Getting Back Up

            My new short story ebook is now available on Amazon! US link and UK link. It's the follow up to We All Fall Down. Please give it a read and let me know what you think. It's free on Kindle Unlimited.

July 2020

            Well, it's July. The weather here is grey and rainy and generally rubbish. Social media has been getting me down lately. So, I've been staying away from it, for the most part. I've been working hard on the follow up to We All Fall Down. It's done now, and ready to publish, I'm just dithering about the cover artwork. Hopefully I'll come up with something soon. Expect the ebook to be available within the next week. 

            The feedback on We All Fall Down has been really great. I want to thank everyone who took the time out to read it, chat with me about it, and/or leave a review. You've warmed my cold little heart and lit a fire under me. I really hope you all enjoy the rest of Maggie's story.

            So, July. July is usually my favourite month. My biggest kid is usually here visiting and the little ones are usually in school, so we have lots of time alone together to catch up. Obviously the 'Rona has screwed that all up royally. My younger ones are home, my biggest one is thousands of miles away. Not an ideal state of affairs, but so it goes. Things could be much, much worse, and I'm grateful for how little this pandemic has effected my life so far. I hope you're all keeping well and staying safe. 

             

June showers

    Well, we've just ordered the first paperback copy of my short story, so that's exciting. I've been sticking to my 1000 word minimum for 3 days so far, so my next story is coming along nicely. McDonald's is open again and delivering, so Friday night dinner is sorted. If the sun would just make an appearance, things would be perfect.

    Perfection would be boring, though, let's face it. Nobody really wants that.

    So I've been listening to lots of music lately. Always a good sign when I can enjoy music without getting delusional. My painting supplies won't be getting here until July, so I had to do a coloured pencil sketch for my book cover. I'm still planning on painting this concept when the paints come in, with a few little tweaks. 

    That's really all the news I have to share at the moment. Hope you're all doing well out there. Buy my ebook on Amazon! We All Fall Down, by Shannon Humphreys. It's free on Kindle unlimited!

My eBook!

    So, I published a short story. It is available here in the US and there in the U.K. Please do give it a look!

Assorted Ramblings

      I've been tweaking a short story I'm hoping to self publish soon. I've also been sketching out ideas and waiting for the art supplies I ordered to arrive. 'I feel like I've come to a really functional place,' she says, sitting on her couch in her pyjamas at 1 in the afternoon. Lock down rules apply, of course.

     My definition of functional is my own, and my standards are not particularly high. We're fed, the sink is empty, the kids are occupied and here I am, busting out a blog post. It's not bad for a Monday. 

     I have to admit, I'm finding blogging a little hard right now. Part of it is that I'm throwing everything into this story. I'm a bit creatively drained when it comes to words and ideas. All my focus is in that direction, and focus is hard to come by in this brain of mine. In fact, here is an informal list of things I did today to avoid/delay writing this: washed dishes, started laundry, ate a (single serve!) cheesecake, listened to a podcast. Granted the dishes and laundry needed doing, but I waited until I sat down to try to write to do either of them. 

     The fact of the matter is that nothing I have to say feels important right now. There's covid-19, and America is well, it's all just a bit of a fucking mess right now. Blathering on about my mental state seems empty and pointless. But I promised myself I would post on a more consistent basis, so here we are. Me taking 3 hours to essentially say nothing in the hopes that someone will read it. At least the cheesecake was good.

     

A Break From The Usual

           Sketching and writing. That's what I've been up to this week. I ordered some painting supplies and a new journal. I can't wait to get started.
           I'm finding social media to be an anxiety minefield at the moment. The world is on fire, and I feel ill equipped to help put it out. So, instead, here is a list of  organisations you can donate to.

George Floyd Memorial Fund

Minnesota Freedom Fund

Reclaim The Block

National Bailout

Black Lives Matter

Bail Project

Black Visions Collective

Campaign Zero

National Bail Fund Network

The Innocent Project

Run With Maud

Justice For Breonna

Northstar Health Collective

           Here is a YouTube video you can watch (with ads, please) if you haven't got money to donate. It's filled with music and art and all the AdSense revenue from it is being donated, so watch it, share it, and watch it again. There are even links in the description to petitions to sign.

           To everyone out there protesting, stay safe. The world needs you.

The Quickening Continued, Continued

       I'm not good at titles, okay?

      Pittsburgh was an absolute shit show. My fiance grew a goatee while he was away and I took one look at him and wanted to go home. But, just like with everything else, I kept this to myself. My mom and stepdad unloaded my things and headed back. I was out on my "own" for the first time. For the purpose of the story, we will call my fiance Rat. It'll make things easier and believe me, he'll live up to the moniker.

      Anyway, Rat was in school full time, and had a job working in a hotel restaurant. He was out of the apartment a lot, so I had a lot of time on my own to deteriorate. I wandered from room to room, seeing signs in the woodwork and shadow people in the windows. I washed laundry in the tub and would wind up arguing with it, the voices emanating from the folds of wet clothes. I would light a cigarette and then forget to move until it burned down to my fingers and the heat woke me out of my catatonia. I would try to drown out the voices with music, but the hidden messages in the songs would drive me to tears. I was well and truly fucked and I knew it.

     There were hallucinations and delusions that stood out. The time Rat had a friend over and I locked myself in the bedroom and there were glowing blue penises all up the walls and on the ceiling. Or the local newscaster speaking directly to me, telling me how the signs I was seeing were important, if I could only crack the code. Or the time the voices demanded I throw up my dinner. But mostly it was just a bunch of noise and nonsense. The worst thing was never the hallucinations, or even the delusions. It was how my thoughts didn't quite match up, I couldn't think. Like a circle track with a link missing, my thoughts just couldn't complete themselves.

      One evening I was sobbing uncontrollably. I'm not sure what in particular set me off, but let's be honest, I had plenty to cry about. This was probably about 5 or 6 months into being in Pittsburgh. Rat started yelling at me. "Why are you crying?" I don't know how many times he asked, but I was sobbing so hard I couldn't have answered him even if I wanted to. Suddenly I was prone on the floor with his hands around my neck. "WHY ARE YOU CRYING?" I remember my entire body feeling like pins and needles. Then he was up and out of the room. 

      By this point Rat was blowing off classes. A few months later his father informed him he wouldn't be paying his tuition any longer, so we made plans to move back home. I was secretly relieved to be going. Surely something would change. 

      The night we arrived home friends were waiting for us. We partied, as was the custom. I completely lost touch with reality, and by the time my parents arrived the next day to help us unpack, there was no hiding the fact that I was absolutely off my head. My mother drove me to the ER and begged me to sign myself in. A nurse tried to speak with me, but I couldn't hear her. They begged Rat to tell them what I'd taken, but he wouldn't. One of his friends told the doctors that he thought I'd taken some acid (I had). A few hours passed and I could hear people talking to me again. I signed myself into a 72 hour voluntary hold. They found a bed for me at a hospital and off I went.

      They put me on antipsychotics the next day, and things started to even out. I spoke with the psychiatrist daily, told him my whole story as best as I could at the time. That's when I got my diagnosis, paranoid schizophrenia. I hear they don't type any longer, it's just schizophrenia or it isn't. But this was something like 25 years ago, so there you go. Anyway, dear reader, that's the story of how I got my diagnosis.