Andrea Kayne's Blog - Posts Tagged "indie-publishing"
My Midlife Scavenger Hunt
I know people who’ve done crazy things midlife: A friend who ran the Chicago Marathon, New York City Marathon, and Boston Marathon in seven-minute miles and still keeps trying to better her time. An acquaintance who, on her 45th birthday, flew to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. A recently divorced relative who rode from Chicago to Alaska on her boyfriend’s motorcycle to watch grizzly bears hunt salmon during spawning season.
Additionally, inspired to give back, many of the graduate students at the university where I teach decide midlife to become teachers or counselors. I have many friends who’ve gone back to school in their forties to become real-estate agents, interior designers, physical therapists, and life coaches. I recently befriended a woman who became an ordained rabbi midlife and now teaches Torah to women in prison. Even though few participants were Jewish, the Passover seder was packed. In prison or at midlife, we’re all searching for freedom.
I don’t know if these activities reflect an ache or a longing for freedom or merely a general feeling that something is missing. Perhaps these friends read Gail Sheehy’s Passages, woke up one day, and realized they wanted to live differently or more fully and that the only way to accomplish this was through bold action and some dramatic gesture, some dramatic midlife crisis.
Like Gail Sheehy, I’m uncomfortable with the phrase “midlife crisis,” but I don’t want to judge what my friends do. Hell, my philosophy is usually, if you’re not hurting anyone (including yourself), why not go for it? I don’t want to imply that these friends are crazy and outrageous. Secretly, I have always admired their courage, their midlife chutzpahdik, this I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks; I’m doing it anyway attitude.
I am trying to muster a bit of this attitude myself. Even though I have a very loving husband of almost 20 years (his sense of humor and waning eyesight probably help), two amazing kids (who keep their adolescent eye-rolling to a minimum and are still willing to cuddle), and a successful career in academia—where I am the tenured chair of my department—I find myself at 45 starting my own little press to publish my debut novel, Oxford Messed Up. This, in spite of the fact that I was fortunate enough (or so I thought) to get a New York agent on my first try.
[image error]
At times this publishing process has seemed a lot more difficult and outrageous than climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. But I don’t think it is a midlife crisis. And if I am outrageous and crazy, I knew this long before I thought about publishing a literary love story about a young woman with OCD. Just ask my husband. Still, I don’t really know why I am so compelled to risk resources and humiliation in this very public way at 45, when I should have nothing left to prove.
Asking myself this question has brought me to the realization that this publishing business is more like my midlife scavenger hunt than my midlife crisis. Each part of this publishing journey—the highs and lows, successes and failures, brick walls and automatic doors—has taught me about who I am and what is really important to me at this time in my life. So I’ve decided to write my blog about the clues I have garnered in this midlife scavenger hunt—what I will call publishing my first novel, Oxford Messed Up—and what they have taught me about myself.
Read the rest of this entry here and please feel free to leave a comment or story of your own midlife scavenger hunt adventures:
Publishing My Midlife Scavenger Hunt (Continued)
Additionally, inspired to give back, many of the graduate students at the university where I teach decide midlife to become teachers or counselors. I have many friends who’ve gone back to school in their forties to become real-estate agents, interior designers, physical therapists, and life coaches. I recently befriended a woman who became an ordained rabbi midlife and now teaches Torah to women in prison. Even though few participants were Jewish, the Passover seder was packed. In prison or at midlife, we’re all searching for freedom.
I don’t know if these activities reflect an ache or a longing for freedom or merely a general feeling that something is missing. Perhaps these friends read Gail Sheehy’s Passages, woke up one day, and realized they wanted to live differently or more fully and that the only way to accomplish this was through bold action and some dramatic gesture, some dramatic midlife crisis.
Like Gail Sheehy, I’m uncomfortable with the phrase “midlife crisis,” but I don’t want to judge what my friends do. Hell, my philosophy is usually, if you’re not hurting anyone (including yourself), why not go for it? I don’t want to imply that these friends are crazy and outrageous. Secretly, I have always admired their courage, their midlife chutzpahdik, this I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks; I’m doing it anyway attitude.
I am trying to muster a bit of this attitude myself. Even though I have a very loving husband of almost 20 years (his sense of humor and waning eyesight probably help), two amazing kids (who keep their adolescent eye-rolling to a minimum and are still willing to cuddle), and a successful career in academia—where I am the tenured chair of my department—I find myself at 45 starting my own little press to publish my debut novel, Oxford Messed Up. This, in spite of the fact that I was fortunate enough (or so I thought) to get a New York agent on my first try.
