Tag Archives: #stayhere

7 Things Students Can Do Right Now To Make The World A Better Place

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I’m addressing you, students, because you have the strength and will that older people mostly do not. Young people start nations; old people bitch about them. It’s the way of the world. If you’re not happy with your world right now, there are steps you can take today that can tangibly impact your world right this very second.

(And old people, if you want to join in, that’s cool, too.)

1. Listen.

One of the best things any of us can do is listen to other people. Try to avoid rushing to judgement, try to avoid rushing to a “fix.” Just listen. Ask questions. Make eye contact. Those simple things may make all the difference to someone, including you. You don’t have to change your mind about a topic, but you do have to leave room for it to marinate a bit. Let people’s stories impact you.

2. Don’t talk shit.

And on that note, don’t talk shit to or about other people. I talk so much shit, it’s unreal, but only when I’m alone in the car. And you know what? It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make me feel better, it doesn’t change the assholes from being assholes. (Seriously, who lets their dog crap twelve inches away from a free dog-poop-bag dispenser? The same able-bodied shitbags who park in handicapped spots, I bet.)

So, yes, it may feel good for a moment to rag on someone, but it is not helping the world. Especially petty, gossipy bullshit.

There are two people, two very specific people alive in this world today that I hate with the heat of a thousand burning suns. And you know what? That hate has done nothing for me. Not a thing. This year, I will forgive them. Somehow. Maybe with the help of some Metta meditation, maybe by sheer force of will, but I will do it. It’s not hurting them, it’s hurting me.

Furthermore, back-stabbing and shit-talking online has got to stop. Just don’t participate in that bottom-feeder bullshit. You’re better than that. We all are. Being a petty little shit online is for…petty little shits. We need fewer of those, and a lot more of people saying, “Hey, I’m here.”

Remember Random? Remember that that book was based on a true story? (Or, more likely, hundreds of true stories.) If our “hero” had simply spoken up, spoken kindly when she had the chance, a life might have been saved. Again, this was based on a true story. This happens every day in this country, and I’m sick of it, and you should be, too.

Be kind online or don’t even bother logging on. Post pictures of puppies and kittens if you want, but don’t get caught up in the rumor mill or hater spaces. I promise you have much better things to do than that. For example:

3. Ask him/her out.

Just do it! The worst that happens is nothing. You will have a great story to tell a few years from now, no matter the result. And don’t, like, text it or something. Man- or Woman-up and go face to face and say, “Hey, want to go grab some coffee sometime?” or whatever it is you think will work. Don’t be cutesy or clever, just be sincere. Smile. I swear to you, even if you get laughed at (you probably won’t), it will not be the end of the world if he/she says no. How much trouble might Tyler have saved himself if he’d just goddamned talked to Becky that first day? We’ll never know. But a kind smile and some nice words will go a long, long way toward making a friend or a date. Or both.

4. Reduce/eliminate eating meat.

I am not a climate scientist or medical doctor, nor do I claim to be, and I don’t give a shit whether you “believe in” science or not. That’s your issue. My issue is simply this: Reducing or eliminating your meat intake is good for your body, your neighborhood, your state, your country, and your planet. You do not have to go all-out vegan—my family is what I call “veering vegan” without making some kind of blood-oath of fealty to Mother Gaia. But we don’t have meat more than, say, once a month anymore. If everyone pulled back on meat consumption, there are benefits for everyone.

Just consider it, it’s all I ask. Google it. Here, I did it for you: What happens if we stop eating meat?

5. Do that thing you like doing, no matter what anyone says.

You have a thing you love to do. You know what it is. Maybe it’s writing stories or poetry or lyrics, or painting or drawing or sculpting, or golfing or dog walking or yoga or krav maga, or acting or directing or filming or editing….

You get the idea. There’s something you deeply love to do.

