I’ve never thought much about it, but maybe the fact that I attract few friends and develop mostly adversaries is a disadvantage in my life as a writer. Historically, I have used this kind of rejection and disinterest to increase my focus on the craft. At a certain point, I stopped trying to get others to like me. That’s right, I am not afraid to tell the readers or the people I counsel the truth.

Perhaps, the reason I have taken to writing in the first place is because I find the world, I inhabit to be full of blood-sucking vampires. In writing, I opt to craft a world in which I can convey, my bloodletting experiences in a likable manner. I always edited and edited to get the words right, but then found there was no one around to read my work.

Before I started learning how to market my writing, I developed a strategy to get noticed. I figured I would write a memoir that would be good enough to grab peoples’ attention. Then all those poetry years might get increased visibility. Then, I could use my status to write a book to change the way treatment providers work with psychosis.

Starting Out with A Memoir

I wrote the memoir about a two-year period when I believe I was a targeted individual. I went through this time without having much emotional support. I was labeled as psychotic and the people who were forced to help me out did so in a begrudging manner. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful to avoid homeless shelters, but supporters did not want to know about what I was going through and were mostly controlling and negative while I worked tirelessly.

I wrote the memoir to let them and the world know what it is like to have America’s secret-society-security-force taunting you. I wrote and rewrote for eight years. I got the thing good enough to earn a contract and got a lot of help with editing. Maybe editing is a privilege I don’t always have, but I like to think I used it to repeatedly improve my craft. I broke the contract because they wanted to misrepresent my political views. I got five-star reviews and several awards.

But alas, I didn’t have the friends, the know-how or the community to get the feedback I needed. Many friends accepted free books and did not read or review them. Some just started to be hostile and used my vulnerability and further marginalized me politically. Sales never took off. I have continued to feel just the way most people treat me, like I am obsolete.

What it is Like to Survive Without Friends:

So, I am forty-seven years old and have learned a great deal about how to survive without friends. I have come to accept this reality quite well. I am not ashamed to say it. But to survive and maintain my career despite a security force being against me, I had to learn how to overcome what I have come to term the “trickster” phenomenon.

When someone has power over me like a parent in a family, a boss in an administration, a teacher in a department, or a nurse on a treatment team, I may sense that they have a bone to pick with me. Then in informal or formal secret society meetings, I get this sense that they may spread negative words about me or my writing. I may sense this kind of gossip and even see it in the behavior of secret society members. If I see this happen and believe that the whole team has turned against me because of the one or two people who clearly have a bone to pick with me, it is possible that I might act to increase this phenomenon exponentially. Hurt and hostility can be sensed interpersonally. Control and humiliating abuse can be enhanced.

Defining Systemic Abuse as a Spiritual Trickster:

Thus, if I sense and disapprove of this kind of systemic abuse, I put out hostile energy that will ensure that the team will turn against me and amp up their efforts to control me. In the past, I have done things like move to the inner-city where no one knows me, move across the country to start over again, or lose touch with people who seem to tolerate me from these past lives. Running and starting over again is something I have done repeatedly in my life. That is the main reason I have no friends. Like Tom Waites says in a song, “You build it up; you break it down; And then you burn your mansions to the ground.” I have done this repeatedly throughout the various stages of my life. One doesn’t have to be a substance user or a musician to experience this phenomenon.

Carl Jung talked about the spiritual reality of the trickster archetype. A trickster is a spiritual figure in mythology that will lie and cheat to gain material advantage. Hence, I have learned to address all signs of control and systemic abuse as though they are spiritual tricksters. Instead of getting angry and running, I stay and focus on ignoring the trickster. Instead, I put out positive spiritual energy that will pray and hope that the sign of control is just a trickster.

In order to have a career and make a livable wage, I did have to get the security force off my back. I may still see signs of it; but doing so does little to interrupt me now. In other words, I did have to learn to disrupt this powerful trickster system that secret societies reinforce. When I see signs that people are holding me in a negative light and I believe that one or two people is misrepresenting me in a negative way, I face this negativity with positive prayerful energy instead of hostility. Then, those one or two people who are gossiping about me in their secret society won’t have success. The key is to see the persecution picture and prayerfully and spiritually disrupt that reality. Let them think you have been neutralized. Play the part! Punch with words!

