OK Danny Boy Volume 3 (LOVE) by Felicia Johnson is now on presale! Get your autographed copy reserved to ship out on release day September 14th!
The spin off of “HER” by Felicia Johnson (www.herthebook.com) is called “OK Danny Boy”. This three part book series follows the story of an artistic and mysterious young man who Kristen meets during her stay in Bent Creek Hospital. Daniel proved to be a supportive peer, whom Kristen saw as a positive influence throughout her recovery. However, Daniel had not always been a role model. Daniel is diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder, OCD and Juvenile Diabetes. His story follows his journey throughout his healing and learning to cope with life’s transitions, coming of age, living with mental illness as well as a physical illness and the suicide of a close friend. Fans of “HER” will get to see what it was like on the other side of the Adolescent Ward.
Part one: “CHAOS” follows Daniel’s life before he goes into Bent Creek Hospital during his mental breakdown.
Part two: “MONSTER” follows Daniel’s story while he is in Bent Creek Hospital through his treatment.
Part three: “LOVE” follows Daniel after his treatment in Bent Creek Hospital into his recovery process.
Order your autographed paperback copy of OK Danny Boy volume 2 (MONSTER) by Felicia Johnson today!
The spin off of “HER” by Felicia Johnson (www.herthebook.com) is called “OK Danny Boy”. This three part book series follows the story of an artistic and mysterious young man who Kristen meets during her stay in Bent Creek Hospital. Daniel proved to be a supportive peer, whom Kristen saw as a positive influence throughout her recovery. However, Daniel had not always been a role model. Daniel is diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder, OCD and Juvenile Diabetes. His story follows his journey throughout his healing and learning to cope with life’s transitions, coming of age, living with mental illness as well as a physical illness and the suicide of a close friend. Fans of “HER” will get to see what it was like on the other side of the Adolescent Ward.
Part one: “CHAOS” follows Daniel’s life before he goes into Bent Creek Hospital during his mental breakdown.
Part two: “MONSTER” follows Daniel’s story while he is in Bent Creek Hospital through his treatment.
Part three: “LOVE” follows Daniel after his treatment in Bent Creek Hospital into his recovery process.
After a couple of days, I got used to the routine at Bent Creek. Wake up, check vital signs, chat for a bit with your group and group leader while waiting for breakfast, take my insulin, breakfast, morning goals group with a mix of different counselors along the doctor leading the goals group, my doctor, Dr. Finch.
Dapper and chill as always, Dr. Finch sat with me in the room after morning goals group. It was easy to talk with him. I mostly stayed on the surface of things with him because when it was time to go deep, I felt like I couldn’t do it. I felt like if I did go down that dark path of what had actually happened and how I truly felt about it all, I would lose the comfort zone I was in and in turn I’d lose my ability to want to talk to Dr. Finch or even be in Bent Creek Hospital. What else was I going to do if I didn’t stay here? Go back to my home where Mom and Pop fight and make me feel crazy? Sit and watch reality fake tv with Mom-Mom and we take our insulin together and stay silent about the other medications that I need to function, too. There was no way in hell I was going back that church so that the scary priest man could squeeze my head and the bronze statue of the man with arms wide open would stare at me and watch and let them do those things to me.
“I want to talk about home, Daniel.” Dr. Finch said. “What is home life like for you?”
I put my feet up in the chair and rested my chin on top of my knees. It made it easier to untie and re-tie my shoe laces in that position. I don’t know where or how I picked up this nerve picking habit to mess around with my shoe laces. It seemed to have started at the beginning of that school year after I was shortly put on academic probation.
“Home,” I said. “Home. Home. Home.” I almost began to sing it as I belted the word out once more.
Dr. Finch blinked and waited.
“It’s okay. Mom-Mom is great. She is weird like me but different because she is into church stuff. I don’t judge her or anything. I just wish that she wouldn’t judge me. Pop, well, Pop is just Pop. I mean,” I chuckled. “He is in and out. He doesn’t have a job yet. Mom is working around the clock and she leaves it to me to take Mom-Mom to the doctors. Which, really, I don’t know what’s going on there because Mom-Mom has been going to the doctor’s office a lot lately and it worries me. It could be because of Diabetes. But she says that she is okay. You see, me, my Pop and Mom-Mom all have Diabetes. We got it when we were kids. I shouldn’t have kids because they’ll probably have it too. Plus, Theresa would hate that. She wouldn’t want to…”
Dr. Finch’s expression changed. He furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head to the side. He looked thoroughly confused, yet concerned.