Go do that thing. Once a week, minimum, if possible. Once a month will do. You deserve to do that thing. (If it’s not, say, being a homicidal maniac, that is.) This world needs all of us to relentlessly pursue the things we love, the things that make us happy to be here, the things that define us. When we do that, we’re better able to deal with the crap that comes at us. Our stress level goes down, and our relationships improve. I hate the idea of anyone, anywhere, not being able to do at least a little bit of the thing they love. I may never sell another novel in my life, but I will still write several a year because it’s who I am. It’s what I do. It’s one of the things that makes me, me.

So go do your thing.

6. Which reminds me, STAY THE FUCK HERE.

Not kidding. Suicide is fucking bullshit, period, full stop. Ask anyone who’s had to live with someone they love doing it. So, don’t. Ever. Just don’t. Wait. Give it a day or a week or a month or a year, but so help me baby Jesus, things will get better after high school, and even better after college-age. Ask me how I know. But you won’t find out if you don’t STAY HERE. Put the Suicide Prevention Hotline number into your phone right now and you call that thing the very moment it even crosses your mind.

Let’s make 2017 the year we didn’t lose one more kid to suicide.

You being here makes the world a better place. See how easy that is? Just stick around. Someone needs you. I know I do.

National Suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255

 

7. Watch the sunrise or sunset.

When you get a chance, take just a minute, or five, or ten, and watch the sun come up or set. If nothing else it’s a reminder to take a moment and breathe, clear your head, and put all the craziness of the world in its place. It works for me.

Here’s to 2017. We got this.

 

 

I Hate Me: a #HoldOnToTheLight post

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Because I trained as an actor, this is who I will show you at my events. It is who I wish I was all the time. But it’s not. I hate this guy. Here’s why:

For those of you short on time, here is the pull quote version of what I want to say and my vision for you and the world:

Don’t hurt yourself. Ever. If you do, stop. We need you. Choose today, even if it’s just today, to say, “I’m not going to hurt myself during this particular waking period.” Start there. Then do it again and again and again. Because whatever it is you are hurting yourself for, I know this to be true: it is not your fault.

#WaitOneMinute

I’m gonna tell you something right now that very, very few people have ever been told. But because I believe in the mission of #HoldOnToTheLight, I’m gonna tell you. Okay? I’m trusting you with this. My family—or, rather, the people I am related to by blood—probably aren’t going throw me any parties any time soon for sharing this. They are also unlikely to ever see it.

Okay? You with me? Here we go.

When I was about four or five, my mom rubbed my own shit in my face. A few times. It was supposed to teach me something. It was supposed to teach me how to use the goddamn toilet, in fact. I was having some trouble with that at the time.

Oddly, her approach didn’t work.

So on another occasion, my dad tossed my bare-naked ass into our outdoor chicken coop, where I literally jumped up and down in the air, screaming and terrified that I was either A) going to be left out there all day and all night, or B) the chickens were going to peck me to death, or C) both.

Oddly, that didn’t work, either.

These are two examples of what was considered Good Parenting Of A Preschooler.

Just two. Things that, if I saw someone doing them to my son, no court on Earth would convict me of what I’d do to them.

I didn’t know it was wrong of them to have done this until just a few years ago. Imagine if I’d thought that was normal when my son was born? Who might he become if I hadn’t known this was wrong?

Hold that thought, we’ll come back to it.

Flash forward to the year after high school graduation. Some friends and I got jumped in an apartment building parking lot. Two went to the ER. We didn’t even get a punch in. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Not at the time.

But then a few months later, I was alone in a community college parking lot after dark, and this car full of guys roars into the lot, starts doing donuts around me, and screamed, “WE’RE GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!”

They didn’t. I guess they were “kidding.”

When I got home, I collapsed in my room and couldn’t move. I thought I was going to puke, stroke out, and have a heart attack all at once.

I didn’t. I guess my body was “kidding.”

But I didn’t leave the house after dark for the next three years, either. And for the next several after that, if I did go out at night, it wasn’t without an escape plan. I lost friends. I missed opportunities. I pretended to sleep through my own birthday party so I wouldn’t have to leave the house. I cut lines into my arms to “relieve stress.” For as long as I can remember, I’ve flown into Exorcist-level rages over such slights as the garage door not opening correctly. I beat the almighty fuck out of my head, stomach, and legs. I’ve broken more shit than I can even remember. (Doors used to my favorite target; they were great for roundhouse kicks.)

