Category Archives: Mental Health

Good morning, Good Evening or Goodnight?

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I’m writing this as I put a self-imposed ban on social media. I have deactivated my IG, Threads, and TikTok to get my head right. I have contemplated quitting writing over the last month, but I sold a book recently, and my thriller, Disunion By Force, is selling well.

I needed time to get my head right. It’s been in a bad place, and while I like sharing my journey with my mental health, it appears that my family doesn’t like seeing me struggle. I haven’t posted my usual content. I have been writing reviews. I’ve enjoyed the distraction of writing reviews for the last year. I’ve read some fantastic books. I got most of them through NetGalley.

I am going to start submitting short stories again. I feel I’ve fallen off somehow, and short stories are a way for me to get my head back in writing. I have three books left to review for my NetGalley account. After I finish the books I have, I’ll be taking a break from doing reviews for a while.

I’ll be cleaning up 30-40 short stories for submission. Each is a horror story and fits into various subgenres.

I’m taking time for myself, which will exclude social media for a while.

I am playing World of Warcraft: The War Within with my wife. It’s a great expansion, and we’re both enjoying it. I’m currently reading Nobody’s Hero by M.W. Craven. It comes out in December and is one of the books I received on Netgalley.

I’m not really watching anything. I will be seeing Terrifier 3 in a couple of weeks. I saw Beetlejuice this past weekend for my youngest’s birthday. It was fun—not great, but fun. She really enjoyed it, and it was nice to spend time with my wife and kids.

My job at the bar has changed a bit. It was bought in July, and they’ve made some significant changes. The food is better, and the menu is more manageable. It’s a lot cleaner than before.

I work four shifts now. I only worked once every week before. It’s been slow as some of our regulars change as the bar changes. That’s fine. People change in every aspect of the life of a business.

I’m ready to get back to work on the page.

The days grow

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There are moments in my writing where the days grow wider. The wind blows outside. There are times when I see things more clearly than others, and then, there are times like now.

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve written anything decent. Reading Tim Waggoner’s book lit some sort of fire, though it may have been a combination of several things.

I did a ghost hunt at Mercur Cemetery with the Utah Chapter of the HWA this past Friday. I got some great pictures of a sunset. That night has been with me since. I think about how old it is. The Town of Mercur went away in the early 1900s. After two fires and the closure of a mine, it fell apart. This happened to many towns around the same time.

The cemetery sits on a hill overlooking the valley below, but there was something about that night. Something about the sounds. The feelings, and then there was how I felt and my youngest felt. I’ve always been sensitive to places like that. It was their first time at a place like that. They did not enjoy it. It was overwhelming to them.

I’ve talked to them about it since. They’re getting better. But the atmosphere of that place is different. The air shifts when you walk up the hill to it. It’s subtle, but they and I noticed it.

I’ll be using that trip to work. It’s the least I can do. I may post pictures from it. I got some great ones. It was the uncomfortableness of it. It wasn’t the dark, but the sounds. The chittering in the dark. It has stuck with me.

Getting back to normal

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I found myself straying away from the point of this blog. It was meant to help me deal with the world around me. I know why it went sideways. I was chasing my writing. I should have let it develop on its own.

I used to talk about depression, dealing with it, and trying to escape it.

I have a book coming out in October. It was challenging to write. Here’s where I get a bit personal. With the healthcare system in the United States, I should have seen someone about a specific situation. I had a severe mental break ten years ago. During and after that break, I dealt with delusions. I would hear things, see things, and for most of those years, believe untrue things. I used what I dealt with to write the book coming out in October.

I didn’t seek professional help because I worried it would impact my wife’s and my health insurance. We had great health insurance in Las Vegas, but sadly, we’re using my wife’s now. It’s not as good as what he had in Las Vegas. But no health insurance is decent when it comes to mental health.

