Author: Angela B. Chrysler
What has 2015 meant to you as a writer?
2015 has been the most amazing year I have ever had as a writer. It is the year I finished not only my first book, but my second as well. It is the year I became a published author. It is the year I published my second book. And it is the year I published my third story. 2015 is the year I made a name for myself: a name many co-horts are associating with quality, determination, and respect. 2015 is one year that will never fade in memory.
What world events in 2015 moved you?
I don’t follow current events. I haven’t watched the news since a nut job murdered 20 five-year olds at Sandy Hook. However, this year truly impacted me like no other on a personal level. This is the year I revisited 9/11, and finally allowed myself to grieve for me on that day. The 9/11 of 2015 is the 9/11 I will never forget.
Were there any leading events in your life in 2015?
This question gets to my core. There is only one way I can answer this question.
January – I began this year living in four fictitious realms. I was incapable of going outside, talking on the phone or answering it. I was a hermit, a recluse, a shut in. I was incapable of walking down to my kitchen or going outside. I was dangerously withdrawing deeper into my mind. I spoke on a regular basis to three fictitious characters… and no one else. I danced every morning and listened to music.
February – A fourth fictitious character submerged from my psyche with a fourth realm. My marriage was on the verge of ending. My husband was filing for divorce. I hadn’t looked at my children in months.
March – I declared I was moving out of the country and becoming a hermit. I was making preparations to leave my children and my husband. 7 March 2015 through 29 March 2015, I wrote Broken to decide if this was something I really wanted to do. Broken was my journal, a memoir and biography that reviewed the horrors of my life. I wrote 98,000 words in two weeks.
I stopped dancing while writing Broken. Within those two weeks, I lost 20 pounds and started drinking and smoking (cloves). I stopped listening to music.
April – 2 April 2015, after 30 years of living in my mind, I emerged and entered this world (dare I call it my world yet?). The transitions launched me into a mental break down and I was rushed to the ER. A week later, I was started medication for my condition.
May – I began therapy and was diagnosed with Complex PTSD, BPD (borderline personality disorder), Dissociative Disorder, bipolar, mania, and hypersexuality. Dolor and Shadow was published 31 May 2015. My therapist taught me how to cope with PTSD, how to end the triggers and identify them. We set to work with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and DBT.
I stopped drinking and smoking.
June – Therapy continues and I began writing Unbreaking Me, the sequel to Broken and online therapy journal that records my progress. My therapist helps me sort out and identify emotions I haven’t felt in 30 years and, in some cases, ever. I was a part-time psychopath. She guides me out of dissociation. In nerd terms, I was a human who had achieved Kholinar. I was there for so long, I was incapable of feeling anything but euphoria and suicidal depression. It was like living on cocaine for 30 years while in Kholinar.
My son begins therapy joined by my husband. I begin therapeutic gardening to gain control, security, safety, and we turn the house into a “healing house.” Music returned to the house. Scented candles… still no dance.
Nightmares return. They had started when I was 15 and ended when I was 23. They were back with a vengeance now.
I stop showering, shaving, and dieting as a way to take back control over my body.
July – Therapy continues. We start pulling apart my past and we examine my father. My mother. My siblings. We move on to the boyfriend who imprisoned me, tortured me, and raped me.
August – Therapy continues. We return to my mother and my husband. We review the boyfriend who raped me, the animal abuse I witnessed, and my siblings.
September – Therapy continues. Broken is published and I go public with my past. I speak out and become an advocate for awareness and rape survivors. I encourage all survivors to speak out and add to the awareness. Choose to get your voice back. You don’t have to be mute anymore. I was raped on 9/11. I was enslaved by a pedophile and prepped for human trafficking. I have been sexually tortured, beaten, and abused. My father has always loved me.
In therapy, we review the pedophile who raped me on 9/11… the boyfriend who raped me. Suicidal ideation has ended. Mania is identified and controlled. The PTSD is well underway of being controlled. The gardens look fantastic! I’m listening to music again. I will not dance. Not yet.
I shower and shave again. I begin eating healthy and diet again… but this time… it is because I want to. I redesign the clothes I wear and stop dressing the way others… society deems proper. I take back control and do what I want for me and not for others.
