I wrote San Jose's Darlings because I wanted to write a unique story about mental illness, something never done before--a story that was both sweet and sad, something that would open people's eyes as to how much mental illness can devastate a person.
In order to accomplish what I wanted to get out of this story and this book, I had to be completely honest with the reader, meaning that I had to include a lot of really personal stuff and not hold back. So, yeah, I went there. I wrote about a small portion of my mental illnesses and my experiences with them; I wrote about what it's like to be a mentally-ill person trying to re-integrate himself into society after spending years in isolation. In a small way, the book shows what it's like and how difficult it is to be a seriously ill person just trying to survive in this world.
In writing the book, I wanted to show how mental illness comes in all shapes and sizes and in every form that the imagination can come up with. And I wanted to shed light on how people with mental illnesses are often treated by employers, especially by their supervisors and other managers who, at least in my experience, are generally unsympathetic and the opposite of empathetic. My relationship with every supervisor I've had over the last ten years has been pretty adversarial, because they either haven't believed me whenever I've tried to explain that I'm ill and how it affects me or these managers just haven't understood my condition and haven't understood that I'm very different from other employees and have special needs. So I've always been labelled a bad employee and have subsequently been picked on, which has always made for a hostile work environment. Then add into that mix a regular barrage of insensitive comments and unfair judgments and it's amazing I've never gone postal on anybody.
And I thought that by sharing my story it would help others who are going through a rough time psychologically to not feel so alone and isolated. I thought that by sharing my story, I would be doing some good in the world for somebody--anybody--out there because I know a story like this, written by somebody else, would be a big deal to me. It would open my eyes to the fact that I'm not alone in these struggles, that there are others out there who are just like me.
There seems to be such a stigma about mental illness, like it's taboo to even talk about or discuss. That comes from a lack of understanding and ignorance, I think. So, by writing about it, maybe I'm helping erode that stigma one word at a time. At least I hope I am. I think it's a topic that should be widely discussed because it affects so many people around the world.
The Truth
San Jose's Darlings is a condensed novelization of a difficult two-year period I had just before moving to Arizona (if you're ill and you have a choice in the matter, you don't want to make this move; trust me).
A year before this two-year period began, I had moved back out to the Bay Area after having lived with my parents in the Central Valley, basically living as a recluse for a couple of years, so I was still trying to re-integrate myself into society, which I was having a really hard time accomplishing. Then, over the course of a year, I had been forced to move about five times (which is really hard on someone with OCD and other anxiety disorders) with one of those moves happening after I'd gotten kicked out of the house I was living in with several people and an old friend.
So yeah, it was a really sucky period of my life that forced me to depend on the charity of friends so that I didn't have to move back in with mommy and daddy and could feel independent once again. Depending on anyone for help has always been difficult for me; I've always been extremely independent and unwilling to accept help. This is something that life circumstances have forced me into accepting and into embracing, somewhat.
A really hard part about this period in my life was that my friends and other people who knew me as the outgoing, fun-loving person--the person I was before I had my mental breakdown, a person who was now dead--didn't understand that I had changed and that I could never again be the person I was before, so their expectations for me weren't fair or reasonable. As it turned out, I was right to not want to accept the help of friends or others. Accepting the help of friends really backfired on me. I've never felt more betrayed--by anyone. My distrust of people skyrocketed. That experience sent me back into seclusion and left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn't interested in making friends or in having any friends.
While a lot of the story I wrote is fictionalized and embellished, at the book's core, there is a lot of shi- er, stuff that I wanted to talk about and work through, to get off my chest. My intent in writing the book was to be truthful, open, and honest about myself and about some of the things that happened to me.