“Go on,” he encouraged me to speak more.
I shrugged my shoulders and leaned back in my chair. I said, “I worry about my mother.”
“Tell me more about that, Daniel. Tell me about what worries you.”
Dr. Finch was the first doctor that I ever had that wanted me to talk about it. Still, I felt uncomfortable as I sat in the chair across from him. I picked at my shoelaces and kept my head down. I desperately wanted to smoke. It was out of question to even ask for cigarettes.
Dr. Finch waited for me to answer him, but I had no idea where to start. It was frustrating, trying to find the right words to explain the hows and whys of everything when most of the shit didn’t make enough sense to try to explain.
“It’s okay,” Dr. Finch said. “I’ll ask you in another way. Why did you ask to come to Bent Creek? You could have went home after you were released from Egleston Hospital.”
“I guess…” I said with a heavy sigh, “I guess it was because I had no other place to go.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I couldn’t go back home after everything that had happened. It was hard for them.”
“It was hard for whom?”
“Mom-Mom, my Mom and my Pop and Theresa…”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Since you’ve been here, you have only talked about everyone else’s problems, but what about you?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Dr. Finch didn’t look like he was buying it. He shook his head and gestured his hands out to me as he spoke, as if he was pleading with me.
“Look, Daniel,” Dr. Finch said. “I know that it’s not easy. Especially when you have been through all that you’ve gone through in the last week or so. The emotional stress on top of your physical stress from the complications you suffered with Diabetes, it’s-“
I don’t know what came over me. I put up my hand to stop Dr. Finch from speaking and I cut him off.
I said, “Having diabetes isn’t the real challenge. Sure, I have to stick myself with a needle about two times a day. I have complications if I don’t watch what I eat and take care of myself physically. Like, I can’t eat what everyone else eats like candy bars and birthday cake. I can live with that. I always have lived with it. It’s the Bi-Polar Disorder that messes me up. One minute I’m fine and as soon as something happens that makes me angry, I loose it. It’s like when I last saw Theresa talking to Ryan, I just wanted to kill him.” I paused and looked out of the window. Still picking with my shoelaces, I tried to calm down. It felt like my emotions wanted to get the best of me. I didn’t want to cry. I couldn’t cry!
Dr. Finch remained calm and quiet. He watched me and listened to me intently. It was a strange feeling to have someone listen and care the way that Dr. Finch seemed to care about what I had been through.
I continued, “I don’t understand Bi-Polar like I understand Diabetes. Diabetes is simple. It’s genetic. My grandmother has it and my father has it. Maybe Bi-polar is genetic too?” I paused. When Dr. Finch didn’t respond I said with a shrug, “I don’t know.”
Dr. Finch nodded his head and remained silent. I kind of expected him to tell me if it was true or not. I wondered if it was genetic. I expected him to hit me with some popular statistic or something. I looked at him and something about his concerned expression made me chuckle. He made me a bit anxious. The next few words out of my mouth seemed to spill out without thought.
“When I was a kid, I watched my father beat a man into a coma. I didn’t do anything to help the man. I just stood there and watched as my father beat the man’s face into a bloody pile of meat with his bare hands. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I didn’t react at all. I even had a bad dog bite from the guy’s German Shepard. I still didn’t show any emotions. My dad just spent the last few years in prison for hurting that man. After serving seven years, he came home last week. We never talk about it. My mom tried to talk to me about it one time, but I didn’t know what to say. Mom concluded that I was in shock and she didn’t press me anymore about it.”
Dr. Finch’s eyebrows raised up. He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but I didn’t let him speak. I started to laugh and he shut his mouth. He looked at me questionably and asked, “What’s funny about that, Daniel?”
I continued to laugh as I said, “It’s funny to me because now it makes sense.”
“What makes sense?” Dr. Finch asked.
I answered, “I guess that I’ve been in shock for the past seven years.”