Feeling Like I Keep Coming Out on the Losing End:

I must confess, that I have been losing this battle on several fronts in my life as of late. Last month, in my monthly report to my email followers, I admitted that I believed this was going on and I was upset about it. Admitting that people are against me is rarely a good idea when it comes putting out contrasting energy and prayers that people will not be against me. However, even in my highly scrutinized writing, I have done this.

As an author I often feel unsuccessful. I never feel like I have enough followers and likes. If the reader checks out my Facebook page, they may indeed see why I feel this way. And complaining about this even here probably doesn’t help.

Investing Money in a Prayer

However last month I paid for a consult regarding building my writing platform with a Canadian named Kimberly Grabas at: www.yourwriterplatform.com. This was my Christmas present to myself and Kimberly was quite generous with her time and advice. Turns out the hard work I was doing on my DIY website was just not up to industry standards. Nor was my brand,

Thus, I have had a less productive month in terms of output on my blog and spent a lot of time drafting my brand, breaking it down and turning it around. And I have hired a tech person in India named Partap to build me a wordpress.org website.

Starting over means admitting that I burned a great deal of time and money trying to do it myself. But I work and save money and over time this means I can invest in marketing over time. Even though having nice visual representation and a concise display of things like my values and mission feels counter to my belief in the value of my writing craft, I am putting my hopes and dreams in it. Maybe playing the game to get more followers will help my writing get the attention I feel it deserves. Really, it is about getting out from under the people who I believe are holding me down.

I chose to see it this way: in trying to get my brand right, I am prayerfully putting out the energy into the universe to counter the fact that I am surrounded by people who want to foil my efforts. I am putting out energy into the universe that the people with power over me who are gossiping in their contrived secret societies and trying to minimize and kill my work before it gets off the ground, will be disrupted.

In fact, I have been giving my power over to all the people who want to keep me down too much lately. My email list can become my community of support. I have built one up even with a DIY website. I am going to improve my newsletter efforts. Plus, I believe in my work and feel it is getting better, not worse. With a wider following I can get around the people who are holding me down, diminishing my work behind my back, and winning.

Writing for Freedom:

And the greatest part about it is that I still don’t need to have friends. I can be free to me my own free, cantankerous-ass self. Stay tuned, I will be releasing my new website branding schizophrenia into solvable components soon.

The post Turning Schizophrenia into a Brand: appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

Dear Tim,
We had a staggering 1,023 entries in the 2018 TopShelf Indie Book Awards, and your book Fighting for Freedom in America: Memoir of a “Schizophrenia” and Mainstream Cultural Delusions has been selected as a Finalist in the category of Autobiography/Biography!

Warm Regards,

Keith Katsikas
CEO & Publisher
TopShelf Magazine

The post Another Award, hope I’ll make it to the next level appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

Having returned from an east coast trip to attend the memorial of my stepfather, I am a little late with my monthly update. The trip back east was hard as my mother is currently suffering from her loss. I tried to spend time with her to offer her support, but may need to stay busy and our vastly differing interests made the week challenging for both of us.

Those who may have visited my blog may notice that I have only published one post this month. I have been working extensively on one essay that I am trying to prepare to get published. It is frustrating because I feel unproductive, but I have a need to master the essay and prove that I can publish.

When I wrote my memoir, I wrote extensively and edited the work down to make it more likeable. It was a learning process which I used to heal, and I really liked it. Now I am trying to learn to do the same thing with the essay—pack it all in for the short attention span. Make sure I get the title right.

But I am finding myself challenged when it comes to the process of getting published.  I usually write to live, not write to publish. I have read some blogs about the need to research publications and write specifically for them.

This puts me in a bit of a dilemma. It makes me realize that finding a place to publish my brand and mental health niche is a crap shoot. And suddenly I am getting pulled away from the reason I write in the first place, to be myself use my experience to grow wiser and heal and redeem myself.

The essay which I am sharing a sneak peek of in my newsletter is something that I am fretting over. It started as a 5000-word essay and I have cut and learned extensively. I find myself extremely frustrated that I must wait so long to even learn if I will get accepted. But I know I need to get my name out there to draw attention to my work.

