Waves To Light: Book Blog Tour

Hello and Welcome to the Waves To Light Blog Tour!

Today my special guests are Author/Poet MJ Holman and Author/Poet Queen of Spades.

In celebration of this amazing poetry collection, its release and blog tour, I asked the authors 2 questions. They were:

If there was 1 (one) important message you could deliver through the prose and poetry of Waves ToLight, what would that be and why?

Do you think a person not battling with mental illness could connect to the significance of this collection? If not, please explain. If so, please elaborate.

To Question 1:

Queen of Spades Said:

The most important message is that one is not alone. Since there are so many images that paint mental illness negatively, it is important for others to know that a sufferer could have the look or what society considers a "normal" person. With my particular classification (clinical depression or major depressive disorder), one also has different levels of functionality. Some individuals are low functioning, meaning that at the lowest of their depression, it can impact one's day-to-day activities. It can impact job performance, even the ability to keep a job, along with being fully present in the lives of friends and others. However, there are also people who are medium to high functioning, even to the point where the closest of friends may not realize when they are in the midst of a depressive episode.

Speaking for myself, I am more towards the high functioning spectrum. When I am in a depressive state, I tend to internalize and isolate yet because I'm hypersensitive to external perception, I can give the illusion that I'm "just fine" or "okay". The danger with being on this end is when I finally remove the mask (aka playing the role for the public), the feelings associated with my depression are intense. It is not uncommon for my intensity to manifest via physical ailments, like migraines, loss of appetite, and muscle aches and spasms, particularly around my shoulder area and the small of my back, where my stress tends to reside.

MJ Holman Said:

I will echo Queen of Spades and say the message is one does not suffer alone. The condition may be relative and we may all experience different aspects of it, have different symptoms and causes, but at the nub, all things are equal.

It is important that the language of depression and hypomania can be shared. This is our way of communicating to each other the extent of the illness, the depth of feeling, and giving a voice to all those who cannot express themselves when faced with these conditions.

To Question 2:

Queen of Spades Said:

I think another person definitely could. There might be moments when one is feeling very sad, confused, or lost, and every person has felt that at some time or another. In addition, for those friends or loved ones who know a person suffering from a mental illness, this could give some type of clarity and understanding into that person's battle. Usually, one from the outside looking in tends to blame himself. Even worse, there are quite a few individuals that just wants the sufferer to simply "snap out of it". I hope through this collection, that realization sets in. For a loved one who cares, it is not his or her fault. For the critic, mental illness is not a thing one "snaps out of".

For me, I don't see this as something that miraculously gets cured. I live with it and just pray I see more darkness thatlight, along with hoping others will achieve that as well.

 MJ Holman Said:

I would like to think so. We all suffer the same emotional duress from time to time, mostly associated with grief. At its very limit, grief will follow the same pattern as an episode of depression and there will be lines of poetry in this collection that may illustrate those feelings exactly.

Individuals who spend their time with sufferers, whether they are friends or loved ones will recognise them in this poetry. They will see the depths we plummet or the elation we cannot control and it will bring to them a greater understanding of the illness. My mother only recently read The Sea of Conscience, afterwards she came to me and said, 'I had no idea you felt this way.' That's what we're aiming for with Waves to Light.

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Did you know that you can Pre-Order Wave To Light on Amazon Kindle?