Alcohol, Depression and Suicide: A Guest Post by Ann Jacobus

As you may know, last month I read/reviewed Romancing The Dark In The City of Light by Ann Jacobus and I really loved it. RTDiTCoL deals with a character who is an alcoholic, depressed and also suicidal. I felt that Ann portrayed the subjects very well and asked her to do a guest post for my blog on these topics. I hope you find this helpful.

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~Alcohol, Depression and Suicide~

Let’s talk about suicide. Please.

If this makes you feel uncomfortable, you’re not alone. It makes most of us feel that way.

Unfortunately, when we’re the ones feeling overwhelmed and suicidal, it may be even harder to talk about.

So we don’t. And it gets worse.

We get high, or drink, because for just a little while it seems to help. Except that we have a way of doing things while high or drunk that make our situation suck even more.

In order to be mentally healthy, ideally we need, in no particular order:

1) good mental health genes and physical health,

2) the love and support of our family and peers,

3) lack of trauma early on or now,

4) lack of early abuse or negligence,

5) strong early attachments,

6) feelings of self worth,

and 7) coping skills for stress and emotional ups and downs that include good diet, regular exercise, communication skills, etc.

If any of the above are missing, let alone several, we’re more at risk for developing mental health issues such as depression, OCD, self-harm, anxiety disorders, and sometimes suicidality—the term for feeling suicidal. If we already suffer from mental illness such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, then the odds of suicidality are much higher.

Some of us are more sensitive to the world than others (like creative types) and are more likely to suffer from depression. But anyone can feel overwhelmed.

When we already feel overwhelmed and then have something happen that throws us into crisis—like a death, or a break-up, or a move—we can begin to feel suicidal. Someone who is contemplating death as a means to escape mental pain, is in a LOT of pain.

If we add alcohol or substance abuse when feeling overwhelmed or worse, when we’re near the breaking point, the chances of a suicide attempt go way up. We need help. Even a little support from our family or friends can make a critical difference.

If you’re worried, ask us, “Are you feeling suicidal?”

You will NOT be putting the idea in our head. If we don’t feel suicidal, we’ll say, “No, I just feel sad and stressed-out,” or “No, I’m just having a crap week.” If we are, it will be a huge relief to say so. “Yes. I’ve been thinking about killing myself.”

LIFELINE offers anonymous help and information—to support anyone. You don’t need to be suicidal 

1-800-273-8255 or text “go” to 741 741.

Once we’ve said it aloud, we can talk to a teacher, a doctor, a therapist, a parent. If you can, be there for us. It’s still hard. It’s also pretty simple. We can get help and usually fix it, once we start talking about it.

But you have to talk about it. Thank you.

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Ann Jacobus is the author of YA thriller ROMANCING THE DARK IN THE CITY OF

LIGHT (St. Martin’s Griffin/Macmillan) that’s about an alcoholic, depressed and

suicidal girl in Paris. She volunteers on a suicide crisis line in San Francisco where

she lives with her family.

Twitter

When Life Interferes. . . (Amber’s Rambles #16)

This is Amber’s Rambles, a feature where I discuss bookish or blogging topics. It is typically posted on Thursdays, but may be posted on other days as well. To see past posts, you can go here.

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Ok, I can’t believe I’m writing this.

This has been a blog post I have been wanting to write forever. I think I’m posting it now because life is interfering now. 

As bloggers, we know there are times when we can’t read/blog/comment because of “life” and it’s interference(s). I just wanted to write this to talk about when events or just regular stuff happen, we find ourselves being unable to read or blog or comment because of it.

Actually, I think this post is going to go a bit different than that.  If you follow me on Twitter, chances are you’ve seen a tweet such as “Rescue me” or “Why don’t any of you live closer?…”. Of course, I always put some sort of smiley emoticon afterwards because I don’t want anyone on Twitter to actually think 

“Wow, that girl is actually asking strangers on Twitter to “rescue” her.”

Because it sounds weird, right? It sounds needy.