Help Me! by Donna M. Zadunajsky was a very interesting read. I liked it because it read like a personal journal from the the first point of view of the main characters. I’m a huge fan of journaling, so the writing style felt voyeuristic. It was avant-garde in a sense that the writing style is not what I am used to reading in a book.
It’s like reading a book on social media. As the reader, you’re taken into the private thoughts and experiences of two main characters. Mick is suicidal and depressed after losing his best friend to suicide. Layla is Mick’s new best friend that he acquires after he moves to his father’s home following the loss of his late best friend. We get to see the perspectives of teenage life, love and friendship through the thoughts of Mick and Layla. I like the interchanging approach to the chapters so that we can see the point of views from both characters and know what they’re both thinking and feeling within each scene that plays out. We’re not left with many questions as both main characters cover their own thoughts and emotions, themselves, without leaving it to a third narrator’s POV. The style is unique. Therefore, it made it feel personal.
Overall, it was a fast paced, good read. I hope that there’s more to come.
“OK Danny Boy” by Felicia Johnson is a spin off of Felicia’s debut novel “HER”. “OK Danny Boy” is due to release in Summer 2016 during production of the book to film adaptation of “HER” the movie based on the novel by Felicia Johnson. Learn more about “HER” at http://www.herthebook.com and Felicia Johnson, Author and International Speaker at http://www.feliciajohnsonauthor.com.
OK, Danny Boy
By Felicia Johnson
Chapter 1
“My father probably would have killed my mother. Theresa probably would have killed herself, and I probably would have done it, too,” I say.
“Were you scared?” Kristen asks.
It is the first time anyone has ever asked me that question. I think about her question for a moment. I sit across the table from a girl who looks like she can break at any moment. I want to be careful because I have a feeling that if I say the wrong thing, look at her the wrong way, or even make an offensive noise, she will start crying. Although, at this very moment, I am holding in a serious gas bubble that wants to pop right out of my ass. I release it, silently. Relief. I don’t care anymore.
Kristen is a peculiar girl. She doesn’t seem to say much. Her emotional outbursts, dramatic facial expressions and bandaged wrists tell me a lot about her. She is broken, like most of us who are doing time in Bent Creek Hospital for various mental health issues. We are the lost and troubled teenagers with screwed up parents, a raw fetish for self-harming and sick regrets of our suicidal inclinations. It’s kind of like a messed up joke to think about how many times we fail each time we try to die, but we don’t really want to die. It feels like one more thing that we can’t seem to get right.
Kristen has scars up and down her arms and a frown that sticks to her face. When we first met, Kristen’s frown was the first feature I noticed. Janine introduced her to everyone on her first day. Kristen and Janine are roommates. We all have roommates. Unfortunately, even I had a roommate. His name was Rocky. He’s no longer here.
Patients at Bent Creek Hospital are separated into co-ed groups. The groups keep the numbers of jaded youth from growing too large against the smaller number of therapists and counselors who treat our mental health complexities. Their jobs are to shrink our minds from overwhelmed humans to zombified dust bunnies with state of the art coping mechanisms, new findings from studies of techniques that prove useful for young minds such as DBT and CBT along with the latest, shiny new drug. At least, that’s what I used to think about the system.
Right now, I’m off of meds. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe most of the things that I’ve seemed to overcome in the last few weeks. It seems as if the events that took place before I came into Bent Creek hospital happened years ago instead of weeks ago. That person who broke down and couldn’t cope with what had happened doesn’t seem like it was me. But it was me. If it wasn’t for Dr. Finch, Dr. Bent, Dr. Pelchat and people in my group like Janine, Kristen, Tai and believe it or not, even Rocky, I wouldn’t have noticed the difference in myself.
We were all together in Group One. It must be fate because all of us seem to have the same diagnosis of sorts. Diagnoses range from some form of depression, whether it’s Bi-Polar I or Bi-Polar II, mixed with something else; a dual diagnosis? While the other groups have their dissociative identities, hair eaters, schizophrenics and the demonically colorful personalities of the insane youth with sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies, our group seems to dwell right in the middle of those who don’t seem to fit just one single problem. We don’t have a problem. We have problems. Plural. Therefore, I was given a couple of diagnoses of Bipolar I (complete with manic episodes and Major Depression) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder also known as OCD. Having to deal with that on top of having Juvenile Diabetes seemed to be enough to keep the medicine cabinet full at home.