My friends and readers, I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I never served on a front line and I was never a first responder, so I resisted this diagnosis for  a long time. How could I have PTSD? I’m an author, not a solider, not a cop. I have a friend who was literally blown up in Iraq. (I saw the footage!) He seems to be fine; ergo, I needed to shut up and quit being a fucking wuss.

That’s not how this works.

I developed a panic disorder that night after we got jumped. That was in January 1994. I’ve since gotten pretty much over that, though I still have an escape plan everywhere I go, and I can’t sit in the middle of a row at the movies or other events; always an aisle. So there are lingering effects from that.

The PTSD on the other hand . . . that shit’s still here. I actually have never-before-seen video footage of what the rages look like, and it would be funny, almost, if it wasn’t so fucking creepy. It’s inhuman. I am unrecognizable, even to me.

But it’s getting better, and you want to know why? Because a professional mental health practitioner told me what it was.

That’s the first step. If you cannot get out of bed from crushing sadness, if your only emotional release comes from a blade or a bottle of booze or a bottle of pills, if the slightest surprise noise makes you shrink inside your skin and then blow up with madness (like it does with me)…then something is wrong, and you need—

You deserve to have it checked out.

You don’t have to live like this. You don’t.

People always say “Get help!” What’s that mean? It means finding someone who can tell you what is wrong. Someone who can help you name it. Someone who, like my doctor did for me, can lean forward in her chair, look you in the eye, and say:

“What they did to you was not okay.”

Because eventually, you’ll start to believe it. You’ll start to accept it. And then things start to get better.

Whatever it was that was done to you was not okay.

Go ahead. Say it. Say it out loud to yourself right now. What they did to me was not okay. Because it wasn’t.

Now, I’d been to a whole slew of doctors from a very young age. None of them did much to make me feel better. I’ve done my time in a behavioral health facility over this mess, and that was . . . nice . . . but didn’t stop the rage, didn’t stop the self-hate, didn’t stop the fear.

What did one doctor do that all the others before her couldn’t? Here’s the secret:

I told her the whole story.

See, before that, I kept parts of the hell I’d been through to myself. They didn’t need to know! It was My Fault, obviously. I’d handle it. I’d Been Sick, obviously. My family history had nothing to do with slashing my arms or punching myself all the fuck over.

It sounds silly to write. It might sound silly to read. But that’s the secret. I told her everything, and that allowed her to give me the diagnosis I needed to start the process of feeling better.

My wife, doctor, and I developed a scale of rage from 1 to 10, 1 being “everything’s cool” to 10 being “I am out of control and breaking shit in the house, car, and my body.” It’s been…let’s see…maybe a few months since I had no-holds-barred Level 10 outburst. But I come close every week or two. I probably reach an 8 once every ten days.

But that’s down from a 10 every other week or so.

I hate me more than any ten, a hundred, or a thousand people on earth combined could ever hope to. (Even more than Kirkus and Goodreads reviewers, if such a thing be possible!) That’s my legacy. It’s not my only one, I know, but it’s up there. It is one that I chip away at as best I can. It’s one I will never let my son experience.

I don’t have to live like that. So I try to choose not to. (Try is the operative word. Sometimes it’s all we can do. That’s okay. It counts.)

If your life, or the life of someone you love, has become unmanageable . . . if simple daily tasks feel impossible because of that crushing intangible weight in your heart and mind . . . then today is the day to set up an appointment with someone who can help you name it.

You don’t have to live like this. You don’t.

But you do have to live. I’m here because I know there are people who would miss me if I left. You have those people, too. Don’t let what someone did to you determine the course of your life. They are not worth it. You are better. You are stronger. And hey, there are too many great books yet to read, right?

Stay here. If you can absolutely nothing else today, do that. Stay here. We’ll work on it again tomorrow.

