Insecurities

Recently I've done a few posts talking about my insecurities as a writer and my physical appearance. I've decided I want to go even deeper. I'm hoping sharing my thoughts with you will help myself and maybe someone else.

So let's start at the beginning. I've dealt with mental health issues since I was in high school. I never admired it, and when given medication, I was convinced I could handle it myself. I'd take the meds for a short period and then stop.

In my mid twenties I met my husband James. I'm so lucky to have a man like him in my life. I was very open about my mental health issues and insecurities. He accepted me for who I am.

When I would go off my meds and things would start heading downhill, James would calmly tell me it was time to seek medical attention. He kept me in check.

After my seconds child I suffered PPD. Medication helped. I stayed on it for years, until my third child. At this time my doctor advised me it wasn't recommended during pregnancy. So I stopped taking it. Although because if history I went back on after, until I felt "good" again. Then it was on and off for years.

A few years ago I hit rock bottom. I didn't tell anyone, but it was bad. Finally after some traumatic experiences, almost ending my marriage and really wanting to end my life, I sought help again. At this point I made a promise to my doctor to never go off my medication again. I haven't. I still struggle, but it's usually related to normal life stresses.

Thankfully, James stood by me through everything. My kids all understand my struggles and I understand theirs. Unfortunately depression and anxiety is a trait they inherited from me. Together as a family we deal with it.

Depression isn't curable, but it is treatable. We can't treat it like a virus. Mental illness is a life long struggle. Just like thyroid disease, diabetes or anything else that requires daily medication. You wouldn't quit taking heart disease meds, so why would you stop taking meds for a nuerological disease? Please don't be like me and think you can handle your depression on your own. You don't need too.

I've seen the bad and the ugly side of mental illness. I've experienced it. I've seen the effects on loved ones. I've thought that they would be better off without me, but I know better now. I've seen those that have lost people to mental illness, and they are not better off.

If you suffer from mental illness, know your not alone. Message me, message a friend's or family member, call a help line. People care and although that can be hard to believe, they really do.

Over the next few weeks, leaking up to world mental health day (October 10), I'll be making very personal posts. I'll share the crazy mixed up thoughts in my head. I wasn't to be accountable for my feelings, my insecurities and my faults. I want to heal and be a better person. Most of all, I want to do it with you. I want you to join me on my part of self discovery, self healing and self acceptance.

Xoxo
Charlotte

My biggest struggles as an Author

I like to think of my self as a positive person. I don't like to complain (much), I like to think the best of others and situations, and I love to help others. I believe that everything happens for a reason and that stress doesn't help anyone. Be positive, think positive, believe positive. Now with that said sometimes this is hard as hell. Life has ups and downs and sometimes things will be harder for us than others. I do believe we should learn from our troubled times. This is just life. Well it's the same being an author. We have ups and downs, times of empowerment and times of doubt. Today I want to share some of my biggest struggles as an author with you, I want you to know that no matter what you do or face, you are not alone. 

First and foremost as a author and a person I am not good at asking for help. I am a help and a people pleaser. I want to help others, but don't want to bother others when I need help. As an author this is detrimental to my career, we need help, we need a street team, a promo group, people to review, and share our work. Word of mouth is the best promotion. I am terrified to ask others to help me, and when I do and they say yes, I'm terrible at directing them. So I tend to do everything myself. Yet with that said, I hate promoting myself because I don't want to seem spammy. So I guess this leads to my next struggle Insecurity.

We as humans all have things we are insecure about. Now I'm going to be very vulnerable and honest here. I am insecure about almost everything. My weight, my hair, my age, my disability, my knowledge. Anyone that knows me personally, knows I am in a constant battle with myself and very judgmental of myself. This also takes part in being an author. I don't want to "bother" others, I don't know why a blogger would want to bother interviewing me or reviewing my book when there are so many amazing authors out there. So I very rarely reach out to them. I'm blown away every time someone reads my books and even more so when they take the time to review and especially like them. I write for me, I write what I like, not whats popular, not what will sell, but whatever story I have in my head. I am very proud of myself for putting my books out there for others because it faces my insecurities head on. 

Now this leads to marketing, I really struggle with marketing. As I said above, I don't want to seem spammy, I don't want to "bother" others and i'm scared to approach bloggers for help. Marketing is a huge part of being an author. It doesn't matter if you are traditionally published or independently published, we need to market ourselves and our books or else no one will even know we exist. I don't have a huge advertising budget, but I do run AMS and Facebook ads every now and then. I know I need to do more, but I just don't know how. So this is probably my biggest struggle as an author. Everyday I watch how to videos, I do research and try to learn more. After all learning is how we grow and improve ourselves. One day I will figure this all out.

Now for a few things that I have learned as an author, because I want to have a few happy thoughts in this post. Although I'm a self proclaimed people pleaser, I have learned you can't please everyone. As an author, you will get bad reviews, not everyone will like your work and you know what, that's okay! I appreciate even "bad" reviews because I can learn from them. I recently revised and re-released the Embrace series. After I got my rights back from my publisher, I went through every review. I learned that I was too formal in my writing and now I make special note of that when doing my rewrites. I have also learned that there are some really amazing people out there that will help and support us authors. I've learned that it's okay to be vulnerable like this post, because we can grow fro our vulnerabilities. 

My eldest daughter, is a very smart young woman and she is very good at lecturing me on life and trying to help me improve myself. I think she might have been the mom in our past life. She encourages me to take charge of my situation and put myself out there. I think that's what this post is really about, about putting myself out there. No matter what you do for a living, a hobby or are going through in life, know it's okay to put yourself out there too. We are not alone and we all have our own struggles. Thanks for reading and helping me to admit and accept mine.

My daughter Jorden, in NYC living her best life. 

XOXO
Charlotte