Welcome to the Internet Book Fair Blogfest

I'm excited to participate in today's Internet Blogfest. Please click on the link and join in. Scroll down a bit to find a list of all the participants. I have three books to present today.

First, a little something about 

my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On

Leaving the Hall Light On is a mother's memoir of living with my son's bipolar disorder and surviving his suicide. Published by Lucky Press LLC, a small independent and wonderful press, it was released last May. so appropriately on Mother's Day.


I write about finding peace and balance after feeling so helpless and out of control during my son Paul's seven-year struggle with bipolar disorder and after his suicide in September 1999 and about the steps I took in living with the loss of my son, including making use of diversions to help ease my grief. 


Leaving the Hall Light On is also about the milestones I met toward living a full life without him: packing and giving away his clothes, demolishing and redoing the scene of his death, cataloging and packing away all his records and books, copying all of his original music compositions onto CDs, digitizing all of our family photos, and gutting his room and turning it into my office and sanctuary with a bay window that looks out toward a lush garden and a bubbling water fountain.
Please go to Amazon to read some of the amazing reviews the book has received and to purchase a copy. 

Second, White Elephants by Chynna Laird

I reviewed Chynna Laird's White Elephants for 100 Memoirs in August. It is a horendous story of growing up with an abusive, alcoholic and bipolar mother. There are many similarities in White Elephants to my story in  Leaving the Hall Light On, most notably, the author survives and moves on. Chynna now works toward erasing the stigma of mental illness by communicating and educating people about what mental illness is and how it affects individuals stricken by it and their families. Please go to 100 Memoirs to read my full review and to Amazon to purchase this wonderful memoir.

Third, String Bridge by Jessica Bell (just a peek)

Since I just started reading String Bridge I can't really review it yet. I just wanted you to know about it and how much I like it already. Jessica is a talented poet and novelist, plus she is a musician. She has produced a CD of her music that goes along with the release of her book. The book, also published by Lucky Press LLC, will be available on November 1. Look for my full review and an interview with Jessica on November 18. And, please visit Jessica's String Bridge website for more information.


Hopefully, I'll get to browse around the other websites that are displaying their books at today's Blogfest. Maybe some of us will even sell a few books. Good Luck, everyone.

My guest today is Chynna Laird

Meet Chynna Laird

Chynna was so gracious to host me during my WOW - Women on Writing blog tour last month, and as a result we realized we are both working toward the same goal - erasing the stigma of mental illness by communicating and educating people about what mental illness is and how it affects individuals stricken by it and their families. I'm so pleased to have met Chynna. I feel as if we are soul mates - certainly we are both survivors.

Chynna' mother had a severe mental disorder, resulting in a very difficult and abusive childhood, but in the end Chynna survived. Hers is truly a survival story. I am so pleased she has agreed to tell a bit of it here on my blog, Choices.

Defining Ourselves

by Chynna Laird

Earlier this month, I had the phenomenal opportunity to meet with the Director of a local charity that helps children who have been abused and/or victimized. I was so excited about this meeting because the Director and I have been in contact for years after I’d interviewed her for an article about the incredible work she and her team has done. Our initial conversation back then is actually what inspired me to finish my memoir, White Elephants. And our recent meeting was the first time we’d met face-to-face.

Being able to finally meet her, and getting to tour the Center, was both an emotional as well as uplifting experience for me. As a survivor of child abuse knowing there are places like this now for these kids is incredibly meaningful. The most profound part of our visit was when she said, “These children go through some of the most horrific things and it’s our job to make them feel safe again. Here, we merely give them the tools, resources and strength to go from this point on so they can define themselves—not by what’s happened to them but by who they are and what they can do.” I took her pearls of wisdom with me when our meeting ended and spent the next couple of weeks absorbing the whole experience.

You see, White Elephants is my survival story. It sets out my life being raised by a mother who lived with severe mental health issues who never got properly assessed, diagnosed or treated for those issues. Instead, she chose maladaptive ways of coping with her symptoms resulting in my brother and I living every day in fear, chaos and confusion. Not understanding what was happening, we held on as tightly as we could during the manic cycles then plummeted with her through the depression cycles, dealing as best we could with the explosions that boomed along the way. And not one person stepped in to help us—not even when they knew what was going on. But you know what? I never let myself be a statistic.

Was I angry at those people for not stepping in? Yes. Was I bitter? Yes, for awhile. But instead of giving in to those negative emotions, I used them as fuel to keep going, becoming the opposite of the stereotypes society holds of abuse survivors: No, we don’t all grow up being abusers ourselves; No, we don’t all become substance abusers and wallow in self-pity; and, most importantly, we don’t allow the shame of what happened to us to take over, defining who we’ll become. I was, and am, a survivor. To me that has always meant that, like other survivors, I went through tremendous trauma but found a more positive path to keep moving forward on. We don’t make it through these experiences unscathed because there will be scars to remind us. Survivors, though, use those scars as a source of strength to show society, “We will be okay with the love and support of others.”

And that’s why the visit at the charity was such an amazing experience for both the Director and for me. I guess you could say that White Elephants shows others what happens when support for these children is lacking while the Center’s mandate shows what can happen when it’s in place. In the end, we both have the same underlying message: We cannot allow traumatic experiences, or other people, to define who we are. We need to take those experiences and find a way to make them a source of strength so we can define ourselves.

I sure wish the Center had been there for my brother and I so many years ago. But we’ve found each other now. Hopefully together we can help teach others the importance of defining ourselves.

Chynna's survival story, White Elephants

Chynna describes herself as a mom to four bubs, a writer/author and a psychology major. She is passionate about helping children and families with special needs, especially those living with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and bipolar disorder. Inspired by her own daughter, Jaimie, and her son Xander who live with SPD and ASD (and her mother and grandmother who lived with bipolar disorder), she does what she can to raise awareness for them and children like them around the world.

Chynna T. Laird

LILY WOLF WORDS

www.lilywolfwords.ca

www.the-gift-blog.com

www.seethewhiteelephants.com

Author of award-winning book, "I'm Not Weird, I Have SPD"

Author of multi award-winning book, "Not Just Spirited: One Mom's Sensational Journey With Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)"

Author of "White Elephants" http://eaglewingspress.com/whele.html

Author of 'Blackbird Flies" (Now available on all online eBookstores)

Author of 'The Gift' (coming soon!)

SPD Contributor with Our Journey Thru Autism

Contributing Writer for the SPD Foundation Blog

Contributing Writer for WOW-womeonwriting.com

Contributing Writer for Parenting Special Needs Magazine

Contributing Writer for Amaze Magazine