I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. It all started way back when I was five or six years old. My grandmother, MaMa, was a high school educator. I spent a lot of time with her growing up and she used to always encourage my creative writing style. I was always good with my words going through school, but I stopped writing for fun when writing became something I had to do. I was burnout of writing from school. Research paper after research paper, it was just so much.
Then I was officially diagnosed bipolar. I had to find an outlet to get everything out, or I felt like I was going to go crazy. I started writing poetry, something I hadn’t really done before. The words flowed out of me. Whether it was sitting in the hallways outside my college class waiting for class to start or sitting in my car outside of work, I would write.
That was when I revitalized my love for writing. I started writing more and more poetry. I had a few ideas for stories that I wrote here and there over the next four years, but it was mainly poetry. It was a way for me to escape my mind and be set free from the darkness. It simply felt good to right.
Then the idea for (Not) Alone struck me. I’ll never forget it. I was living with my grandparents with my fiance while our house was being built. On my way home from work one day, I simply saw the title in my mind: (Not) Alone. Once I saw the title, I knew what the book was going to be about.
My passion for mental health skyrocketed, and I wanted to make a difference. I strove to help people realize they were truly not alone, no matter how hard it can be to see that sometimes. I wanted so badly to help people, so nobody had to feel the loneliness I felt for so long.
All this to say, I write for two reasons: to help me and to help other people. Writing for me is therapeutic, it gives me purpose and drive. It allows my restless mind to be put to work and not focus on the negatives. I write because I want to help people. I focus my writing on mental health awareness because it’s a topic that needs more attention. We need to understand how mental illness affects people’s lives.
I will always write. I will always write for myself and for other people.