Content Warning

This book depicts events that some readers may find disturbing, including serious mental illnesses (SMIs), racism, violence, and suicide.

Foreword

I hate reading forewords, but I’ve written and rewritten this one dozens of times over the years. This book has meant so many different things to me at different periods in my life. It was my dream—my whole life during my teenage years. It was my passion project in college, then it became my greatest shame when I lost my momentum. Now, it’s the story of my childhood.

Let me get this out of the way: this is a book about mental illnesses. You might even say this book is about my mental illnesses. When I started writing this seven years ago, I didn’t think it would end up focusing so heavily on these kinds of problems, but that’s how it turned out. As a sixteen-year-old with serious, unaddressed mental health issues, I wrote this book as a coping mechanism. I had no friends, no support system, and I could feel my mind unraveling under the pressure of keeping up appearances. I developed psychosis and C-PTSD, which, on top of my already problematic autism and closeted trans lesbianism, made for an awful combination to deal with. This story literally kept me alive. And now that I’m an adult, I’ve looked back on it and decided it deserves telling.

Thankfully, things have improved for me since I wrote this book. I transitioned, and that took a huge weight off my shoulders. I found a wonderful woman who loved and supported me, and I opened up for the first time. Then, I started taking antidepressants, which changed my whole world. This book might be bleak, but it was written from the eyes of a young girl with no hope. I’ve done my best to preserve the spirit of that pain without making it overtly despondent. Pain and hope can coexist, after all. And if you’re trapped inside your own mind, there is a path for you. It lies in people, in connections, and in humanity. Recovery is real, and no one is “crazy” or “broken.” It all starts with empathy. For others and for yourself.

Of course, I can’t let this foreword go by without mentioning that this book heavily focuses on race. Now, as a white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, I’ve never had to deal with that particular problem. That’s why I’ve done my research and consulted a wide variety of people of color prior to this book’s release. I hope I’ve done a good job of showing what it’s like to live under systemic racism in a country where, as far as the white public is concerned, racism ended decades ago. I want to show people what it’s like to hate yourself for your own identity—that poisonous alienation that removes us from the very communities that bring us together. As a trans woman, I’ve experienced my fair share of bigotry, and I hope this book will serve as a message of intersectionality and solidarity for underprivileged people from all walks of life.

Now, before I end this little rant, I’d like to thank you for reading this book. It means a lot—I can’t begin to tell you how much. This story is close to my heart, and I’ve always wanted to share it. I’m an emotional firehose, after all. I have a lot of plans for the future, so I hope you stick around!

-Ellie B. Nalle