[image error]
At times this publishing process has seemed a lot more difficult and outrageous than climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. But I don’t think it is a midlife crisis. And if I am outrageous and crazy, I knew this long before I thought about publishing a literary love story about a young woman with OCD. Just ask my husband. Still, I don’t really know why I am so compelled to risk resources and humiliation in this very public way at 45, when I should have nothing left to prove.
Asking myself this question has brought me to the realization that this publishing business is more like my midlife scavenger hunt than my midlife crisis. Each part of this publishing journey—the highs and lows, successes and failures, brick walls and automatic doors—has taught me about who I am and what is really important to me at this time in my life. So I’ve decided to write my blog about the clues I have garnered in this midlife scavenger hunt—what I will call publishing my first novel, Oxford Messed Up—and what they have taught me about myself.
Read the rest of this entry here and please feel free to leave a comment or story of your own midlife scavenger hunt adventures:
Publishing My Midlife Scavenger Hunt (Continued)
"That's so OCD" and other phrases we loathe...
I recently had the opportunity to guest post for the popular blog "The Modern Mama Memoirs" about the difficult realities of OCD. My blog is re-posted here.
One of the taboo phrases in our house is “That’s so OCD.” We hear it so much in schools, offices, and other public spaces. It’s become part of our common parlance—when someone checks several times to make sure the car door is locked, when someone washes their hands religiously before and after every meal, and when someone is generally too nit-picky or anal. But OCD is more than a phrase or an insult, it is a disorder we think we know because we see it in film and television. Jack Nicholson in “As Good as it Gets;” Tony Shalhoub in “Monk;” and Jayma Mays in “Glee”. While Hollywood may have good intentions, it often focuses on the quirky behaviors (compulsions) OCD causes without addressing the real internal torture and obsessions that a person with OCD experiences.
It is difficult to really understand this internal torture unless you’ve experienced it first hand. Unfortunately, it is something my family knows all too well. One of my loved ones had always been picky and precise. We noticed it getting much worse, and eventually a chain of life-altering events ignited the long-latent OCD. The psychologist described the OCD as “conflagration” and we watched the disease consume one of our dearest family members, making it nearly impossible for this loved one to enjoy life.
The psychologist and psychiatrist informed us that if there was a chance of recovering from the OCD, it would have to be through the combination of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and medication. Both of these options seemed frightening, but it was more frightening watching the deterioration of someone so dear to us. Cognitive Behavior Therapy with its rigid “tough love” system of rewards and punishments seemed so archaic, but it was…and still is…the only therapy that has been proven successful in treating OCD. It is also called ERP which stands for Exposure and Response Therapy. We learned the hard way that OCD was not funny at all; it was internal torture. For the sufferer of OCD, it is as if there is an internal voice that compels destructive behaviors based on irrational obsessions to alleviate intense anxiety. The person with OCD knows these obsessions and compulsions are irrational but is gripped by the internal voice and its illusory promise of relief.
It requires exposing the person with OCD to what they are most anxious about so that they can prove to themselves and their internal OCD voice that they can tolerate the anxiety and that their fallacious assumption that world is coming to an end is not true. Thus for the OCD who is checker and cannot leave the house because she is afraid she left the burners on, she will have to gradually be forced to leave her house with the burners on. The OCD germaphobe may be forced to eat food from the floor.
CBT/ ERP is very painful for the person with OCD, forcing them to confront what they are most afraid of and what gives them short-term comfort (although like most addictions, it never lasts and they always need more). CBT/ ERP, however, is the only proven treatment that works and it can be more effective if coupled with medication. Our loved one got the help they needed and within just a few months the condition was dramatically improved. Everyone called it a miracle, but for the OCD community, it was a matter of course. Even though the results of CBT are so incredible, it is hard to see it through.
In addition to my wonderful husband and family, the main person who got me through was Gloria. Thank God for Gloria. She was born on the shores of Lake Michigan, where I would escape every morning to walk by the lake as I listened to Van Morrison and occasionally some Bob Dylan. Gloria’s name came from one of Van Morrison’s most famous songs, “Gloria” (performed prior to his solo career with his 1960s band, Them), and Zimmerman is a reference to the last name Bob Dylan was born with. She was a 22-year-old young woman with untreated OCD. In my mind, she helped me understand what my family was going through. She consoled me.