If you don’t know already, I live at home, which consists of my parents, sister and grandma. If you have read my weekly recaps or monthly recaps, you may have noticed I always talk about this “family drama” going on, but I never go into details. I’m not going to go into details now either. 

The point is, when this “family drama” goes on, it generally doesn’t involve me, it involves people among my family, but not really me. Although it sometimes does. However, it’s a huge stress cause to me. When it goes on or after it finishes, I’m completely drained emotionally and physically. If I had a blog post I wanted/planned to do that day, you can assume I’m not doing it.

Because I can’t. I don’t have the mental or physical energy or mental or emotional mindset to say “Okay, I’m going to blog anyway”. 

It basically cripples me from doing anything. Even things I enjoy. This is why you may have seen me not post for a week or more, which I’ve done a few times. Because I can’t even think of making a post and I can’t even imagine going through blogs and reading and commenting on them. It’s too draining for me. I think the reason I’m posting this today is because, yes, family drama has started up, the typical sort and yes, before this I was going through this exact mode I’m talking about. That’s why I barely blogged last week, it’s why it taken me longer than a month to write a blog post for another blog. It’s why I haven’t commented  or visited on anyone’s blogs, not really (I’m sorry about that, by the way).

And i’ve honestly wondered “Is this depression? This state I’m in?”.

I know, it sounds like I’m over-reacting probably. “Amber, you can’t call yourself depressed because you’re stressed about home”, but then there’s more to it… This has gone on for years, I’m 23 now and I’ve been this way since I was 14 or 15. 

I randomly (or not so randomly in the above case) go through these modes where I’m self-loathing, wanting to die, extremely sad and overall just….messed up. That’s the only way I can describe it. Nothing has to cause it, I’ll be okay and then ten minutes later, everything will just fall apart in my head and it all seems so pointless.

Does that make sense?

I don’t want to call myself depressed. I know there are actual people out there, I’ve even encountered a couple here in the blogosphere, that suffer through it. But if it’s not depression, I don’t know what it is. 

I tell myself it can’t be depression because when I was at college for those two years, I was mostly happy. Mostly. I didn’t have too much stress when I was gone. 

Of course, you’ll see me tweeting on Twitter and having conversations with people. I ask myself “You can tweet and you can talk to this one friend and you can enter contests online. How are you depressed? You wake up and get online. You can have a semi-full conversation with your parents. You can get excited over something”.

So do I not suffer depression since I’ve gone through happy periods of time? Are those things I mentioned above “happy periods of time”. Do they mean I’m not depressed? I don’t know the answer, but I really wish I did.

 

This happens when nothing’s wrong with my life. Am I just over-emotional? Is it because I’m….not all there? Have I just not fully grown up yet? I don’t know any of the freaking answers. Maybe nothing’s wrong with me, but I don’t know. 

This is what Merriam-Webster says the definition of depression is:

2:  an act of depressing or a state of being depressed: as

a :  a pressing down :  lowering

b (1) :  a state of feeling sad :  dejection (2) :  a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies

c (1) :  a reduction in activity, amount, quality, or force (2) :  a lowering of vitality or functional activity

Would i say I suffer from those things? Yes, however, I will never self-diagnose myself with something as serious as depression.

I guess what this blog post is about is how…life interferes whether it’s jobs, children, our families, or classes. We generally can’t stop it. It interferes out of the blue, we can plan something blog-wise only for it to not happen the way we want it do. Regardless of it’s a physical cause or a mental cause.

When life interferes for me, I don’t want to read or blog or comment on blogs. I don’t want to do anything really. Except sleep.

I hope no one takes offense to me using the term depression. If you think I described depression wrongly or didn’t take it seriously, I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t mean to. I don’t take this lightly at all.

When life interferes for you and you find yourself unable to read, blog or comment, whether by uncontrollable force or you feel like you “can’t”, what do you do instead? Do you have coping mechanisms? Have you ever found yourself in the same spot? Can you relate with this sadness? Let me know.