October – Therapy continues. I learn that I can control me. That I am no longer a child and can no longer be hurt. I speak to my father and learn the truth. I speak to my siblings and uncover moreof the truth. I learned the source of my abuse. I begin to remember suppressed memories and we begin sex therapy.
November – Therapy continues. My third story is published in an anthology: Amor Vincit Omnia. I realized I don’t like going to my worlds anymore. I like being here with my husband… and my children.
Sex therapy continues. We speak of my mother and my husband. More memories surface. Sexual activity drastically changes and I am able to identify and confront a lot of issues. Sexual healing takes vast advances.
December – Therapy continues. I am currently learning that I am enough and that I don’t have to answer to anyone. I love going to the store. I can answer my phone. I make breakfast for my children and husband every morning. I am cooking and baking… I am living again. I am doing house work and writing. Most of all… I am trying to learn that I am enough. Some memories are still surfacing, but there are fewer and less powerful.
I think… I think I’ll start dancing again.
Were there any leading events in my life in 2015? Yes. There were many.
What great films did you see in 2015? Did they have any influence on your work?
Oh, films! Due to my mental state, I struggle with memory. Dissociation trains the mind to forget, and after 30 years, I was a master. I saw X-Men and “Time in a Bottle.” The Walking Dead. Season 6 episode 6 and Season 6 episode 8. The pacing… the art work… they did a lot to teach me more about story.
I have Selma to watch… Oh! Wait! 2015 was the year I stepped up and FINALLY WATCHED PLATOON!! Look at that! I completed my 2015 New Year’s resolution! I also watched Full Metal Jacket and Cowboy Beebop (FINALLY!).
I also saw August Rush and The Fate Is In The Stars.
This February, I heard about, binge watched, purchased, and devoured… The Walking Dead. In that order. Repeatedly… So I guess I would have to say… The Walking Dead.
Did it influence my work? Oh. So very much. When you read a book, dear readers, you are stepping into the mind of an author. The mind reflects a person’s life, their traumas, their joys and dreams, their hurts and fears and the kind of love they have known. There is nothing an author can see, experience, witness, or feel that isn’t used to shape their minds. Ergo, an author records their lives and through their words. A musician, their music. An artist, their canvas.
Yes, The Walking Dead has influenced me.
It’s about redirecting, evading, and actually caring about the welfare of your opponent. So you have to care about yourself. You have to believe that your life is precious. That all life is precious. You have to redirect those thoughts. The history that tells you otherwise. What we’ve done. We’ve done. We evade it by moving forward with a code to never do it again. To make up for it. To still accept what we were. To accept everyone. To protect everyone and in doing that, protect yourself. To create peace. – TWD
I swear by my life and my love for it, that I will never live for another man. Nor let another live for me. – Ayn Rand Dagny Taggart
And I will kill you so that no one else will ever have to die again. It isn’t logical, but it reflects the fear I live with every day. – TWD
You will not hurt me. I won’t let you. No one will ever hurt me again. I won’t let them. – TWD
It is my life, from start to finish. – TWD
To thine own self be true. – Hamlet
Is it good riddance to 2015 or more au revoir?
2015 is more… Goodbye my dearest friend. I wish I could repeat this year… well… from 7 March 2015 and on.
Tell us about anything funny that happened to you/or friend/family during 2015
A lot of hilarious YouTube videos! Almost all the conversations onboard the HMS Slush Brain! Dear Kitten… Boot Pants! ROFLMAO… I must tell you about boot pants!
I am 4’11’’ with a petite frame, and I loathe women’s clothing. It is made for sex appeal only and never comfort: least of all, practicality. All our jeans are tight or low fitted. Sweaters, shirts, you name it, are all made with fabric that is too thin, forcing us to layer everything. But worst of all is the underclothes for women. Wires dig into your chest. Balloons are shoved into our bras making the breast looked like it sits on a shelf. Thongs floss your butt crack… Lace! What moron thought lace is a fabric!? It’s like someone looked at a doily and said, “THIS! I WANT TO WEAR THIS!”