Take care.

+ + +

About the campaign:

#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment.

Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Hope for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK), SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors and blog posts, or reach a media contact, go to

https://www.facebook.com/groups/276745236033627/

 

 

Maybe this’ll help.

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Note: I wrote this at least a year ago and just didn’t post it. I’m posting it now because I need to read it, and maybe you or someone you know does, too.

I just wrapped up teaching at a conference over the weekend, and it was great. I got to meet rock star authors, and make new friends, and learn a lot, and teach a lot, and it was great. It really was.

And within 24 hours of it ending, I just wanted the whole world to go away.

You know that feeling?

Now, I’m not going to hurt myself again—I’m trying hard not to, anyway, although it is hard sometimes. But yeah, there was definitely a moment or two there where the anger and the sadness and the unfairness and injustice and just the futility of fighting anything anymore got to me.

Some of you know what I’m talking about. That sadness and depression and rage that sits like a ten ton overcoat. And you feel like no one else seems to get it.

Well, I do. But you know what? You’re still kind of right. A lot of people don’t get it. They don’t. A lot of people haven’t gone through what you have. A lot of people have families and friends of the family who didn’t do terrible things to them. Right? Because that’s who it almost always is, isn’t it. They don’t understand that.

That’s okay.

I was reading an article on The Guardian recently about sadness, and making peace with it, and the author made a great point: In Western civilization, sadness and grief have been criminalized, in a sense. Look at our places of business. Someone in your life dies–could be a parent, spouse, or child–and you get ,like, five days to get over it, then it’s back to work, chin up, stiff uppper lip. That’s absurd. Grief can take years.

And no one gives you time off to grieve over other losses. Losing a dream. A love. A pet.

I don’t mean to suggest you shouldn’t work until all grief and sadness is gone. For one thing, that’s just never going to happen in life. What I do mean is that this morning, I got out of bed and I took my kid to school and I went to my coffee shop and wrote. I’d rather have stayed on the couch and watched Walking Dead all day, because, you know, irony. But I got up.

I got up because maybe today will be better. Or tomorrow, or next year.

So if you’re sad, that’s okay. If you’re grieving, that’s okay. Don’t let anyone try to steal it from you. I’m not going to sit up here and tell you to get better, but I will tell you to at least not give up. And don’t hurt yourself. Ask for help, because someone needs you.

Straight up honest: Yesterday, I really missed my hospital, and it wasn’t the first time. I write about that feeling in my novel Shackled, how being in a mental hospital–sorry, behavioral health facility–can become kind of . . . addicting. It’s safe in there. There are fewer rules. There’s lots of nice meds. Everyone smokes, because smoking Camels is always better than shooting heroin or burning yourself with a soldering iron.

If someone hurt you, I am sorry, and it is not okay. Period.

So I want you to get better, yes. I want you to be happy, yes. But you can be happy on a deep, heart level and still be sad or depressed or angry. That’s okay, too. Don’t let it run your life is all. There are good things out there. A peppermint mocha and a laptop with a fresh new Word doc that starts to fill with the words of an urban fantasy novel for example. That’s good shit. (I do still miss smoking, not gonna lie, but anyway…)

Be sad. Anyone who loves you less for it doesn’t deserve your time.

Be sad, but work to feel better. Work to get the things you want in life. Which by default means sticking around so you can do that. However sad you might be, there’s still something you want to do. What is it? Go get it. Show it to us. Share it.

Okay?

 

The Day Amber Benson & The Dread Pirate Roberts Saved My Life

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Could I just have one good f*cking day?!?! Answer: "As you wish."

Could I just have one good f*cking day?!?! Answer: “As you wish.”

Phoenix ComiCon 2015 begins in about 48 hours. I’m looking forward to it in a very special way this year because this time last year . . . I wasn’t.

