Power in the word

In my family, logic and rationality were cause for narrow eyed suspicion. If you didn’t agree with their latest conspiracy theory, you were clearly Working Against Them and not to be trusted.

Reality was fractured and underlying mental illnesses were left undiagnosed.

The fallout from this is still being felt and writing about it and sharing stories with others is an effective way to process it all.

Writing about mental health and researching its causes and symptoms is a way to not only make sense of these experiences, but also to find the art in the story. It is a way for me to take all of these disparate threads, these bizarre interactions and half-submerged memories and create something new.

There’s power in that.

My mother died almost 17 years ago, but my brother is still here. Physically, at least.

His brain is broken; the damage is as irreparable as it is heartbreaking.

I hope that through writing about growing up in an environment so far left-of-centre and of walking the tightrope between sanity and the black cavernous despair on the other side, I might be able to make some sense of it and to find a way to help him.