I have written a fiction account of Gloria, giving her the same happy ending we had. I was fortunate enough to get a New York agent on my first try. Publishers were very enthusiastic about the writing but they did not believe the depiction of OCD even though my book had been vetted by several prominent experts and lauded as “the first true depiction of OCD in fiction.” But it was so important that people really understand the internal torture of OCD and how it can be treated effectively so my husband and I formed our own independent Grant Place Press. The book has received rave reviews and there were will be several articles in prominent magazines.
Our society’s superficial understanding of OCD disregards the internal torture that people with OCD struggle with every day. They think they know OCD, judging friends and family and laughing at their ridiculous anal behavior. That’s so not OCD.
One of the taboo phrases in our house is “That’s so OCD.” We hear it so much in schools, offices, and other public spaces. It’s become part of our common parlance—when someone checks several times to make sure the car door is locked, when someone washes their hands religiously before and after every meal, and when someone is generally too nit-picky or anal. But OCD is more than a phrase or an insult, it is a disorder we think we know because we see it in film and television. Jack Nicholson in “As Good as it Gets;” Tony Shalhoub in “Monk;” and Jayma Mays in “Glee”. While Hollywood may have good intentions, it often focuses on the quirky behaviors (compulsions) OCD causes without addressing the real internal torture and obsessions that a person with OCD experiences.
It is difficult to really understand this internal torture unless you’ve experienced it first hand. Unfortunately, it is something my family knows all too well. One of my loved ones had always been picky and precise. We noticed it getting much worse, and eventually a chain of life-altering events ignited the long-latent OCD. The psychologist described the OCD as “conflagration” and we watched the disease consume one of our dearest family members, making it nearly impossible for this loved one to enjoy life.
The psychologist and psychiatrist informed us that if there was a chance of recovering from the OCD, it would have to be through the combination of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and medication. Both of these options seemed frightening, but it was more frightening watching the deterioration of someone so dear to us. Cognitive Behavior Therapy with its rigid “tough love” system of rewards and punishments seemed so archaic, but it was…and still is…the only therapy that has been proven successful in treating OCD. It is also called ERP which stands for Exposure and Response Therapy. We learned the hard way that OCD was not funny at all; it was internal torture. For the sufferer of OCD, it is as if there is an internal voice that compels destructive behaviors based on irrational obsessions to alleviate intense anxiety. The person with OCD knows these obsessions and compulsions are irrational but is gripped by the internal voice and its illusory promise of relief.
It requires exposing the person with OCD to what they are most anxious about so that they can prove to themselves and their internal OCD voice that they can tolerate the anxiety and that their fallacious assumption that world is coming to an end is not true. Thus for the OCD who is checker and cannot leave the house because she is afraid she left the burners on, she will have to gradually be forced to leave her house with the burners on. The OCD germaphobe may be forced to eat food from the floor.
CBT/ ERP is very painful for the person with OCD, forcing them to confront what they are most afraid of and what gives them short-term comfort (although like most addictions, it never lasts and they always need more). CBT/ ERP, however, is the only proven treatment that works and it can be more effective if coupled with medication. Our loved one got the help they needed and within just a few months the condition was dramatically improved. Everyone called it a miracle, but for the OCD community, it was a matter of course. Even though the results of CBT are so incredible, it is hard to see it through.
In addition to my wonderful husband and family, the main person who got me through was Gloria. Thank God for Gloria. She was born on the shores of Lake Michigan, where I would escape every morning to walk by the lake as I listened to Van Morrison and occasionally some Bob Dylan. Gloria’s name came from one of Van Morrison’s most famous songs, “Gloria” (performed prior to his solo career with his 1960s band, Them), and Zimmerman is a reference to the last name Bob Dylan was born with. She was a 22-year-old young woman with untreated OCD. In my mind, she helped me understand what my family was going through. She consoled me.
I have written a fiction account of Gloria, giving her the same happy ending we had. I was fortunate enough to get a New York agent on my first try. Publishers were very enthusiastic about the writing but they did not believe the depiction of OCD even though my book had been vetted by several prominent experts and lauded as “the first true depiction of OCD in fiction.” But it was so important that people really understand the internal torture of OCD and how it can be treated effectively so my husband and I formed our own independent Grant Place Press. The book has received rave reviews and there were will be several articles in prominent magazines.
Our society’s superficial understanding of OCD disregards the internal torture that people with OCD struggle with every day. They think they know OCD, judging friends and family and laughing at their ridiculous anal behavior. That’s so not OCD.
