Teeth, Hair & Tits 💁‍♀️

How you can write your personal story even if it's painful OR doesn't follow a strict beginning, middle and end formula.

Kim was driven to tell her story. She needed a way to get the pain out. PTSD feels like a life sentence for a crime you’ve not committed. Breaking out of the prison of pain seems impossible. Writing helped give words to her feelings. Kim wrote to heal. The subject did not lend itself to a beginning, a middle, and an end. Instead, Kim created buckets - topics she wanted to cover - aspects that needed to be on the page - issues that she faced. The words flowed into the buckets Kim had defined.

It was at this point Kim read a blog by Bloom in the Dark wherein she suggested if writing a personal story of pain that you write three versions; a hurting, a healing and a helping version.

Kim decided to self-publish. Kim wanted to keep control of her story and use her experience to help others; self-publishing gave her this. Also, there was the matter of timing, PTSD was all over the news following the pandemic and it felt important not to delay publication.

Kim says: "After speaking to Patrick at Publishing Push I felt ready to turn my story into a manuscript." Kim's book is her mental health roadmap and she hopes it will provide support to people who have suffered trauma.