2014 recap: Got to meet some great authors; met about a hundred up-and-coming writers, for whom I wish the best of luck and joy in their writing; met Cary Elwes who was preternaturally kind and wonderful; then was utterly charmed and stunned by author and actor Amber Benson for not only not roundhouse kicking my face when I jumped in front of her and asked her to come to my last panel of the day…but that she showed up and absolutely made my weekend. Her arriving at my class really took my breath away. You know what it’s like when you meet your Rock Star – whether he or she is an artist, actor, writer, poet, musician, or Fortune 500 CEO? Whoever your Rock Star is, you know that feeling? Yeah. It was like that.

And I wasn’t going to go. I came *that* close to skipping the whole thing.

No one knows, until just now, that that was my plan. Not my wife, not my ComiCon friends, not the Con organizers who are as dear to me as any family. No one. I didn’t announce it. I just quietly debated the merits of even bothering to show up. Because for all the awesome that is Phoenix ComiCon, sadness and self-loathing are . . . well, if we’re gonna be geeky, let’s just say the Dark Side is “Quicker. More seductive.” 

The reason I debated those merits is, I’ll never be good enough. I never have been, never will be, let’s end the entire charade.

You ever felt that way?

Let me make one thing clear, here: I am 100% aware of the sheer volume of blessings I have. No question. We can start with my wife and son and work our way along. I know them all. I do actually “count my blessings.” Frequently. Toby and Joy take up Spot #1. I have published novels that are on bookstore shelves; we’ll call that #3, because my friends take up Spot #2.

But still I wonder. Still I fear. Still I think it’s all a trick. 

Let’s put it this way: If anyone ever said to Toby the things I say into the mirror — and that’s not always metaphorical, by the way — I’d be Cobra-Kai-sweepin’-the-leg all over that person’s face. No one talks to my wife or my kid like that. No one.

I, on the other hand, am totally allowed to say those things to me. Some are things people have said and just stayed in there for, oh, thirty years. Some are brand-new that I came up with myself. And being a writer, trust me, some of them are pretty heinous. (My wife and my doctor get all upset with me when they hear the sorts of things I say to myself. Geez, calm down, right? I mean, they’re just words! . . . Right?)

So that’s just the tip of what was happening right before Con 2014. It’s the tip of what happens a lot in this office where I work. 

Thing is . . . I look back at last year’s Con and think of all the total coolness I would have missed out on if I’d given up. The wonderful people I wouldn’t have met.

No matter how much easier it is to give in, I can’t let it happen. You can’t let it happen. There is just too much cool shit we could miss out on if we let our Dark Sides get the better of us.

So this time last year, I could barely pick myself up off the floor. But I did. I got up, and goddammit, I went to Phoenix ComiCon to be with my tribe. And what do you know — heroes showed up, and reminded me by their smiles and their handshakes and their hugs that this place is worth sticking around for. Even when it sucks.

Artists you admire come watch your dialogue class, or dread pirates show great kindness. These things can change the entire course of a day, week, or longer. Much longer, sometimes. Like, the entire year between Cons, for example.

So thank you, Amber, and Cary, and Faith, and Brandy, and my exquisite and unrelentingly faithful bride. Thank you to every person who’s ever said a kind word about me or my work. Thank you. It matters. I hope I return the favor somehow.

I hope to see you at Phoenix ComiCon 2015. I’m really looking forward to it, no kidding. And if you or someone you know has been or is in one of those awful places I described, hang in there. Heroes abound. Keep your eyes open. We can do this.

We can. We have to. Because I don’t want any of us to miss Phoenix ComiCon 2016.

So say we all.

* * *

One of Amber’s newest novels can be found here.

Cary Elwes’s backstage look at The Princess Bride can be found here.

On August 18, my sixth novel launches. The plot is a thriller, but the theme is about darkness. About that hole of fear and panic and uselessness some of us find ourselves in sometimes. It’s fitting that it’s coming out now, because it’s about a character trying not to let the fear win. It’s about making the harder choice to not give up. I’ve written novels inspired by events in my life, yes — nothing like this. Never so naked.

Shackled can be found here. These are not affiliate links.

