therapeutic writing

I'm having fun with writing. I've recorded the first 50 pages, roughly 20,000 words in voice files, and have gotten reviews from friends like "Spell binding", "I keep thinking about it", "Best argument for having children yet" and so on...

I think this is going to be a masterpiece by the time I'm done, but then I probably will never be done with this story.

Listening to the story also helps me to know where I need to sharpen my focus, areas that are out of chronology, etc. My challenging part is going to be getting through the next hundred pages. They are in rough shape. They are mostly made up of the journals from the time I was not well. It is so hard to weave them into a narrative arc. In some ways it takes more effort than starting from scratch to start with journals. It is easier to start with memories and weave them into the story.

I am dating again, and feel the need to share my story when intimate, my friends tell me it is brave of me, but I don't want to keep my condition a secret. It is too stressful to hide it. Felt sad that I don't think it will work with a very attractive young man, but my friends tell me he wasn't really a promising candidate to begin with. They think I deserve more than he was wanting. But I liked him.

Sunny

I feel sad today. I looked at The Physician's twitter feed, and whenever I do this I feel this intense loss of hope. My hope that someday he'll love me, has guided me through some fearful times. To realize that I must be deluded, and that my perception that someone hacked my computer in 2011 and coerced me to leave my husband by setting a lamp on fire in my house... well, you tell me. sounds crazy, right? It hurts to force myself to confront the reality that the Physician doesn't love me. My biggest problem is that the hope that he loves me, it saved me so many times from fear and terror that I'm not sure I want to let it go.

Sunny

Sunnyg, do you post any of your story online? ie. blog or online journal? I would be very interested in reading and learning from it.

Hi Ninja Star,
Thanks for asking:) I haven't posted a blog before on here, usually I just post to these forum threads. But maybe I will start a blog. I'm always writing stuff. Since I became a mod, I started posting more in the moderator's forum, because it is somewhat restricted, and I was afraid of privacy issues.
Sunny

Ok, I'm blogging now:)

Sunnyg wrote:Ok, I'm blogging now:)

I've never blogged, but I have kept a journal throughout the years - and over the last year or so I've been typing many of my experiences out with the intention of writing a book. However, now I have the problem of deciding whether my book should be about (1) my career success, or (2) the resulting psychological/neurological aftermath of this career. Perhaps I will write everything and anything and turn it into two different books.

Unfortunately, this is not the only problem I foresee myself having. The other question of how these books will affect my future career lingers. Say they become best sellers. Maybe the first book will boost my reputation and help me start a whole new successful career. But if I go with the second one (which I am far more passionate about writing than the first) I am sure to be labeled something I wish not to be. What to do... I want my story heard, but what about the repercussions of making private things public?

BTW... if you don't mind me asking, what is the link to your blog? Unless, of course, you want it to remain private I completely understand.

Hi NinjaStar,

Here is the link = blog/Sunnyg/

I support everyone working on their book as a way to heal, and if you finish it and believe it is a story you want to share, it helps others to know there are other people coping and going through what we've been through. Coming out on the other side of psychosis and getting back your life, is not an easy feat. We should be celebrating everyone's success when they are able to tell their story in a way they feel good about. It takes many versions to get to this point! I found writing from my journals was harder work than taking my memories- like the book shimmering images describes- and writing them fresh from the point in my life I am at now.

Several great books are out there on writing memoir, and there are lots of online workshops, if you want to know my personal recommendation for writing courses feel free to PM and I will share details to online writing courses I've enjoyed. I hired a creative book development company to help coach me through the writing journey. I wanted to write the story well, and my friends and family thought I needed professional editorial feedback, so I invested thousands in my writing, but you don't have to do it that way. I first got sick in 2005, but didn't start writing the story until 2008. It has taken 5 years of most of my free time to develop the first 200 pages. I still am working on the final chapter... Recovery, and mostly sharing what strategies work for me to deal and cope on a daily basis.

Books:
The essential guide to getting your book published. Eckstut; Sterry
Shimmering Images. Lisa Dale Norton

And there are many many more that are great!

I agree about the fear of publishing. I don't work in psychology, so I'm not sure it is in my professional best interest to disclose to the world, but maybe best case scenario it would have no impact on my career. In addition to concern about work, I worry about the impact on my daughter. She is nearing adolescence. I have no idea what reading my story would do to her. For me, the happy ending is divorcing her father, a source of great dissatisfaction, and unhappiness for me after I got sick. He never treated me the same. I was living like a second class citizen, I hurt his ego. Falling in love with The Physician, wounded my ex's ego, as a narcissist, he never again treated me like a human being again. He said he was trying to be civil, but it was the pits living with his demeaning behavior. I would have gotten sick without my ex in my life, probably, but it would have been different if I hadn't been so isolated and alone during my most vulnerable time.

Best delusion of my life, the one where I thought I was being coerced and needed out of the relationship, or else... (this was when the lamp caught on fire in our bedroom during sex). The lamp sparked and blew smoke, the cord got stuck between the iron bed frame and the hardwood... it was the last time I tried having sex with him, after that failed attempt at sex the bond broke, and I made him move out. I had stopped taking medication under my psychiatrists' supervision, but we put me right back on when I broke out in hives and lost my mental health when I kicked my ex out. I took a week off from work to go back on the medication, the hives went away, and I got better, unless I forget to take my atypical anti-psychotics for 3-5 days, then symptoms return.
Sunny

80,000 words (and over 200 pages) later, I feel done writing the book. Now my problem is that I can't publish the story without destroying my career. That is the problem with a story that involves human sexuality (a birthgasm followed by erotomania). It makes everyone uncomfortable. At least I have a well written story that I can live with. Putting the narrative on paper allowed me to own all the broken pieces of my delusional disorder without trying the impossible of being deluded and trying to solve the puzzle. I mapped out all the environmental risks and potential influences that contributed to my developing this psychotic illness. In a sort of a personal journey to understand and make sense of the genetic and environmental factors that triggered my illness, I did it. I wrote a book! What do I do now?

Sunny

I decided to fictionalize my story so I have control over the ending:) So excited to be writing it as fiction.

hey

i just read this whole thing and i think its great you wrote a book...awesome. im a writer too
so i know the feel
well done