Blue Jeans

By JD O'Meara

Blue Jeans captures the emotional and psychological chaos of the author's recovery from a nervous breakdown. The decentered narrative of vignettes from therapy sessions, memories, dreams, and real events challenges the reader to construct a narrative in a way that mirrors JD's process of collecting and piecing back together the shattered remains of the self.

While the specific circumstances in the book are those of its author, the larger issues tackled in Blue Jeans are those of the contemporary human condition: how to cope when you can barely survive, how to find yourself when you are utterly lost, and how to move forward when the past holds you back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JD O'Meara
• Release date: Oct 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310288180

JD O'Meara

Unlike many writers, I can't honestly say that I've had a lifelong love for literature and writing. Encouraged throughout most of my schooling to study math and science, I was introduced to literature as a discipline late in my undergraduate career. It was really only during my graduate studies that I began to fully appreciate the act of writing as a form of inquiry and expression. This appreciation notwithstanding, it was still only after a breakdown that I myself turned to writing in a desperate attempt to understand myself.Because my writing is so personally motivated, I choose to keep much of it private. The texts I offer here, however, are notable exceptions.Although it began as a highly personal and private work, whatever.odt ultimately -- and to my pleasant surprise -- blossomed into precisely the sort of text that I wish I had read when I was younger. I've chosen for this reason to share whatever.odt with anyone whom it might interest, in the hope that the genderqueer individuals who need it most will find and be empowered by it.Blue Jeans is a far more universal text than whatever.odt in that its narrative structure whisks the reader through the disarray and disjunction of a mental breakdown. My hope is that it will provide vicarious solace for those who have had such an experience, and foster patience and understanding in those who have not.

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Blue Jeans

JD O'Meara

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 JD O'Meara

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my readers, Liz and Cathy: Liz for encouraging me to expand sections of this manuscript into what ultimately became whatever.odt, and Cathy for convincing me that Blue Jeans is a compelling read on its own.

Thanks also to my family and friends who are there for me even when I don't deserve them.

Table of Contents

Note from the Author

Epigraph

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

November 2008

December 2008

January 2009

February 2009

March 2009

April 2009

References

About the Author

Note from the Author

Experience the madness and find the meaning.

That's what I did.

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Epigraph

When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one -- but I'm grown up now, she added in a sorrowful tone; at least there's no room to grow up any more here.

-- Alice, Alice In Wonderland

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August 2008

How have you been since our first meeting? He opened my file and ran his finger down a page of notes. I have here depression, anger, anxiety, phobia, ACoA, GERD, recurrent stomach bleeds, TMJ, two leaky heart valves, Raynaud's, DJD, tinnitus, chronic tonsillitis, indoor and outdoor allergies.

I stared blankly as he rattled off the fundamental constituents of my psychological and physiological being like items on a fucked up grocery list.

Did doubling up work?

My eyes floated slowly over to him. Not yet.

Give it another week. If you don't feel more balanced by then, we can think about some other medications. He patted down his desk and