Review: Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang (ARC)

Title:  Falling Into Place

Author: Amy Zhang

Published:  September 9th 2014 (Greenwillow Books)

Pages: 304

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Social Issues

Themes: Suicide, Friendship, Death, High School

Format: ARC

Source: Won

Rating: Five stars

Goodreads Summary:

On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road.Why? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect? Amy Zhang’s haunting and universal story will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver, Gayle Forman, and Jay Asher.

Purchase: Barnes and Noble / Amazon / Book Depository

Cover Thoughts: I adore the cover. I love the mathematical equations in the back, the road combined with the title, the car, and ultimately the hand at the end. It’s very unique and I love how much it describes the book.

First Line: On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s Laws of Motion in physics class.

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~Review~

Immediately this book had one of my favorite elements in it, school classes. I love how the physics class plays a part in this story. Liz doesn’t commit suicide because of her physics class, but she thinks about Newton’s Law while in the car to do so.

In the book blurb, it states Falling Into Place will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver, Gayle Forman and Jay Asher. i have read comparisons about Falling Into Place to Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, If I Stay by Gayle Forman and Thirteen Reaons Why by Jay Asher. I can only vouch for one of these comparisons, If I Stay, which is a Young Adult novel I loved. After hearing this book was compared to those other ones, I knew I needed to read this book.

Falling Into Place is a nonlinear novel told primarily by an unknown narrator. We see months before Liz’s accident, minutes before the accident, flashbacks, “snapshots”, her home life, and her friends experiences. The flashbacks were lovely occasionally called “snapshots” which would then relate back to a previous or future chapter. All of this was extremely well done and told the story very well.

The first thing that stood out to me about Falling Into Place is the similarity it does indeed share with If I Stay — two girls being victims of a car crash, one self induced, the other accidental, as well as both dealing with life or death situations and the non-linear format they both have.

Falling Into Place focuses on Liz Emerson’s life before the car crash, what led up to it, her friends lives, and what ultimately caused her to do it. The nonlinear format really helped the story I thought because we see Liz as a child, then see her throughout the book in high school and how she changed. It was very easy to get into Falling Into Place and be lost in Liz Emerson’s world.

Falling Into Place is an emotional read, the characters felt so real and I felt bad for each of their situations. I really enjoyed reading about Liz’s friendship with Kennie and Julia. While reading this, it was clear that their friendship was real and they really were concerned with Liz. I found their backstories and relationship with Liz to be extremely well done. We see flashbacks of Kennie and Julia’s main plots, aside from Liz’s attempted suicide and I loved both of them.  Kennie is the girl who isn’t quite so smart, makes some bad decisions, but she’s a very sweet character affected by Liz’s accident.  I was heartbroken to read about her plot and actually had to set Falling Into Place aside at that point having read a similar situation in another novel. I found Julia and Kennie’s plots believable and heartbreaking.

Julia is a girl who Liz immediately disliked but became friends with her. I loved reading about this because I think it’s believable for people to not like each other right away and then begin to. Julia’s on the dance team and is at a meet when Liz’s accident happens. Later when Julia finds out, she’s instantly broken hearted and desperate to go see Liz. At this point in Falling Into Place, I really loved Julia’s character. We learn later that she and Liz had a fight before Liz which causes Julia to be even more upset about the whole situation.

Monica is Liz’s mom who travels a lot and doesn’t have a great relationship with Liz. I feel this trope is overdone although it’s one of my favorites. I liked Monica as a character overall. Although she’s sort of distant from Liz, when she heard about Liz’s accident while in another country, she rushed right home to the hospital. I like the little pieces we see of Liz’s and her mom’s relationship.

Liam is the guy who’s been secretly in love with Liz since fifth grade. He’s also the one responsible for Liz getting to the hospital. At first I felt his character was just the stereotypical character who is of course in love with the main girl in the book and on the outside of the high school popular realm. Fortunately became more than that throughout Falling Into Place. I loved seeing the interactions he had with Liz because they helped explain his character. Liam could be described as the nice guy, in love with possibly the wrong girl, willing to believe there’s still something good inside Liz Emerson despite how she’s treated him.

