Rising Action Counseling

I'm a mental health counselor and owner of Rising Action Counseling LLC, an online private practice in Ohio. I like to provide mental health resources and talk about books!

[risingactioncounseling]

My favorite author is Mark Danielewski. In college, I started reading his book House of Leaves, and it became my existence for the next few months while I worked my way through it. The book is about a family moving into a house and one day noticing a small space that wasn't there before, and then they notice it's a hallway that wasn't there before, then a room, then a maze of never-ending staircases and dark corners.

This is not a book you simply sit down to read in your free time. For three months, this book was my companion. In any and all free moments I found, I would grab the book and delve in. The story pulls you into the characters' experiences by throwing the reader into a maze of having to read pages upside-down, using a mirror to read words written backwards, and collecting clues to piece together sentences. All of this in the name of the narrative.

Life is like that. Sometimes life might feel like an easy-read; it might feel like a short novella you read through the pages without a second thought. Most of the time, life is more challenging, and sometimes, life is confusing and overwhelming and entangling like House of Leaves . Life is experiential, and if you're passing through your days as if you're half-reading through the pages, then you might just be missing out on your own life story.

Have you noticed this? Have you noticed that as you're reading a book, you've passed five pages and have no idea what you just read? Have you noticed that you have trouble recalling what you did last week? Yesterday? This morning? The pages in our lives keep flipping, whether we're paying attention or not. So what do we do?

First, slowwwwww down. That seems like a simple request, but in a world of deadlines and productivity and personal struggles with perfectionism (*raising my own hand!), this is definitely one of those easier said than done requests. Try it. Practice it. Recognize when you're locked in autopilot and grab hold of that pen and get back in there. Try not rush your story, but take a moment to feel that pen in your hand. You are in control of this moment. Sometimes, the most productive and meaningful thing you can do is take a breath and a break. For many of us, productivity and busy work cushion us from that fear of not doing enough. You are doing enough - if you're unsure, remember that we're living in a pandemic. You are doing the best you can, and that is more than enough.

Second, be realistic. I'm not speaking about being realistic in terms of your typical threshold of managing things. Be realistic for this moment in your life, because each day can come with a new set of worries, of pressures, of different energy levels for you. And (I'm going to say it again) we're living in a pandemic. Be kind to yourself like you would to a friend. Life is not linear and has many ups and downs. It's so important to recognize that your best during an up is not the same as your best during a down. Maybe when everything is fitting into place, you're in a great routine, and life is staying in sync with your goals, maybe then you're a hardcore go-getter and an expert at juggling work, family, and whatever may be on your plate. When things are out of routine, when pressures outside of your control throw hurdles in your path, it's ok - no it's necessary - to slow down and walk over them rather than hurry through. Honestly, it's ok to see those hurdles and lie down beside them and take a nap. Pacing yourself is protecting yourself. And it's also proof that you can adapt. So set realistic goals for yourself, and use a pencil so you can make changes along the way.

Third, fill in the blank . Decide what you need at this time in your life and do not accept any guilt for doing what is best for you.

And if you need a book suggestion, you have one.

"Have no fear, you will find your way. It's in your bones. It's in your soul." -Mark Z. Danielewski

[risingactioncounseling]

Hi there! I’m Christina. I am a mental health counselor, aspiring novelist, lover of nature and animals, and epitome of eclectic hobbies. 

I started this blog to combine my interests - namely mental health, writing, reading, and my love of stories. 

For more on me, check out my website at risingactioncounseling.com 

[risingactioncounseling]

Check out this phenomenal novel, and read my accompanying post - Help me destroy all monsters - about the themes of trauma and the magic of healing. 

[risingactioncounseling]

Help me destroy all monsters

Which reality is the true one? I thought, as I started to read through the alternating chapters in Sam J. Miller’s Destroy All Monsters. This YA novel follows two main characters, Ash and Solomon, as they take turns narrating this story of friendship, fantasy, trauma, and truth. This novel beautifully blends together the sci-fi, fantasy genre within a tale that too many of us have experienced - that of trauma. 

“We are not our trauma. We are not our brain chemistry. That’s part of who we are, but we’re so much more than that.”