Even though I'm very proud of the book and what it accomplishes and how it demonstrates my remarkably swift progression as a writer, I've lost faith that the average reader will ever appreciate this novel as much as I do, which only adds to the hurt of putting something this personal out there. To counterbalance the dark and heavy content found in the story, I tried to include as much humor as possible and I tried to make it a fun read for those who had read Marcuria's End (my first book) by dropping in some easter eggs to go alongside the overarching plot that is set within a contemporary fantasy framework. But, I don't think that was enough to smooth over the dark content and some of the concepts that may be too foreign for the average person to understand. All this stuff must be troubling to people who have never been exposed to mental illness or to anyone with a serious mental disorder. This is too bad, and it makes me sad to think that that could be holding them back from ever enjoying the book.
I had hoped the novel would foster understanding of mental illness; instead, it seems it has only served to give people more ammunition with which to judge me and to look down on me. It's really messed up that people would do that instead of trying to understand.
Publishing Aftermath
This friggin' book was really hard for me to let go of and to just publish. Publishing it was probably one of the stupidest and one of the bravest things I've ever done. It seems to have backfired on me personally, but I don't really care--well, I sort of do in a passive-aggressive way. At least, I try not to care. I mean, I took a chance. I put an extremely sensitive and vulnerable aspect to my life out there for all to see. It was so personal--maybe too personal--that the pain really hit me hard after I published it, and it has continued ever since, spiking from time to time. So, lesson learned. Except, because of my anxiety disorders, I'm really supposed to embrace pain and not shy away from it or avoid it in any way, so maybe publishing this was actually a good thing. I don't know.
What I do know is that I had to write this book for myself; I had to get my story out there, which also may have been a subconscious cry for help. This book is the most honest thing I've ever written in my life, and I am so very proud of it. I am so proud of the work I did on it. I put everything I had into creating it. My entire soul went into it. When I finished the novel, I had nothing left in the tank and was left completely drained. More than a year later, I still don't have anything in the tank or in the reserves, and it honestly feels like that energy will never come back again, which has been really depressing to contemplate.
I even destroyed my love for reading over this--well, for a time--because I was constantly going over the manuscript, looking for errors. I think I went through about ten rounds of editing, from page one to the very last page. I was desperate to make the book the absolute best that it could be. San Jose's Darlings is the best thing I've written to date. And considering it's only the second novel I've written, I'm very pleased with and excited about the direction I am going.
About that Damn Imp
In order to correctly portray this mindless, abstract construct of OCD, called the Imp of the Mind (or the Imp of the Perverse), I felt I had to make him a bit of a character and flesh him out a little bit so that he felt more real and less abstract to the readers. Otherwise, I don't think anybody, other than Pure-O sufferers, could have understood what the Imp of the Mind is or what he can do to a person. So by doing that, I think I made the Imp a more interesting and sinister construct, which would have definitely paid off in the sequel to the book. I have a first draft of it done, so some day I will write it. Anyways, the Imp of the Mind (or the Imp of the Perverse) is a real phenomenon that is present within the minds of those who experience a form of OCD called Pure-O. The Imp is a total bastard who fills Pure-O sufferers with unreasonable fears that deeply impact their lives--well, it has impacted my life for sure, and not in a positive way. Pure-O affects everyone differently on a wide scale of issues. For some, the Imp infects them with thoughts of harming their baby; for others, they might be troubled by a barrage of unwanted sexual thoughts and urges. The Imp comes at you in ways that are always the exact opposite of what you actually want or desire. That is why these thoughts can have such a hold over people with OCD and can paralyze us mentally. Whatever the troubling thoughts are, the Imp is the producer of them. I told you he was a dick. I hate him so bad. He, by himself, has messed up my life pretty good and has made it pretty damn difficult to live.
It took me over thirty years to learn what was wrong with me and to learn to stop fighting him and to stop beating myself up because of what the Imp does to me. After going through this, it really is amazing to me that I've survived this long. Yeah, I don't recommend getting Pure-O, or any other form of OCD for that matter.
Bubba
Bubba the Cat actually existed. A lot of what I wrote about that cat actually happened. He did lose his eye, which dangled out of his socket for a long time, pushed out by an ever-expanding tumor. The experience really was as gross and disturbing as I described in the book. I feel terrible for what that cat went through; I don't mean to make light of it.
