I've unknowingly created the perfect storm.

Today, I shut down my Facebook pages due to personal reasons, and in my manic moment, I couldn't exactly pinpoint why I was feeling so desolate yet a whirlwind of emotions at the same time. I just knew something was wrong and recognized the signs of my bipolar depression spiraling downward. Then it happened, my universe, my stars aligned, and everything clicked as to why I was feeling so lost and broken.

I hired an editor to clean up Kitten: Baby Girl, part two. The edits have been sitting, waiting for me to open and look at, but I've been a coward. I couldn't understand why, until I understood that my mind wasn't ready to relive a character's death and feel what Rae felt in that horrible, heart wrenching moment that I created. My next book, Country At Heart, is soon to be released this summer, and it touches on depression and suicide as well as acceptance of one's identity, or lack thereof. While dealing with my conflicting emotions toward my own books, I hadn't realized the anniversary of the death of the young woman who inspired my book is fast approaching. She was the epitome of happy. On the outside she was happy, silly, playful, loving, and surrounded by love. On the inside, she was in agony, so much agony she took her own life. Her death, my books, and then add the book I started reading where one of the protags commits suicide, my world came crashing down. My bipolar diseased riddled mind couldn't take it and I cracked. Hard.

I now sit here trying to release these feelings through words, and this is the only place I can really do it. I can't reach out on Twitter because I don't like it, plus no one pays attention to me anyway. Instagram is too small and not meant for anything like this. My Facebook is nonexistent right now and I don't have the strength in my heart to deal. I can't personally reach out to anyone because that is way uncomfortable for a person like me. So, here I am. I'm not going to off myself, but it doesn't mean the thought isn't on my mind every single day. I just need time and space. I need to get past this, and I will, I always do. Those words frighten me because I fear I'll say them one last time and I won't be back to continue on with my work, or life.

To anyone who I may have hurt in my abrupt leaving, I'm sorry. If anyone does happen to read this and is friends with author McGee Mathews, tell her, her book shattered me, but in the best way. Tell her I'm mourning Dani right now and I feel the pain she felt before doing it, and that I understand her elation moments before she went through with it. I also understand Andrea's pain, because it is exactly what I felt when I found out my friend took her own life. Thank you for writing this book.

I hope to be back to some semblance of normalcy soon. Until then, I'll continue reading and reviewing lesfic right here. Those stories and my own are what helps keep me afloat.
Char