them. Give them their 3 or 3.5 stars and call it a day. But then that book is over, you never think about it again. Then there are the books you just don’t like at all so you either don’t take the time to review them or like some crazy people you shred the author and give a nasty, terrible review and go on and on about how bad the book was. (Not Me) I just don’t review books I don’t like.

 

THEN there are those books that blow your mind! Books that as you read the last line you’re breathless, you’re speechless and you walk away from the story changed forever. This doesn’t happen often for me but let me tell you, In the Stillness rocked me to my core!

 

Andrea Randall rummaged through my brain, comfortable positioned herself in my emotional psyche and took me on a journey that brought me to tears, evoked deeply rooted feelings and caused me to need many chapter breaks just to compose my thoughts in order to keep reading. I “felt” this book from page one all the way to the last line.

 

Let’s just begin with the synopsis shall we:

 

Natalie is a wife.
Natalie is a mother.
Natalie is a cutter.

Clawing at walls built by resentment, regret, and guilt, Natalie cuts as an escape from a life she never planned.

Staying present is only possible when you let go of the past. But, what if the past won't let go?

 

 

See, even the synopsis leaves you in a thought provoked state! The entire book is that way! When I say the ENTIRE book, I mean the entire fucking book! You don’t skim; you don’t miss a mother lovin word of this book because you’re scared you might miss something poignant or moving.

 

“Change never comes slowly, brewing on the horizon. It's always in a second. Balanced on the tip of a razor blade, in empty pill bottles, behind two pink lines, or learning that one of your children is slowly slipping into a world of silence.”

 

I LOVE the fact that Andrea Randall owns her writing voice in this novel. Not only that but she gives Natalie a voice that will echo in your mind for many, many days after you finish the book. Natalie is the most honest, real character that I think I’ve ever read. The realistic nature of this book took me over word by word. I love the brutal honesty that we saw in Natalie and how she so bravely owned her fears and feelings despite the guilt they brought upon her shoulders.

 

“Guilt is intense. Suffocating. A brick, tied quietly around your ankles while you sleep. You never fall slowly into guilt-you wake up with little time to take your last breath before being pulled under.”

 

 

I think that a book like this comes along so very little that when I read it I literally could not review it until now. If I had reviewed this book right after I finished it I would have come off as insane. I was a mess and totally could not put together a decent review that would do this piece of wonderful words it’s  proper justice!

 

This was a love story, yes. It was SOOO much more than that though. It was a life story more than anything else. The raw emotions and grit that you will find in the pages of this book will stay with you and I assure even if you hate the book it will change you in one way or another.

 

Grab a load of damn tissues, have your choice of alcohol nearby and hold the fuck on because you are in for the most intense emotional rollercoaster ride you’ve ever taken when you read this book!

 

Andrea Randall this book pissed me off, chewed me up, spit me out, ripped my heart out of my chest, stomped on it then step by step put me all back together. You’re bravery to write such a raw and controversial topic has me applauding you, cheering for you and loving you even more!

 

That.Is.All

Buy it HERE on Amazon

Denton, Texas Author Event

1000 Likes Giveaway

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Music on My Mind

I'm a self-proclaimed YouTube addict and everytime I get on there I end up finding a new acoustic cover that I fall in love with. This is one of my favorite finds while perusing YouTube:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z72rLXTm878&list=FLvVjbJMVrCWlwBo2aW-j2uA

This is also one of my most favorite songs ever!

Poetry Contest Winners

The following are the winners of the poetry contest for "Jessica's Journal".

Winner:

Laura Hildago

Runners-Up:

Jocelyn Sanchez

Carmen Lake Stone

Denise Dunnahoo

The poems will not be released until the publication of the book.

I will be in touch with each of you soon. Each one of you will have your poem published in the book of poetry titled, "Jessica's Journal". The winner will also receive a t-shirt from Tito Ortiz and a free signed paperback of Therapy and Jessica's Journal. Runners-Up will receive signed paperbacks of Jessica's Journal when it releases. You will all be given full credit for your poems within the copyright page of the book as well.

