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Use the Fear, or: Why I Write

Stories have been an integral part of my life since I was in the womb. They’ve been my

nourishment, my comfort, my pass time, and my escape. The first story I remember was my

mother reading You Are Special by Max Lucado to me. Night after night she showered me with

words of affirmation wrapped up in pretty pink ribbons.

“You are special,” she told me.

“You are a miracle child!”

For a long time, I believed her. After all, we had both nearly died when she gave birth to

me prematurely due to pregnancy complications. In fact, she had been considered infertile for

years by a number of doctors. Eventually, she did conceive, but when the time came, she could

not give birth naturally. When faced with the possibility that she might die I might survive if she

had a caesarian section, she didn’t hesitate.

We both lived and I grew up a happy, healthy child. All the while, she continued to tell

me that I was special, a miracle, destined for something. Yet, the older I grew the more the words

went through me, no matter how much she meant them.

Many signs in my early days indicated that I would tell stories to some capacity. I loved

to write, sing, act, dance, and draw. Some things never change. Even before I could put pen to

paper and make meaning out of symbols, I dictated my story ideas to whatever family member

happened to be in close proximity at the time. I also put on plays in the living room and back

yard and roped my family and friends into starring in them. A particularly memorable production

featured me as the writer, director, producer, and star of my own adaptation of The Wizard of Oz

(naturally, I was Dorothy). I assigned the main roles to select members of my big, Italian family,

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and everyone else was demoted to munchkin status. Anyone who has met my aunt would justify

my decision to cast her as the Wicked Witch of the West (a role she played with gusto, I might

add).

Once I had acquired the magical skill of literacy, I spent those formative years writing in

notebooks and on little scraps of paper around the house. The house would be covered in little

sticky notes which, to the unassuming, were little more than the ramblings of an overactive

imagination.

“You better not be writing about us,” my family often said.

“Don’t worry. I’m not,” would be my only reply before I returned to furiously scribbling

away (sometimes about them, sometimes not).

Long before I was familiar with the concept of fanfiction, I was writing continuations of

my favorite stories, including sequels, prequels, and retellings. Being a homeschooled only child,

it’s safe to say I had a lot of time on my hands. When I felt lonely, when I was bullied, when I

was harassed, when I was questioning my life, my faith, and my body, I was still able to turn to

stories. They were tourniquets for the open, oozing wounds.

During my sophomore year of high school, I experienced two turning points. Firstly, I

enrolled in my first-ever creative writing class. This course completely changed my perspective

on writing and introducing me to poetry and ways of analyzing it. My teacher stoked the embers

that had been burning beneath the surface. The fact that I am able to read my poetry from this era

and not cringe (for the most part) is a true testament to her influence on my creativity.

The second turning point occurred in December 2010. My mother’s health had taken a

noticeable turn for the worse and she had difficulty balancing. She would be walking down the

hall and suddenly collapse, unable to get up on her own. After several instances of this, we

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ignored her stubborn protestations and took her to the doctor. There we learned that she had a

cyst pressing against the upper part of her spinal cord, threatening her health and her ability to

walk. We were told that if she did not have surgery soon there was a strong possibility she would

never walk again. Thus, doctor’s scheduled her surgery for January 25, 2011.

During the week of my mom’s surgery, my 93-year-old great grandfather, who we

always affectionately called Papa Duke, was hospitalized, and it became increasingly apparent

that his eleventh hour was fast approaching. We weren’t able to be with him on his deathbed in

Hilton Head, as my mother was still in the hospital in Charlotte. To put the icing on the burnt

cake, my father’s friend and business partner collided with an eighteen-wheeler, breaking nearly

every bone in his body. My mother’s surgery was actually pushed back to make room for his.

Papa Duke passed away a few days later, on the anniversary of his wedding to my late great

grandmother Florence. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction at times.

Over the span of the months following these events, I closed myself off and opened the

floodgates of my imagination. I wrote numerous poems, devoured books, and poured myself into

creative pursuits.

And then nothing. Suddenly, I couldn’t read, write, watch my favorite TV show, listen to

music, or anything remotely creative. I had already experienced these feelings of numbness

before. This too would pass. However, months went by and still I did not lift a pen except to

begrudgingly write term papers or sign my name on tests. These periods would come and go

with waves of inspiration in between to wash away the numbness.

These vicious mood swings only increased once I started college. I initially majored in

Music, with an emphasis in vocal performance. I could have gone the practical route and

majored in nursing, business, or psychology, but at some point along the line I embraced the

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starving artist path and haven’t looked back since.

Within the first few weeks, depression hit me like a tidal wave. I wasn’t eating or

sleeping properly, my weight fluctuated up and down. I became increasingly lethargic. Nothing

interested me. After a full semester at Gardner-Webb, I had no friends and no sense of

belonging. People who knew me that year would testify that I was a completely different person

then, a shell of a girl drifting around campus like a ghost.

I reached the breaking point one day while sitting in my University 101 class. I couldn’t

tell you what the lecture was on, or if there was anything that provoked me, but suddenly silent

tears started streaming down my face. I was shaking. I was going to be sick.

My professor noticed my wet cheeks and mouthed, “What’s wrong?” so as not to draw

attention to me. She needn’t have bothered. I started hyperventilating and broke into hysterical

sobs. I quickly retreated from the classroom and did what any girl would do in such a situation: I

locked myself in a bathroom stall until I had exhausted my tears.

After this humiliating episode, I tearfully called my mother.

“I’m miserable here. I think about ending it all every day. I just want to stop.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“I’m sorry,” my mother’s tear-choked voice replied.

