How Pamela Dean changed (and also saved) my life.

[seanan_mcguire]

(I thought a lot about whether this needed a trigger warning, and decided that it was better to err on the side of caution. So...TW: very oblique and carefully worded mention of a suicide attempt.)

I don't think it's any secret that I am a voracious reader. I read constantly. My friend Michelle has commented on more than one occasion that she,

Comments

[seanan_mcguire]

I had to stay in the library to get my air. I didn't have a card. I lived on the coverless paperbacks from behind the bookstore, and the water-damaged hardcovers I got for a dime at the flea market.

[brightlotusmoon]

*nod* Books = survival. I barely had friends, I was too outside the norm, kids were freaked out by my cerebral palsy, and nobody realized I was on the autism spectrum, so my best friends were book characters. They got me through my very first bout of major depression between the ages of 9 and 11. They made me feel better when I started having experiences later realized as epilepsy and fibromyalgia flares. I re-read so much that kids made fun and mocked me. I was never without a fiction book but I was always teased for it

[bunsen_h]

I am somewhat boggled by the idea that someone would criticize you for reading neuro or medical books. If it's a subject that interests you... why not?

[brightlotusmoon]

Oh, they assumed I was being too smart for them, you know. They assumed I thought they were stupider than I was. They thought I was mocking them with my "big words" and such whenever we had conversations.

And all I could think in one particular case was, "Honey, maybe you should try branching out from one specific romance author who isn't very talented? And maybe you should do your own research instead of falling for the good old Big Pharma Evil something something don't understand so hate mindset..."