Stepping Out of the Dark

NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK

ISBN: 978-1-905610-13-6
Published: 2006
Pages: 187
Key Themes: North American author, fiction, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), agoraphobia

"According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States. More than 44 million Americans are affected by these debilitating illnesses each year. I am one of them. Although I have written a fictitious story, with fictitious characters, the events portrayed are undeniably real to those who suffer from anxiety disorders. I hope those reading this story will ponder it and come away feeling that with support, determination and faith in yourself and loved ones, anything can be achieved." - Julia L Nielsen

Description

Set in modern day Utah, Melissa Bradford is a wife, mother and sufferer of mental illness, specifically anxiety disorders. From her injured son and fall of her marriage, to the battle with the government, Melissa must come to grips with her irrational fears and uncertainties to whether she can ever become normal again. With deep secrets buried, three other people tell their own story and together, they forge a unity and bond when they refuse to be victims of the beast that is mental illness.

Beth, who is agoraphobic and has not left her house for many months, is finally forced to face her fears. For the first time, she ventures to a psychiatrist in desperate need of help. By chance she meets Melissa who seems to understand what she is dealing with.

Ruth has obsessive-compulsive disorder and is deathly afraid of germs. As a widow, she takes care of herself and is a no-nonsense woman. What she comes to find out will test her spirit and her will.

Mike has nightmares about that fateful night. The night his life changed forever. Now dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, he battles with himself as to why. In order for Mike to live and love again, he has to come to grips with his identity and see the beauty in life. Melissa realises she is not the only one out there who is pleading for help, praying for an end to her suffering. What Melissa ultimately comes to grips with is her own fears about her family, her mother and most of all, herself. Melissa decides she will not be a victim to mental illness when she takes it upon herself to break the barriers of misunderstandings and distorted views about anxiety, and mental illness in general, and eventually help those people who can't help themselves. A strong and inspirational read, Julie Nielsen's book has already received glowing plaudits from whoever has read it.

About the Author

Julia is a freelance writer who has had articles published in national US magazines such as 'Girls Life', 'Daughters', 'Tots to Teens', 'Associated Content' and 'The Spotter'. She has also freelanced for North County Newspapers. This is Julia's first novel, her second is due to be published soon through The Brushfire Press. She is a graduate of the Institute of Children's Literature and has hosted her own radio programme about mental illness in Phoenix, Arizona.

Book Extract

The next morning, her life as a mother took center stage, so she pulled up her sleeves and started the usual day at the Bradford’s. Since Brian was away yet again on business, Melissa was in charge. The kids all had chores, even though they complained about doing them. All of the kids, plus her and Brian’s, rooms were upstairs, with a main bathroom between Amanda and Andrew’s room. Emily’s room was closest to Melissa’s room. At least Brian and Melissa had their own bathroom to the side of their room; it was the one private place where the kids were not allowed to bug them, the one place Melissa could soak in the tub with candles and music for an hour if she wanted. She called it “mom time,” and no one bothered her.

The two older kids had already had breakfast and left the evidence on the kitchen table. Just as Melissa was getting up to take the dishes over to the sink, Amanda bounded through the kitchen door. Her long, bouncy brown hair was in her usual pony-tail. Practically running Melissa down, she spilled the half-empty bowls of cereal both she and Andrew had left casually behind all over the chair.

Melissa stared at her incredulously when she barely noticed what she had done. “Mom, where are my shoes?” She stood waiting for an immediate response. Melissa stared at her, thinking she couldn’t believe her daughter was as ignorant as to what she had just done. After being scolded for knocking the bowl over, to which she just muttered under her breath, “Sorry,” Amanda stood there, waiting.

Melissa hunched up her shoulders and said in her I’m-the-mother-you’re-the-daughter voice, “Look, I’m not your slave young lady. If you would have put them back where they belong, you wouldn’t be searching for them now.” She put her hands on her hips, satisfied with her motherly speech. Amanda just stared at her and did the worse thing a child can do to a parent: she rolled her eyes as if her mother was some kind of complete idiot and had no idea about life; she then flitted back out of the kitchen, leaving Melissa in peace once more. Melissa shook her head in total frustration. She wondered if every other parent in the world, including herself, was ever going to do anything right as a mother.

Picking up the sponge she had just wrung out, Melissa sauntered back to the table and wiped up the spilled milk and fruit loops which colorfully adorned her chairs. Thank goodness they were the cheap kind you get at a yard sale, she thought. She threw the sponge at the sink.