Looking at Kristen is a lot different from when I look at Janine. Janine is obviously thin. She could be mistaken for a model except she has some major flaws that probably would keep her off of a runway. She isn’t naturally thin. I can tell that she makes herself that way, unhealthily. Dark purple pools circle the skin around her eyes like bruises. Janine tries to wear make up, but she has to put on so much to cover up her discolored skin. Her hair is long, but it is thinning. Her teeth and fingers are discolored from what I figure comes from when she makes herself throw up, if she eats anything. Her mood fluctuates frequently, especially after Dr. Cuvo gave up and disappeared. After he left, she and I grew closer. Janine is beautiful and angry.
Other people seem to see what they want to see in us. However, we know that we’re nothing at all like how we see ourselves. In an odd way, I see Janine as a lot like myself.
Kristen is a different story. She doesn’t cover up her physical flaws. She shows her bandages. She doesn’t even try to hide her face with her hair, always pulling her hair back in a ponytail, as if to make you look at her. Ironically, she doesn’t look anyone in the eyes. She opens and closes like a broken cabinet that won’t shut all of the way unless you slam it hard enough.
I can tell that she’s like the others. She sees something in me. She sees something in Janine. She sees something else within herself but whatever it is, she won’t let it go. I can see it too. It’s dark and I cannot define it. Kristen scares me and she intrigues me because, unlike Janine, she’s not easy to read or understand. She was difficult from the very start.
It seemed like Janine tried to help Kristen feel welcomed. She tried to include Kristen in our group. However, Janine had insisted that Kristen must have disliked us because when Kristen first arrived at Bent Creek, she wouldn’t talk to us, nor would she smile. Janine and I made a bet against each other. I bet Janine that Kristen would smile before the end of her first week at Bent Creek and Janine bet that she wouldn’t smile. Of course, I won that bet. Janine had to give me her evening snacks for a whole week after I had won the bet! Little did I know at the time, the loss of that bet wasn’t such a huge loss for Janine.
Nonetheless, it was hard work to get Kristen to smile. Eventually, she did smile. After the day that I made her smile, she started to open up more. It seemed to help since we were all in the same group. I didn’t want to give up on her. I tried to make her laugh and talk to us about why she is here at Bent Creek, but she seemed too sad to speak about it without getting upset.
On today, of all days, the day before I am scheduled to be released, this broken and attractively mysterious girl decides to open her mouth and have a real conversation with me. It seems like it’s completely unprovoked on my part! At least, I don’t think that I did anything to draw her attention to me.
I am working on a sketch quietly in the commons area on the Adolescent Ward. Drawing helps pass the time. Only one more day until I can go home with my mom and Mom-Mom. I don’t want to cause any trouble or lose my temper or let anything trigger me into having a manic episode again. All I can think about is how much I want to smoke a cigarette. I can’t wait until tomorrow! I even asked my mom to bring me a pack of Marlboro’s to the hospital so that as soon as I am free, I can take in what I have been craving for over a month!
I haven’t told anyone in my group that I am going home because I want to be as inconspicuous about it as I possibly can. I don’t want the others to feel badly and then start acting weird around me because I’m leaving.
I don’t know. Maybe Kristen sensed something in me that gave away my secret because she walked right up to the table where I am sitting and started talking to me. She surprised me because I was concentrating on drawing straight lines without shaking. I haven’t tried to draw since Rocky killed himself. That was a messed up time. Kristen was there, but she hasn’t asked me about it. It’s a good thing. I don’t want to think about it, nor talk about it anymore.
Honestly, I am not prepared to talk about any of this stuff. Really, I’m not ready to open up about what happened with my mom, my dad and Theresa. I’m ready to move past all of that. But Kristen has a way about her that I don’t understand. It is the mystery behind her sudden interest that pulls me in and moves me to want to talk to her. When she asked me if I was scared, I may have seemed to open up to her right away, but in my mind, it seemed to take a little more than minute for me to answer. I am thinking about what she asked and the fact that she is the first person who has asked me if was scared.