Congratulations and thank you for your beautiful words!

I would also like to thank all of the other entries. I loved all of the poems and it was very difficult to make a decision.

Jessica's Journal Poetry Contest

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17182046-therapy

Write a poem about one of the following:

Bullying
Depression
Mental Illness
Love Lost
Death
Suicide
Friendship
Self-Harm (Cutting)
Loneliness
Overcoming Bullying
Healing
Therapy or Counseling
or a combination of any of the above....

Keep in mind that Jessica is bullied in high school by a mean girl group. She deals with depression, she is a cutter, she has no friends and escapes through her poetry.

Please submit all poems to writing_insomniac01@yahoo.com This contest will close on April 28th.

Winner will have their poem included in the published companion to THERAPY, will receive both paperbacks signed and will receive a free Punishment Athletics T-Shirt from UFC Hall of Fame Fighter Tito Ortiz!


GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!

K~

Haven From The Storm Review & Giveaway

"Keep in mind that even those who love you can unknowningly inflict pain when they themselves are hurting.” 

Sarah Dosher, Haven from the Storm

 

 

Most were asleep in their beds the night Lily Grace’s entire world was ripped apart, leaving only darkness and torment in its place. The only remaining person she depended on abandoned her without a second thought…or so that’s what Lily has believed for the past four years.

Dean Haven has returned for one reason—to win Lily’s love again. He’s already broken her heart because of the demons that haunt him. Can his desire for Lily keep him from succumbing to those demons again?

Dean has no idea what awaits him when he tries to fight his way back into Lily’s life. Everything he remembers has changed, including Lily.

Is love enough when you’re forced to weather the storms life has blown your way?

Lily is lost, alone and the one person she needed most left her at a very troublesome time. Dean Haven... oh Dean, Dean, Dean... After being away for 4 years he returns. But during those years Lily had to face an abusive father and she's not the same girl he left behind.

Trust has been lost and connections broken. Can they reconnect? Possibly find love again? That is the journey Mrs. Dosher takes us on. A journey of redemption, self-discovery and most of all forgiveness all wrapped up in a romantical love story.

We also walk in the shoes of a girl that deals with an abusive father. Her courage and determination to go on will move you and the pain she feels will sadden you. Lily's strength was wonderfully written by the author and I love strong female characters. So I was very pleased to see Lily be one of those great female characters that make me feel empowered as a woman. I rallied for Lily and when Dean was doing his best to help her I cheered him on. The author did a great job at balancing the darker subject matter with a lighter feel as well.

Dean Haven....... SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON worthy Dean Haven! That's all I will say about him. You'll have to read for yourself to see what I mean.

The secondary characters were also very well developed and brought a great deal to the story. I think anyone who loves a good book that has both elements of reality and fantasy would enjoy Haven From The Storm! This is definitely an author to keep an eye on!

Purchase your copy by clicking HERE

Like Sarah Dosher on FB HERE

Follow Sarah Dosher on Twitter HERE

Check out her website HERE

 

And don't forget to enter the AMAZEBALLS giveaway below...

 

 

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Back To Empty

Back to empty

Here's my cup

Fill it on up

Runneth it over

Just pour me something stronger than me

 

Don't want to feel this way any longer

Drown the me I can't allow anyone to see

Force it down

Swallow it all

Just pour me something stronger than me

 

It was enough

Once I could see

Carried to me

On waves

Of a cobalt blue sea

I exhaled

I saw

I felt

 

To me

Forever memories

To the blue sea

Already forgotten

Turning the key

Again locking it all away

I step back up

To the bar of life

Society and reality join me

Holding out my glass

I say...

Just pour me something stronger than me

Jessica~

From the novel "THERAPY" release May 2013