The phone rang. Melissa grabbed it on the third ring.
“Hello, Bradford residence.” In answering the phone, Melissa could swear sometimes she felt like Carol Burnett when she was the gum-chewing, nail-filing secretary on The Carol Burnett Show.
“Hi honey,” her husband said. He sounded weary but Melissa could tell he was trying to sound cheery. She loved to hear the sound of his voice when he was away, which was more often than Melissa liked.
“Hi. How’s it going?” Melissa said. She sat down at the table and began wiping away crumbs with her arm.
“Pretty good, but I’m exhausted. I’ll be glad when this sale goes through. How are you and the kids?” She wanted to say, “I’m exhausted too, being both mother and father to three children all day, every day,” but instead she said they were fine.
“The kids are outside playing in the backyard, I think. How are you in sunny California?” she said with a little sarcasm in her voice. All week it had been raining and even though the sun had shone that morning, Melissa was aching to get out and enjoy the summer. Oftentimes, she felt envious of his freedom to leave the house—and the state—with not so much as one single ounce of guilt because, after all, it was his job.
“Well it is sunny, but then you already knew that. If it makes you feel any better, I wish you and the kids were here to enjoy it with me.”

She managed a smile. “Well, I guess I’ll have to be there in spirit. How’s the deal coming along? Do you think it will be much longer?” Melissa asked. She tapped her fingers on the now spotless table. She had held out hope of his returning this week after a three-day business trip had turned into a week-long negotiation between two companies. It was already Thursday and Melissa mentally crossed her fingers in hopes he would say he was coming home for the weekend.

“Well, if all goes as planned, it will be tomorrow. We’re hoping they will sign the agreement and then we can start the proceedings for the sale. I’m sorry it has taken this long. I know being alone with the kids has got to be tiring.” She thought about the week and wanted to say, “You have no idea,” but instead told him it was a little tiring and it would be nice to have him home. “I’ll call you a little later and tell you what happened at the meeting. Tell the kids I love ‘em, and will be home soon.” Melissa got in “Love you,” before the phone went dead. She hung up the phone and then rearranged the vase of colorful daises which stood on her table. She decided to head to her study, the only place of solace for Melissa. Brian used to come in the study to read or search the Internet, but he hardly had time anymore. Being a pharmaceutical salesman, he was required to travel a lot. At first, Melissa thought it would be fun, having him call from hotel rooms just to say hi or bring her back exotic souvenirs from interesting places. She must have been in a dream world, she thought. He traveled for days on end, barely having time to acquire anything, lest it be a fast food meal.

Brian and Melissa were married in Salt Lake City. The two had met in Provo, Utah, of all places, at an art gallery. It was 1991. Melissa was twenty-one and Brian was twenty-three. He had finished college and told Melissa he was ready to settle down, or at least that is what his mother wanted.

Melissa eyed him first but was too shy to make the first move. Anyway, men were supposed to make the first move, she was taught. They played the ‘as soon as you look at me, I’ll look away and then I’ll stare at you, until you look at me’ game. Brian had begun to follow Melissa around, to which she was amused and loved the attention. She would stand between Claude Monet’s classic masterpiece, Waterloo Bridge, and Van Gogh’s Starry Night, admiring the paintings. He finally made his move, but he was sly and only commented on the art. He then began discussing what his favorite artists were and why he liked them.
“What about you…?” he would say, trying to draw out her name.
“Melissa. My name’s Melissa,” she would say. She then told him about her love of painting and her favorite painter, Claude Monet. Later, Brian talked as if he were reciting poetry when he showed her around the gallery. She knew then, Brian was a hopeless romantic, nevertheless, it was not love at first sight, as you would see in the movies, she would tell people. They went out a few times and she thought he was too good for her. He had the perfect jet-black hair, and striking blue eyes that mesmerized even the most annoyed person around. As always, Melissa couldn’t fathom the idea that someone who was good-looking and smart could ever like her. As a teenager, she was extremely shy and didn’t date much. Brian, on the other hand, kept insisting the two give the relationship a chance. After the trouble she had had with dating other men, she was hesitant to try again. Finally, after nearly 6 months of being wined and dined, Melissa Bosworth was smitten; more like love-struck, her parents would say.

Six months later, they were married in a small setting in the temple. Friends would comment they locked eyes more with each other than with their guests who were honoring the two at a garden reception in the back of the Bradford’s hill-side home. It was the same time Melissa’s mother began forgetting things and the reception was one of them. She remembered the embarrassment on her face when her mother had to be called and reminded of Melissa’s reception that night at six thirty.