The narrator itself is disclosed until the end. I thought that was interesting and the narrator itself was a unique pick. We see flashbacks through the narrator’s eyes and learn more about Liz through them. The narrator knows Liz and at one time had a close relationship with her. I love that the narrator isn’t afraid to say who Liz really is despite her appearances and how Liz acted at times.

Liz was a lost character who wanted to find something worth living for, she wanted to see good in the world and she ultimately wanted to be a better person than she was. Some of the thoughts she had about herself were really sad to read about. She initially came off as a typical mean, queen bee, party girl, from a slightly broken home. Throughout Falling Into Place though, that perspective greatly changes.

Something rare, I found is that I liked Liz a lot despite her party girl tendencies and how she could be cruel, even to her best friends. I found Liz to be extremely relatable because she was a grey character. While she may have done some things not smart, she also did good things. She wasn’t all good or all bad, she made mistakes and she recognized them, carrying them with her more than I think she needed to. That is one of the things i liked about Liz, how she owned up to being wrong and knew her mistakes. I felt really bad for Liz because of how she felt and what she’d dealt with. Liz was definitely a flawed character, but for me, that just made reading about her that much enjoyable. Her relationship with her best friends wasn’t perfect and Liz did do some things she’d live to regret, but I could feel the love she had for them. Liz also didn’t have the best relationship with her mother, but there’s more to that than meets the eye. I liked how Liz acted certain ways for a reason, she partied because she didn’t like silence and she was lonely. Liz was a depressed girl, tired of the way her life was going and didn’t really see a point because she was toxic to everyone around her. Her behavior and feelings about herself were both raw and heartbreaking and written well.

I felt the book as a whole was realistic because it wasn’t just one big thing that caused Liz to want to end her life, it was multiple things. I like how Liz’s planned suicide wasn’t a impulsive thing, but rather she would give herself an amount of time to change and get help. In addition, she would kill herself on a specific day to help lessen her mother’s pain.  I like how she gave herself a set limit of time to see if something would happen that would make her want to live again. Liz struggled with trying to change herself and trying to get the help she needs, this was really relatable for her character given she’s at the top of the high school social ladder and influence people. Liz didn’t want to reach out to Julia or Kennie which I found to be really believable. Liz Emerson is a defense for them, she’s their solid ground,and  the one constant in their lives despite havoc she’s caused for both of them.

I think one of the reasons I loved Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang so much is because it was written about a high schooler while the author is in high school herself. I feel this gave the book an amount of accuracy and realism despite some stereotypes the book contained.  Overall, I felt Falling Into Place was a great novel about attempted suicide and more importantly who people really are and their depths.  In Falling Into Place, we learn there’s more to each of the characters than others initially see. The ending of Falling Into Place was enjoyable and I loved the writing style. The writing style itself was very beautiful with a lot of memorable quotes. The story seemed to flow really well together despite the nonlinear format. I rate this book five out of five stars because I didn’t see any flaws in it and the characters were well developed. I’ll definitely be on the look out for Amy Zhang’s works in the future.

Musical Monday! (#1)

Hello everyone. Tonight is the first ever Musical Monday here at YA Indulgences!

 

This is a new feature I am going to be doing every Monday. It will consist of two bi-monthly parts relating to musicals, music and story telling. Each part will alternate weeks.

 

The first part will focus on musicals.  I will be discussing, raving about and/or fangirling over a specific musical that I love or have discovered. These may just be over the recordings I’ve heard on Youtube since I do like to simply listen to musicals. They may be over a movie musical, dvd performance, dvd concert, or a musical I’ve watched on Youtube.

 

I came up with this feature the other night because I love musicals so much. If I could stay at home and listen to musicals all day, you can believe I would. I’ll be honest and say I have actually done that before. 🙂 I love musicals for a variety of reasons, the biggest one being I love the stories and feelings they can tell all from one song.

 

However, I did more thinking and thought I would also list five specific songs along with this feature, that I feel do a great job and story telling in terms of plot or feelings. I often wonder about the people in the songs and they become characters in my mind, different ones every time I listen to a song though.

