|
It's already 2 weeks into 2023. I'm not one to make New Year's Resolutions. I'm always a work-in-progress with short-term and longer-term projects to keep me busy. I haven't blogged on here for a while as I have mainly focused on vlogging but I want to move away from that. In this blog post, I will sum up some of the past year and also where I feel I'm headed. I don't make super long goals, as things are pretty unknown for me. I switch from one activity to another, all headed in the same general direction.  Softie, the hedgehog represents vulnerability
0 Comments
I am diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They affect my communication in speech and writing, which become disorganised and hard to follow. I write best in hypomania episodes (mood elevated but not full mania). When I am fully manic, my writing and speech become incoherent to others, because it is all loose associations, flight of ideas and symbolism. My mind races and my speech is fast (pressure of speech). Below is my handwriting, which changes in mood episodes. Large and messy when manic. The messiness is mainly because my mind goes fast. I write small when depressed.  Left: hypomania and trying to write nicely. Right: mania and unable to write neatly. to sell books, need to promote themI have self-published two books as e-book and print-on-demand formats, distributed by Amazon. One was a memoir under a pen name. The more recent one, my debut novel, was under my legal name. I didn't promote the memoir. Only a handful of people read it, whom I told it existed. It never was found under millions of books on Amazon. Let's face it, if no one knows about it, no one's going to buy it, are they? I 'unpublished it' and thought I had deleted the files, then recently recovered it. I am going to edit it, rename it Bipolar Cringe and republish it under my name with more context. 
I recently self-published my debut novel, Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice, about a character with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) navigating love and loss. I am currently running a free promotion of the e-book on Amazon. Today, it is currently #2 in biographical fiction and #19-20 in romantic erotica categories, listed in both in Top 100 Free Best Sellers. If it ever made it to #1, I didn't check, as rankings are updated every hour.
Below is Chapter 1 - No Rainbow Bridge from Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice by Xanthe Wyse. Pet Purpose is a pet-themed novel about a character with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from childhood sexual abuse trauma. Navigating love and loss, trying to make sense of suffering.  I finally published Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice. Sold a dozen copies online via Amazon from social media interest. Not a huge number, but got to start somewhere, right? Pet Purpose is a pet-themed semi-autobiographical novel with a character who is navigating love and loss with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). So a character who shares my diagnoses. I screenshot some initial reactions/responses from 3 readers giving feedback from Twitter. Even though they tweeted publicly, I cropped out their details:  Several times in my life, I have been told that I am 'too honest'. Lying makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. Over the past few years, I have been working on an semi-autobiographical fiction book called Pet Purpose. I see it as semi-autobiographical because it is telling my story in disguise. Originally, when I chose the title around five years ago, I intended to write memoir about my bond with pets. But more of life happened and the story has evolved into a story of courage as a young girl suffers trauma and loss, is later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and with her determination to survive, finally starts a healing journey many years later in adulthood. The story loosely reflects my own journey, but I have changed the story-line to protect myself and others, even those who have hurt me. Changing names wasn't enough. I made the decision to write fiction, to 'lie to tell the truth', to help ease flashbacks of PTSD. So that I didn't have to remember it 'exactly' and keep re-traumatising myself. So that I minimise upsetting people. So people can't say 'that's not really what happened' (because they won't know what really happened) and minimise my message. So that I could have some distance while I still tell a personal story. So that I could express my truth in a creative way.  Snowball by Xanthe Wyse It's usually hard for me to get up in the mornings. But today I had something to do. Yesterday I decided to purchase a domain name and I started setting up this website. Today I wanted to continue to get it up and running. Having some sense of meaningful purpose helps keep me going even though things are very challenging for me (unable yet to work full-time and live independently after two decades of being away from home). I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder, PTSD and social anxiety in my forties. Previously I was diagnosed with 'treatment resistant' depression and anxiety in my early twenties.  Sensitive Soul by Xanthe Wyse |
Xanthe WyseI am no longer blogging or vlogging as a mental health and disability advocate. The politics of it is too toxic for me. Archives
May 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed