Other then my in-forever-hiatus hard look at Silent Hill and Hellblade, this is probably the most personal blog post I am ever writing here. And it won't be horrifically long (oh god, I hope not) but it's totally something I need to talk about. During quarantine, I have spent a lot of my free time (when not going deep into World of Warcraft or barreling through the Halo titles with a friend) reading. A hobby I fell off of, in part due to the hole of comics I had subscribed too but never got a chance to read, but it has been a good hot while since I have read an actual novel.
As I write this, I don't remember the last book I read before my recent finish. I believe it was the biography on the band TOOL's eclectic lead singer James Maynard Keenan (a book I highly recommend, and also add that band on the rather large list of topics I want to write about) but I am a deep sucker for fantasy books. Mostly hard, violent fantasy. The kind of books that don't give a shit if you like the premise or not, it just knows you want to watch people wield magic and swords (and sometimes guns) to just fucking kill people in gruesome ways. And that's the type I love with all of my heart. Even as a rather young kid, I fell in love with this genre, especially with it holding some of the most well written worlds I have ever seen.
Enter thirteen year old me. As a child, I frequented Barnes and Nobel with friends, spending hours in the starbucks that was attached to the bookstore and spending rather fewer hours (let's be honest, the employees probably hated us) digging through the shelves to find the next big thing. I grabbed a book titled "Kill the Dead", which I later found out was a sequel to a dark fantasy series named "Sandman Slim.", a series that told the story of James Stark, a magic-user that got in with the wrong people and later clawed his way out of hell to get revenge. 
((image credit; Amazon))
I. Ate. That. Shit. Up.
Reading the book I had picked up, I told myself I'd buy the first one if I liked it alot. Well, queue me sitting on the floor of a family member's upstairs room as the rest of my family watched the superbowl, head in a book, having my parents remind me to eat. I fucking loved it, and fell in love with the dark, fantasy ridden LA that author Richard Kadrey had created, and I am proud to say Stark was my first book crush (move over Edward Cullen, Peeta. God, Stark would totally gut them with no issue) and I loved his take-no-shit attitude and foul mouth, while he cleaved his way through LA's seedy fantastical underbelly and stopping a zombie apocalypse. I love the characters he met along the way, Candy (a vampire called a Jade) being one of my favorites, and his bartender buddy Carlos, running his rather old school Hawaiian bar. (which honestly, I want to exist)
I write about this, because I recently finally got caught up and finished the most recent book, "Hollywood Dead". It felt like jumping back on the saddle again, returning back to a book series I considered a home to me, with characters I missed and new ones I was having a blast reading about. But something happened near the end of the book that literally made me do a 180 in the best way possible.
"I should call Allegra and talk to her about PTSD stuff. But no yoga or soy burgers."(Kadrey, 343)
As many people know (or may not know, whoa), I was diagnosed with Childhood Medical Trauma PTSD a few years ago, having gone undiagnosed for years. As a kid, I fought back a lot of the emotions, and it released itself as anger and emotional issues. I always knew I was different, that something was wrong, but I didn't do much about it until I was around eighteen, and later as an early twenty-something. But even as a kid, I knew something was wrong. I gravitated towards characters I connected too, and they were normally ones that had been through traumatic ordeals. I never knew why, but I appreciated knowing that someone else, even if not real, knew how I was feeling, even if I didn't have a name for it.
And all through my literary career, I always wondered why I connected to Stark. He was stoic, angry, covered in scars and probably smelt of gunpowder, blood, and leather. He wielded magic and a blade that could cut anything into pieces. How the hell was I, a thirteen year old nerd, going to see myself in him? Simple. He had gone through the absolute traumatic experience of knowing the people he associated with killed his girlfriend, and locked him in hell, dealing with years of torment and agony. He had gone through his own traumatic experience, and like me, his emotions seemed to be stinted because of it. He rarely let people close, and it was like he only had one mode on; survival.
My therapist explained to me (after hours and days of hearing my life, which lets be honest, was probably as boring as it can come) about the flight or fight mode in humans. And that, in people like me with PTSD and other mental health disorders, our mode is always turned to fight. While I am not like Stark, though god I wish I was, I am constantly tense, worried, and jumpy. (I cannot begin to explain the amount of times I have screamed when a coworker has casually walked up behind me, or a firework has made me cry because I didn't see it coming) And in Kadrey's writings, there is multiple times Stark jumps at people, instantly aims his weapons, or only knows to speak using violence.
Reading the recent novel and seeing Stark finally accept the chance he can get help for his PTSD hit something in me. Honestly, I can say it hit that little part of me is still that thirteen year old, angry at nothing in particular because that was all I knew. If I could see Stark accept his own mental health issues, being the manly man he is (I giggle as I type), why couldn't I reach out for help earlier then I did? Of course, it's always a 'what-if' in these situations, but I do entertain the thought. Seeing a character I looked up to as much as I did Stark finally realizing he needed the help and was willing to entertain it.
As I finish this, I have to smile as I have the book next to me. I doubt Richard Kadrey will see this, but if he does, thank you sir. And I hope I get to see how Stark reaches out for help, as I'm sure I'll be able to still find my parallels as well.
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