 

I can get a bit enthusiastic so be a ware. 🙂

 

All right, now that I have explained and rambled about my new feature, let me begin!

 

~Part One~

The focus of tonight’s musical is the Pulitizer Prize winner, Next To Normal. Yay, cue the excitement. Next To Normal was first produced Off-Broadway after being workshopped.It later moved to Broadway in 2009. There are two acts in the musical.

 

This is an emotional packed musical if I have ever listened or heard one before in my life. It has a small ensemble cast of only six characters. It revolves around your typical nuclear suburban family, the Goodmans, consisting of a mother, Diana, father, Dan, and their teenagers, Gabe and Natalie. Things aren’t so typical though in the Goodman household as we see in the opening song Just Another Day when Natalie sings

 

“So it’s time like these I wonder how I take it and if other families live the way we do, if they love each other or if they just fake it and if other daughters feel like I feel too, cause some days i think I’m dying, but I’m really only trying to get through for another day”.

 

 

As the other family members join in the song, listeners and viewers will notice this family is suffering strongly and not quite normal. None of the family members communicate well with each other.

 

The mother, Diana suffers form mental illnesses. This musical shows how the family members including Diana deal with her illnesses. One of the many great things about Next To Normal is that the composers don’t look down on mental illness nor do they sugarcoat it. Diana goes to multiple doctors as they try to figure out how to “fix” her mental illness.

 

This musical is the one that hits closest to home for me with families not being quite how you would like them at times.

 

I relate most to the character of Natalie, the invisible girl in her family. Her goal is to go to Yale and finally be away from her family who ignores her. One of my favorite songs involving Natalie are “Hey #1”, “Hey #2”, and “Hey #3” which involves a guy named Henry who she meets while practicing piano. I think you guys will end up loving Henry, I know I do beginning in “Perfect For You” where he voices his feelings to Natalie.

 

I love how honest all the songs are as the characters come to realizations and voice their pain. Diana sings several songs herself such as “I Miss The Mountains” where Diana sings about how she used to feel before mental illness took over. One of the most heart breaking songs in the musical is “So Anyway” which Diana sings. Diana also starts the show stopper, “You Don’t Know” which Dan joins in.

 

Dan himself gets a couple emotional songs, one taking place after an unfortunate event occurs called “I’ve Been”.

 

One of the most interesting characters is Natalie’s older brother name Gabe. He is also the darker character of Next To Normal. The majority of his interactions are to his mother. Gabe sings another show stopper called “I’m Alive”. Natalie and he also have a rough relationship, to say the least. The music itself is a mix of music being rock, pop, and the occasional classical ballroom style song.

 

This musical gives me so many feelings when I listen and watch it. Each of the character goes through a journey by the musical’s end.

Diana has problems with Gabe and her mental illness.

Dan has to try to fix his crumbling marriage with Diana, his distance from Natalie in addition to trying to help Diana.

Natalie deals with her parents negligence of her and turns to Henry as well as other things.

Gabe comes to term with himself.

 

The singers themselves really encompass the feelings of the characters and I can’t see anyone else singing their charters. In the Original Broadway Cast Recording, the singers are as follows:

 

Alice Ripley is Diana Goodman Diana is played by Alice Ripley

Dan is  J. Robert Spencer

Natalie is Jennifer Damiano

Gabe  is Aaron Tveit

Henry is Adam Chanler-Berat

Dr. Fine/Dr. Madden is Louis Hobson

I feel Next To Normal handles mental illness in a realistic portrayal and how it affect not only the person with the illness but also their family. I really believe that anyone who takes the time to listen or watch this musical, there is something you will enjoy about it.

 

You can watch the original Broadway cast musical here.

 

Okay, that’s it for me.  I hope I made a little sense and gave you a sense of the musical in all my talking.  🙂

 

If you like musicals, let me know what one is your favorite or favorites. 🙂

 

I know this post is a bit rough, I’m sure they’ll be better though. Make sure to look out for next week’s Musical Monday which will consist of five story telling songs and why I love them.