Kristen’s eyes glistens as she waits for me to speak. I replay her question in my mind.
“Were you scared?” Kristen asked.
When I think about it, I remember everything very clearly. From the moment that I knew that I was in love with her to my dad getting out of prison, and when my mom almost gave up on our family to Theresa’s suicide up to now, this very moment. Here I am, sitting across from Kristen. She’s the odd girl that spoke up. Kristen is the inscrutable girl that scared me and amazed me and who dared to ask me the question that no one, not even Dr. Finch, had ever asked me.
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In other ways, Kristen is not like other kids her age. She knows something is wrong with her. Kristen feels like an utter failure. She is unable to please her abrasive mother, and scared to confront Jack, her abusive stepfather. She is also unable to protect Nick from Jack, making her fell all the more helpless. Adding to her problems, she knows she will never be as beautiful as her best friend Lexus. Kristen finds solace in self-injury, and the company of Mr. Sharp, her imaginary friend who encourages her feelings of self-loathing.
After a failed suicide attempt, Kristen is placed in the Bent Creek mental hospital, where she is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. While in the hospital, she meets a group of peers suffering with their own mental illnesses, and a compassionate staff of doctors and counselors. From there, Kristen begins her journey to survival. She discovers the circumstances that brought her to this breaking point, struggles to understand her mental illness, and fights to be a survivor against her own worst enemy: her self-blame.
Kristen’s tale of endurance illustrates the complex illness of Borderline Personality Disorder. Readers – including those suffering from BPD and their friends and family – can glean insight into the illness from Kristen’s humanity. Her story is an example of how, if we try to push the past away, we are either doomed to repeat it or let it haunt us to our graves.
Thank you to a group of North Atlanta youth mentors and advocates for inviting me to speak to a wonderful group of brilliant kids who are on their way to becoming amazing young writers! I had so much fun speaking and answering questions about how journaling can jump start your writing career.
We began our day at LPYG with a lively group of teens who are part of a youth mentoring group that focuses on building life skills. Today’s topic was about how journaling can help build writing skills. Most of the youth in the group did not keep personal journals. Most of them admitted that they had not given much thought to keeping a journal. I explained that journals are used to keep personal thoughts, ideas, feelings, memories and experiences that we hold dear.
The best part about keeping a journal is that you can write down anything you want and you do not have to share it with anyone if you do not wish to share what you’ve written. The teens seemed to like the idea of keeping a journal that they can be open with expressing themselves through words and language openly without fear of judgement. I brought a few starter journals for the teens to keep so that they can begin writing in journals. Some of them even said that they wanted to see if they could use the journals to write stories.
During the Q&A, I invited the youth to ask me questions about journaling and writing. There were a few interesting questions, but the one question that stood out to me the most was from a 14 year old girl named Shamiya. Shamiya said that she was interested in writing a memoir about her life when she grows up. She asked me, “If I write in a journal, will I be able to make it into a book about my life?”
I encouraged Shamiya to keep a detailed journal and write in it daily especially if she wants to write a memoir one day. A daily journal will hold memories that she may not be able to remember in the future. Writing in a journal can help with keeping your most sacred and cherished memories for you so that when you want to look back and reminisce or recall the memory to write your memoir, the memories will be there.
Everyone seemed to be happy with the idea of keeping a journal. Some of them began writing in the journals as soon as I handed them out. When I was asked to share something from my journal, I helped them to appreciate the privacy of a journal. I told them that the privilege of having a journal is so that you can keep your thoughts private until you’re ready to share. For example, when I had written in my journals as a teen, I did not want to share what I had written about my memories of my late best friend Holly and what it was like for me growing up with major depression. It wasn’t until I grew up and decided to write a book about surviving child abuse and mental health that I decided to share thoughts from my journals. It’s more relevant now today because now my book can actually help other people who are dealing with those same issues.
My hope is that the teens were inspired by my experience with journaling and how it helped me build my writing career. I hope that they will write in their journals even if it’s just to have a way to release their thoughts and feelings openly and freely. I look forward to following up with them and their mentors to see how they are using their journals.
Please visit my website to find out more about mentoring and speaking and to find out how you can book me to speak at your next event: http://www.feliciajohnsonauthor.com
Felicia Johnson 