Behind the Flesh: Trigger Warning (Patreon)

In my posts advertising the book my upcoming book (now available for preorder here!), I include trigger warnings.

Trigger warnings: This book centers on death and grieving, including death of minors and suicide. It also explores mental illness, mainly depression and anxiety issues, with some suicidal ideation. Emotional and physical child abuse is an element touched upon as well. 

Yes, perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a heavy undercurrent of 'dealing with mental illness' running through this book, and it's heavily based on my own experiences in a lot of ways. Manee's mental issues with depression and anxiety mirror my own heavily, and the book's central thesis of "how can you escape the cycle of death" is probably based on my own cycle of suicidal ideation.

The book also deals with death heavily, and death is something that's preoccupied me since I was very young, its inevitability scaring me a lot. It was a common topic in therapy especially when I was a kid, there was a time when I just could not stop thinking about it. The unknown of death, the pain- it haunts me. At the same time, I've struggled with suicidal ideation a lot too and kind of longed for this thing I'm so scared of. That weird contradiction probably fuels the book, though it's not mentioned super directly.

The cycle of grief is touched on too, as well as trauma and healing. I hadn't had intense experiences with grief for dead loved ones specifically when I started the book, but I definitely had by the end.

One of the characters of the book also ends up coming from a very abusive background. Abuse is a complicated topic in my own life, I've been in some abusive relationships, suffered emotional (and mild physical) abuse, so it's something I think about a lot and have strong feelings about. The effects and psychology of abuse aren't really fully explored in this narrative on a deep level though- it's more something that drives characters and that they try to hide from the world. They're not quite at the stage where they can get into what they're going through/went through in depth.

Manee and Stephanie's relationship is very fraught too, and it kind of freezes me up inside to know I might be accused of "endorsing problematic relationships" or even "endorsing abuse". But ultimately, I wanted to write about two damaged young people who've been through a lot, who sometimes do the wrong thing, sometimes hurt each other deeply, but are ultimately both trying their best to navigate really intense and terrible circumstances. I like messy relationships, and I hope the book makes clear the unhealthy behavior is something they'll both need to work on rather than something romantic. I want flawed characters, I want to explore complicated relationships. Love, hate, all of it mixed together. And fiction is a place we can do that.

One thing I was very careful about and reworked a lot was Manee's stay at a mental institution (which is part of her backstory). I really hate the narrative of "person is mistaken for mentally ill and is forced to be around REAL mentally ill people who are scary and bad", so I tried very hard to make it clear Manee did have legitimate severe panic attacks that made hospitalization a valid option. Yes, the doctors didn't believe her about her powers of course, but they (and her father) were more focused on addressing the self-destructive behavior that resulted from her anxiety around her powers. She resented her time in the hospital, not because it's a bad place or she thought there was nothing going on with her, but because she hated being around lots of people and hated that she was forced into it. I hope I made that part clear but we'll see how people react.

Ultimately In the Way of All Flesh is a narrative full of Issues because it comes from an author full of Issues.  I did think long and hard about how to navigate these issues, but I can't control how people will take this narrative. I do know it came from the heart, and I tried my best not to be careless. I also think it's a book that ultimately focuses on themes of hope, healing, love, self-determination, and the importance of honest communication, and I hope that comes through and is even comforting to some.