Shortly after, they moved to Provo so Brian could attend the University and get his masters in Computer Science. They stayed in Provo for two years until Brian was offered a job in Spring Haven. Melissa became pregnant with Amanda soon after their wedding and had to work two jobs, while Brian finished his schooling. She remembered the day she found out they were pregnant. Brian beamed the whole week and treated Melissa as if she had to be waited on hand and foot.

When Amanda was four months old, Brian graduated and got a job with a promising sales company. After that, their little family grew even more challenging with the arrival of each of the kids. They came in succession, two years apart. The kids were all born in the summer, Amanda in June, Andrew and Melissa in July and Emily in August. Brian’s was on April 16. The two came to find out that all their birthdays made for an interesting summer, in addition to an expensive one. It was also the time when Melissa started having panic attacks, and her idea of a smooth marriage went sour.

As she flipped on the computer and scanned through the messages, her thoughts focused on the present. Most of the email was spam and she could care less whether she looked at them or not. She then checked the MSNBC website and scrolled down, checking out the latest news. She stopped midway down the screen. The headline popped out, “Bill passes House to cut funding for mental illness.” She felt the heat rise to her cheeks. She clicked on the link and began reading. The article stated that the Senate had approved a cut of fifty million dollars early last year and had been waiting for the House of Representatives to approve it. Now that the bill had passed both the Senate and the House, it was up to the President to sign or veto it. The article went on to say the majority of the House of Representatives had voted in favor of cutting the funding. She had to call Kit, her good friend, and one who depended on medication for her depression. This would affect her as well.

She pounded her fist on her desk. “What is wrong with our government?” She said aloud. Melissa picked up the phone and dialed Kit’s number. It was her day off, which meant she probably wasn’t there, but she had to try. On the fourth ring, Kit answered.
“Hello,” she said. To Melissa, she was never in a sour mood.
“Hey Kit, have you read the news lately?” Melissa charged in.
“Whoa, no ‘hi, how ya doing, I’m fine’ dialogue?”
“Sorry, it’s just this is too important to take lightly. You have to listen to this,” she said switching the phone from her ear to speaker phone. She set the phone down next to her on the desk. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Ok. I just looked at MSNBC online and get this. The House of Representatives just passed a bill to cut fifty million dollars in funding for mental health.” “No way,” Kit said.
“Now listen to their idiotic excuse,” Melissa said and then began to read. “'We feel mental health is important but we have to look at the budget numbers and right now, there is not even enough money to put towards more important things. We can’t have our cake and eat it too,’ House Representative Croft said.”
“Why would they cut the funding?” Kit asked, and then said, “Oh yeah, cause they’re stupid. Don’t they know that if people with mental illness received treatment, they wouldn’t be in mental institutions or jail, or for that matter, they’d be able to cope and not end up killing themselves?”
“I don’t know. It seems like people with mental illness have no recourse when it comes to money. If the government doesn’t see fit to use the money for mental illness, it’s their prerogative and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Melissa said feeling sickened by the article.
“What’s going to happen to those people who can’t afford to see a therapist or get prescriptions? If the government would only pull their heads out of the sand and comprehend just how many people out there need help, they would realize how important treatment is,” Kit said, and she knew—she was diagnosed with depression two years ago.
“Yeah, I know. There must be some way the government will listen,” Melissa said, knowing full well, she was clueless as to how. “Mental illness is becoming more and more widespread. People are killing other people—or themselves—because of depression and anxiety disorders and the government wants to cut fifty million dollars from the budget because there are things more important? What is more important than the salvation of humans, for people who are screaming for help?” She was now screaming, but who could blame her, she thought. The cuts would make a lot of people angry. It made her mad enough to want to do something, but what? She asked herself. What could she do? Before she could mull it over in her mind, Amanda came in.
“Mom, why are you yelling?” Amanda said, her eyebrows scrunched inward. “Hey Kit, got to go. I’ll call you later.” Melissa clicked off the phone and then put it down; she twirled around in her chair and faced Amanda. She realized she shouldn’t have worried her and hoped Andrew hadn’t heard also. “I’m sorry. Just something in the news made me angry. You know when you want something so much and I say no? It upsets you, right?” Amanda nodded her head. “Well, this is the same thing. There’s something I want the government to do and they won’t do it. I’m sorry I yelled. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Amanda shrugged and then left the study, closing the door behind her.