(P.S. Be sure to leave reviews on Amazon for any author you enjoy. It is incredibly helpful. Thanks!)

#stayhere

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So I’m 40 today.

No, seriously. It’s true. Damn!

I was burning this old videotape to my hard drive yesterday, a video from when I was 21 or so. Know what? I look better now.

There was lot I wanted to say today, but I’ll keep it short instead:

I’m here.

This video was—and I am not kidding—a video journal, in which I was bemoaning the loss of a girlfriend. Did you know that I will never love anyone ever again? Fact! And that I will never get over what she did to me? Fact!

Yeah…except for the part where those things aren’t true.

Trust me, I am the last guy to dismiss a young person’s trauma, drama, and emotional pain. Have you read my novels? That would be pretty inconsiderate of me, to say the least. Problems and pain and angst . . . these are real at the time. Watching that video, you could see the stress and strain. You or someone you know is going through difficulty right now. Right this very moment.

Life is simply never, ever, ever going to get better.

Or so it seems. Yet somehow, it can. It does. I know it’s hard to wait a week, or a month, or a year . . . or almost twenty . . . but if I’d given up then as I very much wanted to do, if I hadn’t ended up asking for the help I obviously needed, there’s no Party. There’s no Random.

 Worst of all, there’s no Toby. C’mon, look at that! DSC_0053

I’ve done a lot of things the past twenty years: Marriage and a son, awards and talks, travel and adventures, meeting new people and making new friends. 

 …Walking the earth like Caine in Kung Fu. (Well, maybe not that part yet.)

 If I’d done to myself what I felt like doing back then, none of that happens. None of it. It’s one thing to want the pain to stop; I get that. Trust me, I do. It’s another thing to end any opportunity to see what happens later.

 I’m thrilled to be here. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’m glad I stayed.

 You should, too.

 #stayhere.

 Take care,

~ Tom

a thin scream

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I’ll be honest with ya’ll, it was a rough end to ’09 and ’10 is defining itself as a time in which I’m trying desperately to refill my emotional gas tank, the needle of which hovers over E right now.  But I know one thing.  I know one thing.  I have a reminder of it on every Bauer bag/murse/backpack I’ve carried since about ’93 or ’94.  It’s a crappy yarn-woven bookmark that is useless for that function, so now is merely decoration and a reminder.  It was knitted for me by an older lady I remember only as “Babs” who I met while in intensive day treatment therapy and one lovely evening as an in-patient for a number of psychological problems.

I know one thing that this crappy yarn bookmark reminds me of every time I see it:  I will not ever let myself get so out of control that I need to go back to that hospital.

I’m tired, worn out, stressed, on the virtual brink of being broke; I’ve been a shoulder, a confidante; and I’m out of gas.  But I will never hurt myself again.  Ever.  If I ever thought I was about to, believe me, I wouldn’t hesitate to get the help I needed. But I don’t think that will ever be necessary, because I won’t let it be necessary.  I’ll work it out.  I’ll hit the heavy bag in my garage or scream or cry or play really f’ing loud Social D on my crappy Mexican Fender, but I will not hurt myself.

Nor should you.

Self-injury is not cool, not hip, not wicked-awesome, not anything but a thin bloody scream for help.  Don’t let it get to that point.  This is your only body.  Use it wisely.  Treat it well.  This is your only mind; ditto.  Your only heart; ditto again. I’m not saying ignore any hurt, any stress, any drama.  I’m saying find a good way to deal with it.  Hurting yourself is not going to help, not going to make it go away, and is not something you can take back.  It’s as addictive as any drug.

So please — don’t.  Get help.  A friend, a parent, a teacher, I don’t care, but get it.  You matter to me, and I guarantee you matter to others.

I’m not a licensed anything – not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, or anything else. I’m just a guy who took a mental tumble many years ago and made it back.  So can you.  It does get better.

Hang in there.  Instead of carving Liar, Hopeless, Failure, or anything else into your body, “write love on your arms,” a thousand times if you must.  But don’t give in and don’t give up.

Take care.

~ Tom