Blog Post #1

Hello and welcome to my first blog post. I want this to be a space where I talk about writing projects I’m working on, books I’m reading and my thoughts on them, and just life in general. 

My current reads are: 

1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by: Sarah Maas
2. Spare: Prince Harry
3. It’s Kind of a Funny Story: Ned Vizzina
4. Prozac Nation: Elizabeth Wurtzel

As far as writing goes, I finished my project, my book called Pill Bottle Romance last week, and am working on getting it published at the moment. It’s a lot of work contacting Agents and writing up tons of proposals but I’m working on it every morning.

My second project I’m working on is a series of essays documenting what life is like suffering from mental illness, and how it changes your life. This will just be a series of essays that are available for eBook, Kindle. Its working title at the moment is: Spiraling Inwards: Essays from the Mentally Ill.

These are the things I’m working on, and since I mentioned my essays about mental health, I wanted to take a moment to talk about a book I read while camping titled Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. This is a very short and easy read for anyone wanting to learn about how people with mental health issues actually spend their time while in inpatient. She talks about her journey with Borderline Personality Disorder, and discusses the other patients and their journeys. The book is more like stand alone stories or thoughts, whereas the movie (that does the book justice), has a more concrete story. 

One of my favorite parts of the book is when Susanna discusses her symptoms as a woman, and how professionals wouldn’t even blink if a man did these things. One of these symptoms is being “promiscuous”. She asks the question how many people do you have to sleep with to be considered promiscuous. Five? Ten? Whereas men could sleep with the same amount and wouldn’t be considered promiscuous.

Another part of the book she talks about is suicidal ideation and self harm. She talks about how one could harm themselves and stop or call 911. But there was another patient that was very kind and understanding to the other patients, and she had set herself on fire to kill herself. She seemed nice to everyone and understanding because you can’t take back putting gasoline on yourself and lighting yourself on fire. That was a whole other level. 

Overall it’s a good, and easy read. The book is 168 pages long, and can be read in less than a day. I would give it a 10/10, and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good memoir. 

Signing Off,

Fenisha Estes