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“Wow, I just took a shit and it was this big!” John Bulushi

I feel sorry for my English professor who wanted to put my essay up for an award! The glare I gave him and the lack of response: it was, at its best, very rude.

The fact is, I only learned it bothered him because my best friend who was fifteen years older than me got an invite to the professor’s house for dinner. My friend who had a lifetime of experience using and dealing drugs reported that the professor had called his cute, sleeping hound a beast repeatedly throughout the night and talked about how alcohol was his drug of choice while toasting his guest’s sobriety. However, my friend reported, when it came to me, the professor admitted that he just didn’t know what to say.

“I think I know what that kid’s problem is,” the professor had conceded.

I gave my favorite sociology professor the same look when he announced that my paper was one of the few 100% papers he’d ever given out.

Okay, so I am the sort who spends a lot of time trying to understand my own warped behavior. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I have taken to writing in the first place.

Ready to Break into the Social Media Market?

But, oh-me, oh-my, the sudden dilemmas of a writer like me who has squandered away his life, sitting on his work without sending it out to be published. What does it mean to suddenly be exposed to a social media market when you are just poking your head out after all these years?

Sure, I have a life-sustaining professional guise, but I have no kids, make no friends and tolerate no dinner parties. I have always worked more than full-time to stay out of the mental hospital and off the streets. I write to survive instead of dealing with my domestic responsibilities!

And suddenly I am looking out on a landscape that requires a blog and a brand. There is the implied presumption on the web that you have friends and loved ones who will become fans. Suddenly, I must make friends—lots of them—in order to sell them a book that took me seven years to write. Now I must write blogs that people want to read or there is no point. I wonder if write-to-live authors I love, like Salinger or Bukowski, would even be welcome anymore!

Voices Who Only Live-to-Write?

Maybe you’ve heard what I have: “most writers are voracious readers!” To me that sets up the expectation that writers are supposed to live to write! That’s what many of the publishing outlets want us to do. “Get to know our audience and then write for them,” they imply. Sometimes I wonder if the whole idea of journalism operates in this way. Outsiders go and learn about the lives of others, write, and so the public who has privilege can have their little tyrannical judgments validated.

My question: is when we live to write in this manner and then write to publish, what happens to the reality of the rest of us? How does the masses of stories that I hear at the urban psychiatric ward where I work become so invisible? How do the shootings in the inner-city pass on without being mourned by the mobs of traffic that siphon into the city to work?

I want to write-to-live. I want to extend my truth. I am a psychotherapist who works in the inner-city. Why can’t I write about that? In eeking out an existence, I want to strengthen what I experience and live a truer life.

Does the social media era support the practice of just telling people more of what they want to hear? Is it all only about reading the kinds of facts that make us feel good about ourselves?

Writing-to-Live:

When I think about how I discovered writing in high school. it was not about loving books and reading. I loved music, not books. I had no rhythm on the guitar, loved the words I was singing, and had to write a lot a lot of papers to graduate. Somehow, I tired of grading on people’s ears and found the art of word expression satisfying.

I particularly started to work on writing once I suspected that my mother who was on the faculty of our private school, outed all my inpatient antics to her faculty friends. When I finally got discharged from hospitals for male anorexia, it had seemed that news had spread like wildfire straight back to my bully peers. Now the truth about me was distorted, potentially distorted by my parents. Since this was my reality, I wrote creatively to own my life.

Writing became a reason to keep on living. I was at the word processor an awful lot.

I returned to school living at a friend’s house and now my greatest efforts did not even bring me the grades I wanted let alone the awards that I fantasized about. In fact my best essay was turned into the school psychologist and I was formally confronted. I saw it as them threatening to kick me out of school. I still sent the essay out to colleges. I got into some decent ones, but I didn’t want to enter more phony life where grapevines were lies. Instead, I would get together with an older woman and enter a commuter college in the inner-city.

It’s true, due to unrecognized ADD and dyslexia, teachers always found my spelling mistakes menacing. Perhaps they just presumed I wasn’t putting in the effort. Perhaps with my father as their manager and my mother as their reading specialist, no teacher ever knew what to do with me.

I did graduate cum laude, but I graduated believing the concept of grades was more political than based on merit. Research shows this to be a true presumption, but students aren’t supposed to think like that.

You to Go Fuck Yourself!