So I have taken a very unusual approach to clothing. I have returned to the 19th century, minus the petty coats and corset. Literally. I cosplay every day. I wear floor-length skirts with lounge pants underneath on the colder days. I’m still working on the shirts. Mostly, I wear tank tops or men’s superhero t-shirts. (Why don’t I own an Iron Man t-shirt yet!? I must change this at once!) I wear a wool cloak to the stores, lined with fleece—I am dead serious. I wear a cloak and because I am a writer, it suits me—and I am telling you I am WARM outside in the New York winters. We are colder than Norway here, people! At the moment, New York is 30 and Oslo is 51 with scattered showers.
Our shoes are downright uncomfortable and are never water proofed. My only pair of decent footwear is my buga-boots for serious hiking by Columbia. I mean, if you go mountain climbing, these are the boots you wear. They cost $200 USD, but I love my boots! I own no other pair of shoes. Mostly because I wear a size 5 ½ wide shoe. They don’t make 5 ½ wide shoes for women. They rarely make wide shoes in general. Someone out there thinks women should have narrow, petite feet and so make shoes accordingly. As a result, I always have to buy big, which activates my clutz gene. I have exceptionally high arches due to 20 years of ballet dancing. I go barefoot everywhere and have done so since I was an infant.
By my 18th year, I had hobbit-like soles that allowed me to run across a gravel driveway as if it were grass. I still have hobbit feet. My feet developed free of shoes. I remember… I used to wear ballet slippers at work, which were designed to conform to the foot and not the other way around. Due to the positions and jumps in ballet, the foot must be free to perform as nature intended or the dancers would break their feet and shatter their backs. And that is the way a shoe should be designed. To conform to the foot, allowing the pad of the foot to spread and distribute the weight evenly while the arch acts like the spring board providing shock absorbency. I take my feet very seriously. Shoes today, all shoes—except ballet slippers—work against the foot, forcing the foot to conform to the shoe. Hence back pain, poor posture… a million additional medical problems. So when I put my poor foot into any shoe, my feet scream. Even if it’s for the 30 minutes that I am in the store. (I think I will be buying myself a pair of ballet slippers for the store.
Boot pants came to me in a moment of brain storming.
“What I need are boots that slide right on… but they fit my feet comfortably… like socks, allowing my foot to spread properly because my ballet arches are so high. They should be dipped in rubber for waterproofing. But then my legs get cold. They need to go up to my knees… like knee socks. But the draft still catches under my skirts, chilling my thighs. They should fit me snug like stockings, but not that tight… more like… lounge pants… with rubber socks… Like… boot pants.”
And then I envisioned these cotton, draw-string waders with the feet dipped in rubber (like gardener’s gloves). I would wear these under my floor-length skirts and never have to worry about footwear again!
Do you have any regrets concerning 2015?
Yes. Everything from 1 January 2015 to 7 March 2015. If I could go back and change… “To accept what we have done… to make up for it.”
What are your goals for 2016 as a writer?
I will be finishing and publishing Book #2 of the Tales of the Drui series. I will be starting Book #3 CAN. NOT. WAIT to write that! I have two romance novels in mind and will be gracing the scene with some romance unlike anything the world has ever seen. I mean that.
What do you predict for 2016?
I will win the Pulitzer for Broken. Maybe not in 2016…
Bio:
Angela B. Chrysler is a writer, logician, philosopher, and die-hard nerd who studies theology, historical linguistics, music composition, and medieval European history in New York with a dry sense of humor and an unusual sense of sarcasm. She lives in a garden with her family and cats.
There is so much going on at the moment I had to compose a post just to show it all. Okay! Here is everything happening!
Giveaways and Holiday Deals
My eBooks books are now on Kindle unlimited. Go get them.
If you don’t have Kindle Unlimited, they are on sale for $0.99.
If you want paperback, they are marked down to their all time lows starting at $8.69 USD
If you don’t want to buy the books, are broke, or have a gambling problem, you can try your luck at the Goodreads Giveaway. 20 copies of Broken and 20 copies of Dolor and Shadow are now looking for a home.
http://www.angelabchrysler.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Angela-Chrysler/e/B00VXX0JDQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?qid=1450311817&sr=1-2
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/13818332.Angela_B_Chrysler
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