We recently connected with Kim Conrey and have shared our conversation below.
Kim, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
Myself and my oldest child deal with obsessive compulsive disorder with intrusive thoughts. It can be frustrating because OCD is one of the most cliched and misunderstood disorders out there. Many people think that if they like to have things neat or organized then they must have OCD. It’s a frustrating assumption, especially when you’ve watched a child with OCD dry heaving over a toilet because their OCD and intrusive thoughts were so bad that they were getting physically ill.
That’s why I took a break from writing sci-fi and fantasy, and me my oldest child co-authored You’re Not a Murderer: You Just Have Harm OCD. Many people don’t realize that over half of people with clinical OCD can also have looping intrusive thoughts, and some of them can be terrifying or even violent–though it’s important to note that the person having them is not violent. Far from being a disorder to snicker about or a term to grossly misuse, true clinical OCD, can be tormenting and take years of therapy, sometimes combined with medication, to overcome. The therapy usually includes, exposure and response prevention or ERP, for short. It’s a process of exposing the sufferer to the obsession and having them sit with the uncomfortable feeling without doing the ritual, whether it’s handwashing, thinking the correct thought, counting, touching a certain object, etc.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m very fortunate to be part of the Atlanta Writers Club where I serve as VP of Operations. We’ve been helping writers learn the craft and business of writing since 1914. They’ve been a huge part of my success, not only for the OCD memoir, but for Stealing Ares, which I’m proud to say won Georgia Author of the Year for Romance (2023) and my paranormal romance Nicholas Eternal. The Atlanta Writers Club is where I met my husband and some of my best friends, several of whom I now do a writing podcast with called Wild Women Who Write Take Flight. This year will bring a sequel to Nicholas Eternal called Noory and the Eternal Light and I’m co-authoring a handbook for new authors along with thriller author Roger Johns. He and I also do a quarterly column in Page Turner (a publication of the Georgia Writers Museum) titled If “You Only Have An Hour”. It’s all about how to get the most out of your book marketing time. We also give talks on the subject. I’m never bored!
This year I’d like to do more OCD advocacy. I’m amazed by the rampant misunderstandings that are still floating around out there as to what people believe OCD is. Nearly every time I do a book signing I run into this. Many people believe it to be a “neatness” disorder. If only it were that simple! So many people with OCD aren’t neat at all. It can take many, varied forms. Then again, going out into the world with this book has been a form of advocacy. The title certainly opens a dialogue at signings!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
When I look back on what it took to persevere in the face of mental health issues, I think the most important skill I found was building an understanding that no matter how bleak something is in the moment, it does not represent our entire lives. It’s so easy to feel like this must be my fate forever because it seems so all encompassing, but help is available, the future really is in our hands, and what we are going through now is NOT an indication of our entire lives. Second, find an outlet for your feelings. For me, it was writing and running. The third thing I’d say, and this is a tough one, get up, move, get out, even when you don’t feel like it. This IS being kind to yourself. Often, when we feel down or anxious we don’t want to do anything, but sometimes we need to force ourselves to get up and out and then we find that we do feel a little better and in the process learn that we can count on ourselves to show up in our own lives. All these things should, of course, accompany professional mental health services if they are needed. Don’t be afraid to seek that out.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
My biggest area of growth over the past year has been balance and simply noticing when I become imbalanced and that it isn’t good for me. I imagine this is likely true for many driven people and people who’ve dealt with mental health challenges. I always feel like there is something I should be doing even when I’m resting, and because I spent a significant amount of time in the past dealing with anxiety, which lead to a period of inaction, I’ve discovered that I have a deep seated fear of inaction. I have to remind myself that if I rest for a while it does not mean that I will never get up again. Like many people who’ve gone through a time of deep anxiety or depression we spent time berating ourselves for the amount of time we spent in inaction, feeling paralyzed by our mental health issues, and many of us have a fear of falling into that again. So, even when we know we need to rest, we fear it. Thus, being a naturally driven person who now has a fear of taking a break, balance is not easy for me but I’m learning to spot when I’m going to far in either direction and asking myself how I truly feel at any given moment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://harmocdkimconrey.com/
https://kimconrey.com/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ares_ascending/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kimconrey
- Other: https://linktr.ee/KimConrey
Podcast: Wild Women Who Write Podcast
Image Credits
Photo credits: Cherie Lawley Photography and Eikonik Images