So clearly my biggest concern in attending college was to send almost all the people I knew the biggest, “fuck you,” I could muster. And, so, the fuck-the-awards, creative writer was born.

There I was three-years later at the kind of school that was not the type that drew out future academics or writers. The career development computer program I took recommended a career in law enforcement. I had too many neighborhood friends at the Korean Deli where I worked insulting the vice squad behind their backs to take the consideration very seriously. As per other students, most couldn’t relate to a clearly anorectic male who would go to no parties and drink no beer.

I’d lived in the library where I diligently outlined everything I read so I could pay attention to it.

I logged so many hours, reading just wasn’t something I was going to keep up with for fun. So much for being the voracious reader and writing about writings of others!

Supporting myself through a master’s program did not give me much time to read for pleasure either. I was faking my way through master’s level work on the social work job and remember looking at the full-time students who even had time to read the paper and thinking they were entitled. The locks to my car were broken and because I had no money or time to fix them, I just entered my car through the back and crawled my way up to the driver seat. I didn’t care what the full-time students said when they laughed and tried to insult me.

While I was, by no means the only one who worked my way through at the school I went to, I was the only one who entered my car in this manner. I missed graduation because I never did get the paperwork in on time.

So, when school was out, I was done with books. I returned to a creative poetry habit and kept my internal buzz alive; but couldn’t find anyone else’s work that I appreciated. I did occasionally frequent poetry readings; but couldn’t read my poetry without quivering.

“I think writing is good for you,” said my shrink of seven years when I brought up the issue, “but that’s it! You are always so disappointed when you share your work, I think there is no need for that.”

I often found my obsessive re-writing hard to stop.

Consider the Reader?

I know people are supposed to be humble about themselves and not bore the reader with irrelevant info. But I write to live. I write to share the truth about other people who are condemned and lied on. I started with an award-winning memoir; but blogging to get recognized in social media markets is a different pickle.

So, I am faced with the same questions we all face. Do I join writer’s groups and start sharing my work and getting feedback, so I can swap likes on Facebook to look popular and loved? Do I spend hours playing with social media, so others will read your posts? Do I start making friends with people who went to school at elite universities and have large twitter following so you can access their readers? Is this even possible when the very reason I write is because people have always rejected me! Is there really time for any of this when you work and commit to ten hours of writing a week.

So, here I am writing another essay for an audience of people who I don’t even know to be out there for sure on social media.

I’ll keep giving myself assignments to try to get published somewhere besides just my blog. I think an audience of working people exists out there, who might respond to my efforts to relate the things I observe. I spend my time living and that’s what I write about. But I guess I can keep going with my write-to-live attitude on social media till I find people who can relate. Nobody’s stopping me.

The post A Write-to-Live Attitude! appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

I like to think that I could recommend writing to some other people who have been subjected to a diagnostic labeling process that diminishes their hopes and potential. Indeed as emotional tension pulses through my back and appendages, I have found few other outlets that are there for me like the mixing and mastering letters.

Sure, I have been sent to a shrink for being who I am. Sure, I have been buried in institutions at different points of my life. Indeed life on that trajectory has filled me with loss and lack. But when I’ve found myself incarcerated immobile, I’ve been blessed to find value in defining it. Initially as a teen, I found  appreciating expressive words through music got me started. The more I switched from song to verse to story, I found the problem-solving that takes place in the editing process satisfying. Indeed for me there are few other outlets that rival writing in terms of learning about life and wellness.

Sure, I say these things when I am out of the hoopla. It’s true at age forty-five I am finding those years of long hour survival days to be decreasing.  Sure, I found that secure job as a mental health therapist. Sure, I have at times been forced to depend on other outlets at times. But perhaps there are some others like me who will find that they still need to get back to the page to address some of those things running through their mind. Maybe some others might feel they can do something about all the shit they see stirring throughout this bogged-down world that can further healing.

Generally, I am committed to a structure of writing at least ten hours per week on the weekend. Maybe I am finding myself advocating for writing for mental health because I have always done it. Maybe I advocate because I believe writing has gone a long way to helping me understand things I suffer from: like schizophrenia, autism and trauma. Maybe I advocate because writing has done more for me than decades of discouraging therapy.

