The Novel is Done!

And other updates?

My first novel (PLEASURE MEDICINE) is finished! It’s a relief to not think obsessively about this project and to settle into mental boredom after chipping away at this project for a year and a half. With some guidance from friends, I’ve sent off query letters to agents and submitted to a few presses that take unagented, unsolicited manuscript submissions. I have no idea if I’ll get any responses, but I’m trying to dream big! If I do succeed somehow, I’ll post my query letter for all to see and any advice I can offer.

I’ve also been commissioned to write a short story as part of an exhibit my brilliant friend, Alexandra Box, is curating at the Gardiner Museum. I’ll try to share more once there’s promo for that, but my story is sort of my first attempt at trying to sort through my terrible postpartum crisis when Esther was first born. I’m so thankful that now, two years and a bit later, with psych and family help, I am mentally stable and a happy, present mother to my child.

Which brings me to my last update, which may only be relevant to other people who have experienced or may experience a postpartum crisis—I am finally almost tapered off of one of my sleep medications. I sort of wrote a bit of a post about this crisis here, as a refresher:

Basically, I started taking trazodone 175mg for insomnia split into two doses at night (one at the start, one in the middle of the night). I also worked my way up to 100mg of sertraline (Zoloft) for debilitating anxiety, which also made a difference for my sleep anxiety. Then, I found I was still having a terrible time coping with infant feeding and sleep, and switched to taking quetiapine (Seroquel) 25mg at that middle of the night wakeup (so 100mg trazodone at start of night, followed by the quetiapine). Why am I writing this? Well, I found it SO HARD to find other people writing about being medicated while breastfeeding. I read so many posts about people with PPD/PPA (postpartum depression/postpartum anxiety) where they just “made it through the other side” without medication, which made me feel so alone. I also felt like I was going to poison my daughter nursing her on medication, which I know was just the anxiety, but she’s happy and healthy and just fine. I just needed other stories to reassure me that she would be fine, but couldn’t really find any examples. I was also so terrified of being dependent on quetiapine for sleep, but things have gotten a lot better, which is why I feel ready to come off of it. I’ve always had issues with sleep, so maybe I’ll just keep taking the trazodone ;).

Perinatal mental health has come a long way, but it still took so much advocating for myself that I was not well and needed serious help and intervention. Perinatal psychiatry saved my life and gave me the bond that I’ve always wanted and needed with my child. I feel ready to try to write a longer piece about postpartum anxiety to bring more attention to it soon <3

I’ll end this post with Octavia Butler’s affirmations that she will be a bestselling writer.

For myself: I will get an agent and be published. So be it! See to it!