Why Do I Love To Write

I never thought I’d post anything on this blog site outside of things related to my book, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, until an author/blogger Kay Ziegler started to ask me questions for an interview, or I should say a question. I received an e-mail from her with just one question, stating others were to follow. I don’t know if it was the space of that one question, without a list of others pressuring me to get on with it, or what, that really sent me down deep with an answer. That’s what I’m posting here today. I just sent it back to her and don’t know if it will turn into a post from me or there will be another question. I’ll leave that up to her. I love to know about authors that I read, that I enjoy, and that’s why I’m going to share a little bit about myself in a few posts. Here goes:

When I was ten, my older brother was 18. That’s when I began
writing, that’s also when he landed in a metal institution, diagnosed
with schizophrenic. He was morbidly obese and severely bullied
in Jr. High and High School, and had no friends. As a result
of his obesity and mental illness, he had terrible body odor and
was repulsive to be around. He was also inappropriate sexually
in that he’d try to kiss female family members. I couldn’t have
friends over, and as I result I didn’t have friends outside of the
family until I was in Jr. High School myself. I couldn’t talk about
it because I was so ashamed of being related to him that I didn’t
want to draw attention to it, so I wrote. I wrote to express the
feelings of rejection I felt in life because I had a brother who
was damaged. I was young and didn’t understand what was
happening. I couldn’t talk to my parents about him, they had
their own heartache, and I wouldn’t talk to my cousins or other family,
out of fear. I was afraid of becoming like him, fat, socially
isolated, and insane. If I talked about him something inside of me
would start to surface, so I kept a lid on it, except when writing.
I wrote, and when I did, I felt safe to say anything I wanted to. My
writing world became my sanctuary, where I felt free to be who I was,
my authentic self. To this day, I feel the same about writing but now
I’ve grown and developed into a woman who can relate to
friends and am happily married with a great job that I love.
Along with rescuing dogs, writing is my passion, a gift
of Grace, that came to me when I most needed reprieve
in my life.

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