“What is there to say? It’s not your fault. I just want to go back and change everything. I

wish I hadn’t come here. I wish I was somewhere else. Someone else.”

“I love you. You know that.”

“Yes, I know. You’ve always said that, but it’s not enough. I’m sorry.”

“It should be. I thought I had told you how much I love you, how much you mean to me,

how special you are.”

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“That’s just it. All my life, you’ve told me I’m special.”

In that moment, I realized that I had never believed her, not truly. At college, away from

my mother, my rock, it became increasingly apparent just how ordinary I was. How incomplete I

felt.

“You are special. You are loved. You will get through this.”

Her words repeated in my head, a hollow mantra. A collection of sounds without

meaning.

Later that week I received an email from that same professor asking me to meet with me

one-on-one to talk about what had happened. She advised me to meet with a counselor and seek

help for my deteriorating physical and mental health. I started meeting with a counselor on

campus shortly thereafter, but it made no difference. In the end, I only met with her two or three

times.

I come from a long line of screwed-up individuals. I have a double dose of crazy.

Therefore, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone when I was diagnosed with clinical

depression and social anxiety at the age of 18, after a particularly rough first year of college.

Actually, it would be premature to say I was diagnosed. Rather, I recognized the symptoms, told

my doctor what I was experiencing, and the pill-popper prescribed 10 mg of the antidepressant

fluoxetine to me.

Now, this was hardly breaking news. Nearly 10% of the adult population in the United

States lives with depression. Melancholia flows in my bloodline. What made me so special? I’ll

tell you: nothing. I was just another grain of sand on the ever-expanding beach, longing to drown

in the vast expanse of the ocean and be swallowed by the current.

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I first contemplated the act of suicide when I was twelve years old. For the next nine

years of my life, I would dedicate a fair share of my time thinking about the macabre, lock

myself in my room and mind, and stare a little too long at sharp objects. I never picked them up,

though. If nothing else, I knew it would destroy my mother. She’d had a hard life already, and I

didn’t want to be any more of a burden than I already was. Just the revelation that this had

crossed my mind had shaken something inside her. The need to protect me, to prove that I was,

indeed, special.

In the midst of all this, the silver lining of my freshman year came in the form of

Composition 102, during a meeing with my professor.

I walked into his office to discuss a paper with him. His office never failed to fascinate

and amuse me, with its mix of Beat culture memorabilia and Japanese decorum. His passion for

Kerouac’s On the Road, made evident by the dozens of editions in multiple languages lining his

shelves, ignited a spark in me even as it baffled me. I had forgotten what it was like to have that

kind of passion for something, and I became acutely aware of that vacant space in my spirit.

Then he told me exactly what I needed to hear, the words I had been craving for so long:

“You write well. You have good taste. You’re creative and talented.”

I didn’t tell him what was happening in my life, nor did I say what was on my mind. We

just talked about the class and the paper I’d written. Yet, without him knowing it, his words had

reassured me of something, though I didn’t yet know what. I was no longer so afraid of writing.

It wasn’t just that he had praised me for something, it was that he had reminded me of that secret

part of myself that my depression had locked up and kept prisoner. While there was no overnight

transformation, no Hollywood epiphany complete with a montage of me writing vigorously at

my desk, the seeds had been planted.

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After my mental breakdown that first year of college, I knew it was time to make some

changes. I spent the next year losing weight, dyeing my hair various shades of red, and changing

my major. I eventually settled on English. I started reading for pleasure again, a hobby I had not

engaged in for several years, and re-acquainted myself with the art of language. I won’t say the

English department was a magic balm that soothed my soul, but my life certainly changed for the

better.

I realized that I had become afraid of writing, that I was terrified of being vulnerable. I

had been in that position before, and I had closed myself off to the point where my skin was steel

and I appeared cold and distant. I hadn’t allowed myself to cry for so long that tears, when the

dam finally broke, tasted strange on my tongue. Writing meant putting that vulnerability on

display, revealing an intimate part of myself to the reader, whether that be one person or one

million. I’d subdued that side of myself for so long that I was rusty hinge, the words stale and

strange-sounding. All the same, I took up my pen as a weapon, and started writing again. It

wasn’t exactly good, but it was progress.

It is difficult to describe how my depression has influenced my writing, but the two are so

inextricably linked at this point that I feel I can’t talk about one without the other. Sometimes the

words ring clearly, and other times they get lost in the noise. On some days, a burst of inspiration

pricks me and I bleed out on the page. On some days, I bleed inwardly. And on other days, my

mind is silence. And noise. And silence.

There are times, during my doubts of depression, I try to read and stare at the page of a

book, the same sentence or two, for several minutes at a time. My favorite song no longer

reaches my core, the notes hollow in my skull. Words pass through me like wind rustling trees, a

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momentary reaction and then nothingness. These periods can go on for days at a time. Words

become a dull method of getting from point a to point b.

This is why I write. To break the deafening silence. To grow a thicker skin. To reveal

parts of myself I had previously refused to explore. I have been criticized for my writing, more

or less told it is a waste of my time, but such experiences only make me want to write more, even

when I have to physically force myself to do so. Writing is my way of fighting the depression

and anxiety. My way of telling myself, yes, I am special, thank you very much. Like any battle, I

fight a little every day. I absorb the words of others, evidence of their own battles, and I am

strengthened. I write to remind myself that I am greater than my scars and marked up pages. I

write because it helps me to be a little less self-centered. And I write because I hope I can do

something, no matter how small, to help others, and maybe even help myself along the way.