I’d like to welcome Dawn Sooy, fellow member of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (GLVWG) and chair of the Write Stuff Writers Conferences in 2018 and 2019.
Dawn provides a personal glimpse into her terrible struggle with depression—the basis for her debut novel, From the Darkness, available right now on Amazon.
What’s it about?
Some 15 million Americans struggle with depression, an illness that comes in many forms. This complex disorder interferes with concentration and motivation; disrupts sleep, causes fatigue and in some cases, leads to suicide. When a person has severe depression, they may have disturbing beliefs—hearing and seeing things others do not. From the Darkness is based on the true story of Lizbeth, a woman suffering from this silent disease. For some unknown reason, a happy family outing turns into a downward spiral for Lizbeth; alienating her husband and children, placing her in a black turmoil.
What inspired the story?
When I was a teenager, I started journaling. I found putting words, my thoughts, my feelings, on paper was comforting. A journal is a friend that never judges you, so I made one rule—never lie to the journal. And as a wild teenager, the journal had some pretty wild stories. I still journal to this day.
In 2004, I was diagnosed with depression. Bob, my husband, noticed changes in me that I could not see myself. He wanted me to seek help, which I ignored until the day I acted like a crazy person in the parking lot of a restaurant. My families reaction and my reaction to this episode forced me to seek professional help. I was diagnosed with depression and in my ignorance, thought of myself as a looney-tunes, psycho, etc. You get the picture. At this time, the medication prescribed was enough to bring me out of depression.
Years later, stress at work pushed the depression to resurface. It engulfed me. Blackness surrounded me every day of my life. The medication no longer worked. Crying spells popped up in the most inconvenient of times. I was self-destructive and my doctor had no choice but to put me in the hospital. My husband took over and initiated the paperwork that would place me on disability from work. And yet, throughout this time, I kept journaling.
The roughest period of depression began in 2012. This was the year I quit my job at a place I despised, but instead of feeling better, my depression dragged me into a black hole. 2012 was one of the worst periods of time where my illness consumed me until I felt I was no longer a person. I stopped eating and slept most of the day and night. I cared about nothing.
It wasn’t until 2014 that I started to join the everyday world. I read a book and when I finished I sat back and thought, I wish I had the talent to be a writer. During one of my therapy sessions, I mentioned this to my psychologist and she indicated one of her other patients belonged to a writers group. This lead me to join GLVWG, and I felt that I had arrived; I had somehow found I place I belonged.
During this time, I had a few short stories published and Nanowrimo rolled around. I decided to engage in this and wrote my novel during this month. I chose to write From the Darkness as in one of the lectures, the presenter stated, “write about something you know.” After spending 14 years with depression, this was definitely something I knew about. The more I wrote about my experiences, the better I felt. It was like a giant dump of information into a journal.
I took this rough draft of my novel and developed it into a novel. It was published and I ordered copies. When they arrived, I picked up one of the copies and started to cry. My husband asked, “Why are you crying?” and proceeded to hug me. After a few minutes of ruining his shirt with tears, I said, “I did it. I finished my novel.” As I held the book in my hands, I kept expecting it to disappear. I marveled that this goal I had turned into reality.
If you know of someone, family member or friend, who has depression, you need to realize that it’s not something they can just “get over”, or “pull themselves together.” Depression is an illness—a disease that afflicts millions of people—and like most diseases, doesn’t care if you are rich or poor.
In fact, depression does not discriminate at all.
Take MOBY DICK (please!). Like most of us, I read “The Great American Novel” in school. Like most of us, I recall little beyond “Call me Ishmael.” What I do remember is more from the abridged but vivid 1956 movie (starring Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab). Like most of us, I never read the book again.
I used those facts because they shaped the story. My narrator Jamey Galloway has a visceral wariness of firearms, and questions the wisdom of standing up to reload a musket when you’re being shot at by the enemy. His older brother Jake is a marksman adept with weapons. And all that musket fire could turn even a minor skirmish into smoke-blind chaos. The details I chose sculpted the characters, in turn influencing their actions (and attitudes) that forged the story.