Maybe both realities are true. I began to wonder about the two perspectives - that of high school student Ash, aiming to get to the bottom of football-hazing-hate-crimes and protect her best friend Solomon who is homeless and appears to be in poor mental health; and that of Solomon, an Othersider in a realm with dinosaurs and monsters and a wavering queen about to lose her throne, where he sacrifices everything to save the refugee princess, Ash. 

“I had been plunging from dream to dream to memory to fantasy, until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began, or where the real world was in relation to all that.”

Perspective. Constructs. Stories. We tell ourselves stories to cope. It’s a way for us to narrate our lives and feel in control when external problems pull our foundation from beneath us. Fantasies and daydreaming, the lighter end of the spectrum of dissociation, but dissociation still. Often a more socially accepted way to detach, our creativity and daydreams cushion us from the harsh lines of reality. 

And why not? As a child, I can recall sitting on the school bus, watching the fast-paced landscape slide by, and I would create elaborate, fantastical plot lines in my head. Once, I was the heroine of a catastrophic natural disaster which hit mid-Ohio unexpectedly. Another time, I was a self-sufficient homesteader starting a new life in the trees. Once upon a time, I married Justin Timberlake and lived happily ever after. 

We tell stories to protect ourselves, to understand ourselves and to understand how we fit in the world. We tell stories when the tales of our true lives lack the happy endings we so desperately desire. 

“Humans are so strange like that. When we don’t want to see something, we just don’t see it. Or we tell ourselves it’s something else. That’s pretty much an essential part of how we survive in this world.”

What I love about this novel is that Ash and Solomon, together, teach us that we can have both. Miller’s exemplary writing style creates a flawless flow between the oscillating realities. As a reader, as a therapist, and as a human, I am able to recognize that there exists a space in which creative fantasy forges us forward, rather than hinders us from our reality. Viktor Frankl knew this, when he discussed the space between a stimulus and a response, claiming that in this space, is the opportunity for personal growth. 

At the end of this novel, the lives of Ash and Solomon overlap in such a way that we realize both of their experiences are 100% valid. We must hold this same empathy when we cross paths with another who may not, will not, share our same story. 

“What if Solomon’s monsters weren’t in his head—hadn’t infected me as I followed him down the rabbit hole of his trauma? What if what I was seeing was just a different reality, no more or less valid than the one without monsters?”

As a child, adolescent, and even as my 31-year-old self writing this, I have clung to books and TV shows, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for sources of inspiration, of strength, of hope. Watching Buffy fight the ‘monster of the week’ and slay the forces of evil while wearing her heels and leather pants, I found comfort in her weekly routine. Because you could see the monsters she was fighting. That’s not the case in real life. And seeing something makes it easier to vanquish. Our real-life monsters exist, nonetheless. They look like disproportionate distribution of wealth, like racism and microaggressions, like natural disasters and man-made ones; they look like trauma. 

“Children know that monsters are real. We forget, when we get older. When we decide we are grown-ups. We block out the monsters. Turn our backs on all that magic.”

The monsters stay, but we lose our ability to fight them when we lose our inner creativity, magic. This book is a reminder to grab hold of the Otherside of ourselves, to rekindle that magic in the form of personal strengths, resourcefulness, and empathy. Then, as Ash and Solomon realized when they held hands and fueled the other’s special powers, we can come together and conquer our shared - and individual, demons. No one has to fight alone. 

How do we do this? By stepping out of ourselves to see what others are doing in this world. By tackling the elusive concept of ‘self-care’ and truly prioritizing our wellness. By going to therapy and putting in the work to heal from traumas we never asked for. By forgiving ourselves and recognizing that it was never our fault. By finding that magic inside of us. 

“Maybe it wasn’t trauma that made Solomon see the world as full of magic and monsters. Maybe it wasn’t his sickness. Maybe that’s just who he was. Special. Gifted. Artists, writers, musicians—photographers—they all had to be able to tap into something (the other side) that wasn’t there, some other better world, and grab hold of things, and bring them back so the rest of the world can feel the magic too.”

And, if you want to read a really great book to inspire the magical Otherside in you, check out Sam J. Miller’s Destroy All Monsters. 

**Quotes taken from Sam J. Miller’s Destroy All Monsters.