Gerald’s journey in ‘The End Is All I Can See’ is similar to mine. He has dealt with other issues, but writing the book was cathartic. I found myself diving into my head, seeing the world through those lenses. I haven’t been diagnosed with what Gerald deals with, but the signs point to it. My delusion was something like the Truman Show. I completely believed the delusion. It wasn’t until I said something to my wife that we sat down and discussed it. It continues to raise its head. It’s usually when I’m stressed or worried about how I’m perceived. This perception led me to believe in the delusion. There are times I’ve wished for it to be real. This plays into the delusion. With my writing, it’s an ever-present thought. If the delusion were absolute, someone would care about what I do. Someone would care about my writing. It’s all any of us want. For someone to care about us. This makes my depression worse. I constantly worry I’ll head down the road on this delusion and have a psychotic break. This is my greatest fear with the delusion.

I would like the delusion to stop. I have weeks where it’s not there. Then it pops up again.

I think it started a few weeks before my mental break. I’d taken a pill for something. A few hours later, I heard a woman screaming for help. I ran around our house and outside, looking for her. My wife was worried as hell. A woman, completely naked, her skin all bloody as if she were pulled from a Clive Barker story, stood outside our closet. I didn’t say anything to my wife about the woman. I knew how mad it sounded. I knew how absolutely ridiculous the idea of the woman being there was, but I saw her.

I haven’t seen her since, but it’s something that has stayed in my head.

I had to get that out. I hope you’ll read the book when it comes out.

Down to the last thing

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Last week I wrote a couple of reviews here. I’m going to be only on here.

I tried the Substack thing. It’s just like being on here, but there are fewer readers. I had almost zero engagement on there. Twitter is the same way. I’ll probably leave there soon.

I’m considering leaving every social media I have except for this one. Substack is a blog. You can dress it up and add fancy things, but it’s still a blog. It’s why I deleted my account yesterday.

I can devote time to writing or social media, not both. I know SM is supposed to help me gain readers. I understand that, but I’m at the point where I’d rather write and publish what I want. It could be the next Jax Reed novel, a horror collection/novella/novel, or something else.

Jax’s book came out almost a year ago, and I haven’t written his next book. I know what it’s about. I have an outline. I’ve been worrying so much about finding connections on SM that I didn’t write it. I’ve written a lot of horror stories. Those will be coming out later this year and early 2024. I’ve created the covers for them. This is for the novella coming in October/November.

It’s been through a bunch of rewrites and revisions. I’ll be inputting those this week. I should have it up for preorder in early August. I’ll post here when that happens. I’ll have the other covers up soon, but the edits aren’t done for those yet.

You’ll be seeing more of me in the future. This is the only place I’ll write.

Brian

What I’m Afraid Of.

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I’ve had this topic on my mind for the last couple of weeks. I think about it while I’m alone in my car, in the shower, and when I’m playing video games.

My parents divorced when I was in third grade. I’ve worried about this since the birth of my son. While we’ve had our ups and downs, our ups are strong right now.

I entered boot camp almost thirty years ago and when it got to it, I was scared. I was afraid of starting my life and doing all of the details of it. I got an honorable discharge for my bad eyes a few days after arriving at boot. I was thankful at the time, but also worried what my family would say. That is one thing in my life I would change. I’ve worked to overcome it but it’s always there.

The others are a relationship with my son and daughter. I don’t have one with my biological father and I don’t want that for my kids. I work hard to make amends with them for my past failings.

My other fear is that I’m wasting my time with my writing and that I should spend more time helping my wife financially. This is a bigger one since I haven’t worked an event in almost three months. If you know of a bar in Utah that’s hiring bartenders I have 24 years experience.

There is also the fear of spending too much time doing other things, gaming, reading…etc, and that is impacting my writing career. This is the one at forefront lately. I enjoy playing video games with my wife but I wonder if I spend more time doing that than I should.

The fear of falling off the wagon is big one too. I’ve worked hard for my sobriety. It’s one of my biggest accomplishments. I know it’s there waiting to take control. That’s the way it is as an alcoholic.

I’m sure other fears escape me, but these are on my mind daily. It’s one of the reasons I’m on antidepressant and anti-anxiety medication.

I come to this blog three days a week to talk about my issues. I’m sure it’s hard to read for some people but honesty has been at the forefront of my life for years. I attribute this to the reasons I no longer have a relationship with my biological father.

But enough of me. Have a good couple of days and I’ll see you back here on Friday, same bat time, same bat channel.