It’s true, I am isolated. It’s true, sitting for hours on end isn’t good for my back. It’s true that as a writer who has only worked on building a following only for two years, I need to remind myself that what I am doing is good for me. It’s true there are many days when I feel like nobody is going to bother to read what I have spent hours puzzling over.

But many of us might need to express their creative muse on a page rather than mingling with people who are only going to carve them up. Perhaps others will find that writing mitigates the damage of life’s bumps. Indeed, maybe writing can give them that sense of justice that allows them to be there for other people in a way that is wise and heart felt.

These days as I worry about the potential repeal of Obamacare. I think about the years I have put into fighting the system from within and how they might get taken from me with the wave of a powerful pen. To me it feels like just when the funding is settling in so that we can evolve into a system that can fluidly address the mental health needs of the community, we could lose big time.

That’s why I am considering starting a writing project on the unit where I work to celebrate what could so easily be lost. I say this, thinking that a writing habit can really augment wellness for others as it has for me.

On a regular basis, I listen to the most amazing stories of repression that are hidden from the mainstream. I think we have got to do something to get them out there, even if they are not going to make it in the mainstream media because they are real.

So the following are six basic considerations that I might put forth to encourage others to use writing as an artful outlet for wellness. Of course I know that the suggestions that follow will not suit every writer, but it is my hope that they may help motivate some. At least these are things I tell myself to keep myself going.

One, write originally to get real things out of your system and feel better. I find this prevents me from getting writer’s block and helps me feel grounded about the world’s rocky and shit-stained terrain. Just get it down on the page even if it is imperfect. Writing for me isn’t always about the natural rhythm of true inspiration. Yes, there are times I get tired and need to get away from what I am doing.  But I also often presume that when I am struggling that it is for a valid reason and that I can learn about it through muddling through. If a writer has that warm belief that they have something worth getting at, make the time for it. Have faith.

Two, be authentic, honest, and play with words. Don’t be embarrassed over the silliness of your initial quandary. Be humble enough to show yourself as an ass. Remember, writing is a learning process and the reader will appreciate the growth you show during the process of your work. And it doesn’t hurt to take enough time to bumble around with description. If you are a geek, like me, and have fun bumbling around, don’t be shy. Let the shit rip. You can always go back and make it concise and to the point later. Let this satisfy your need for socialization temporarily.

Three, use multiple drafts, learn to solve problems. Personally, I have learned to embrace the fact that I don’t like reading because if god wanted me to be that way he would have given me better attention so that I could appreciate it better. Instead, I learn by going back over my own thoughts, exploring my soul, and trying to shave down my blither to some form of truth that I can take forward. There is plenty of learning that comes from reviewing material and even if no one reads it, it just may help center you and direct your life in a healthy manner

Four, maintain empathy for people who have hurt you, using your writing to help them as well. Half the time I am motivated to write because I am a schizophrenic and can’t believe how hurt I have been. But I know myself well enough to know that  good writing isn’t a simple process of revenge or complaining. My own need to unveil my pain puts me at risk of slandering others and doing this only makes me look like a hypocrite. People ultimately don’t want to read one-sided snark. Indeed this may not promote health and wellness. I’d argue that if a reader can see this in my work, it means I haven’t given the piece enough time and gone back and through it enough to heal. In my opinion, writing for mental health helps promote peace and having empathy for people who have hurt you and the humility of acknowledging this is part of the purpose of writing.

Five, use your own experience to address wider social ills. While what I’ve said above is important, I do believe that if I am careful with my expression that I can address social ills in my writing. Recently I have learned about the curse of Allah which is about vexing someone who you believe might be guilty of hurting you. What I have learned is that if you are wrong and the person isn’t hurting you in the way you imagine they are, they will not be affected by the curse and spiritually speaking out in a broad way about the issue will not come back on you in a vengeful way. I recognize that maintaining this spiritual principle is a way I can take care of my hurts in my writing. At least I know that multitudes of others have dealt with this for millenniums before me.

Six, write to celebrate survival. Both writing and surviving the shit clouds that can follow you around in life can put in your path is about being grateful for existence and the journey. I believe that if you keep this in mind that enough people will appreciate what you put forth. It’s possible that others will even relate to what you’re going through. Now that’s something to appreciate!

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