So in the book you get to go down the rabbit hole of my life living with anxiety and depression. Sometimes it’s hysterical, sometimes not, but you’re getting to relive those moments with me.

This blog on the other hand is more about real-time insight into my mind… and just barely in time for St. Patrick’s Day, lucky for you.

Where’s my brain du jour? Well, EVERYTHING about my brain these days is about adopting a new dog or my book, and dogs have taken as back seat for now.

I was just cruising around on my phone today and got a Facebook notification, which turned out to be a like for my cover art. Cool, right? Yeah, clearly you don’t live in my brain.

All of a sudden all I could think about was how few people had responded to this pretty monumental post (not none to be sure, but a lot less than many other posts of mine.) And that sent my broken brain on a bit of a spiral of crap. Was this a Facebook algorithm bullshit thing, where people weren’t seeing it? Were people just not checking their feed? Was it that people didn’t like the cover? Was it that people were that apathetic/disinterested that I was moving forward with the book? That was it right? No one cared, right?

Of course that’s crap, but welcome to my evil brain and her squawking vicious Crow cawing in my ear about how I suck.

And man, was this going to be what it feels like when the book finally comes out? After 6 years of work, and months of more work and stress and anticipation, was it going to feel like a huge let down?

And the answer to that is most likely – yes. I mean, realistically, one day on Facebook I’m going to say – “hey folks, here it is!!!!” And I’m gonna get some likes, maybe if I’m lucky a few “congratulations” in the comments, and that’s it. Cuz like what the hell else is there? I’m not a fucking Harry Potter book release or something. There is no red carpet, no launch party, no……. well, anything. Maybe Dave will bring me some flowers or something?

For the first time I’m stuck up against the reality of something that has been a fantasy of mine for so long. I’ve always wanted to be “a writer” and have people read my work. Now, in a tiny little microcosm, that is coming true. But it is, indeed, a microcosm. At best, I’m guessing about (being generous) 10 people will buy it and of those, 2 will actually read it. Again, I’m no Stephan King. This is probably better than I should hope for.

And in the end, I didn’t write it for “fame” or something. I wrote it because I wanted to write like I always promised myself I would. And so I did. And not only did I accomplish that process of writing, but went through the process of publishing it too. I have lived up to a promise I made myself so very long ago. So no matter what, it’s not that it’s a failure. I achieved what I set out to achieve.

But hey, let’s circle back to my brain being my brain. I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, but it’s still going to be so anti-climactic that I know it’s going to viscerally affect me. In my tiny little world, it’s such a huge thing, and I know it will be hard when it doesn’t even make a ripple in the ‘bigger” world. It’s going to make me doubt everything. It’s going to make me get anxious about everything. It’s frankly going to make me freak out about everything.

So I wrote a book about my anxiety and depression as a way of dealing with my anxiety and depression, that ultimately may cause a relapse in my anxiety and depression. Welcome to my world folks. Fasten your seat belts and try not to vomit.