The Mind's Eye (39 page)
Authors: K.C. Finn
Tags: #young adult, #historical, #wwii, #historical romance, #ww2, #ya, #europe, #telepathic, #clean teen publishing, #kc finn
If there was ever an embodiment of the idea
of the ‘troubled teen’, then it was me, but probably not in the way
you’d think.
I wasn’t, for example, a smoker or a
boozer; I didn’t stay out late or smuggle anything (or anyone)
untoward into my room at home. In fact, I stayed in. A lot. I would
come home from high school aged 15 and find myself crawling
straight into my bed at four o’clock, out cold until gone six and
still in my uniform with Mum calling me down for dinner. My entire
life was a pattern of eat, sleep, school, sleep, eat and so on; not
a scrap of energy or enthusiasm for life, waiting desperately for
the time when I could throw off the shackles of the 9-to-4 school
day and finally use what little pep I had to do something better
with my life. A myriad of doctors and therapists told me that I was
depressed and filled me up with drugs, packing me back off to
school like that was the answer to my problems.
It took me a further four years to work out
what was really going on.
At age 13 I developed what I now know to be
called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.), a debilitating physical
condition that attacks every major system in your body from the
nervous and digestive systems to the musculoskeletal, hormonal and
beyond. Between the ages of 13 and 16 (what some would call the
best years of your life) I went from being a spritely, bright child
to a surly, aching, exhausted teen who saw every morning as just
one more day of pain coming her way. I dropped out of school and
spent eighteen months trying to recover from what I was still being
told was depression and anxiety, but no matter what I tried I just
couldn’t get better. I knew that there had to be another
explanation; I just had to find a way to prove it.
For my 18th birthday I was taken away for a
week’s holiday. I deliberately didn’t pack my anti-depressants,
suffering a week of cold-turkey withdrawal in order to flush them
out of my system once and for all. This is not a practice
recommended by doctors and I don’t advocate it, but it was the only
thing I felt able to do at the time. Coming home from that holiday
I had a fresh perspective on my physical health, realising that I
was never mentally depressed, but that my body was the one letting
me down. I had an illness and it took me another whole year before
I met a doctor who could put the label M.E. to my symptoms.
Armed with this knowledge I returned to
college and then went on to university, all the while making my way
through different doctors and different treatments until I could
find one who would push to get the diagnosis I so desperately
needed. I was 22 years old when the letter finally came to tell me
what I had been suffering from for the last nine years. It was a
relief, but also a sadness, the final confirmation that I am living
with a condition that has no known cure and will be likely to
affect me for the rest of my life. At the point when I received
that letter in November 2011, I felt as though the life I had been
wading through suddenly needed a new purpose and a proper
direction, something I would still be able to achieve if and when
my condition worsened.
So I started to write.
I have written several self-published books
in the last twelve months and it has been pointed out to me
repeatedly that each one of them contains characters that are
physically limited, pained and/or mentally scarred in some way.
This is no co-incidence, but it is something that was creeping into
my work without a definite conscious knowledge; I think I simply
found it more engaging personally to write about imperfect people.
That was until I sat down to write my first novel for Clean Teen
Publishing, entitled The Mind’s Eye. In this book my central
character suffers from Juvenile Systemic Arthritis, a severe and
debilitating condition that presents many of the same
musculoskeletal symptoms that I face every day. Whilst I am not
always bound to a wheelchair, the immobility that my character Kit
faces isn’t just about her legs not working. The Mind’s Eye is an
exciting wartime adventure with paranormal fun, but at its heart it
is also a story about a girl just like me, struggling to work out
how to find a place in the world where she can feel valued and
still be useful to the people she cares about.
Scenes within The Mind’s Eye are a mixture
of Kit’s psychic visions of the Second World War interspersed with
her own struggles in her home life. I have a feeling that some
people might consider those latter scenes to be the ‘boring bits’,
the ‘filler’ that has to happen between the tense, exciting action
moments. To me, however, I could take or leave the incredible and
heart breaking scenes of war, because the real struggle that
touches my heart is that of a lonely young girl quite literally
trying to stand on her own two feet in a world where all the odds
are stacked against her. When you read The Mind’s Eye, spare a
thought for Kit and the life she has to lead every day, because her
fictional creation represents countless other people out there who
face physical and emotional struggles that ordinary folk can barely
comprehend.
The real story of The Mind’s Eye isn’t that
of the glorious Allies beating back Jerry, but of Kit Cavendish
beating back the sentence that life has handed her with the
newfound love and support of the people around her. It is a story
that is very important to me and I sincerely hope it will find a
place in your hearts too.
of the ‘troubled teen’, then it was me, but probably not in the way
you’d think.
I wasn’t, for example, a smoker or a
boozer; I didn’t stay out late or smuggle anything (or anyone)
untoward into my room at home. In fact, I stayed in. A lot. I would
come home from high school aged 15 and find myself crawling
straight into my bed at four o’clock, out cold until gone six and
still in my uniform with Mum calling me down for dinner. My entire
life was a pattern of eat, sleep, school, sleep, eat and so on; not
a scrap of energy or enthusiasm for life, waiting desperately for
the time when I could throw off the shackles of the 9-to-4 school
day and finally use what little pep I had to do something better
with my life. A myriad of doctors and therapists told me that I was
depressed and filled me up with drugs, packing me back off to
school like that was the answer to my problems.
It took me a further four years to work out
what was really going on.
At age 13 I developed what I now know to be
called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.), a debilitating physical
condition that attacks every major system in your body from the
nervous and digestive systems to the musculoskeletal, hormonal and
beyond. Between the ages of 13 and 16 (what some would call the
best years of your life) I went from being a spritely, bright child
to a surly, aching, exhausted teen who saw every morning as just
one more day of pain coming her way. I dropped out of school and
spent eighteen months trying to recover from what I was still being
told was depression and anxiety, but no matter what I tried I just
couldn’t get better. I knew that there had to be another
explanation; I just had to find a way to prove it.
For my 18th birthday I was taken away for a
week’s holiday. I deliberately didn’t pack my anti-depressants,
suffering a week of cold-turkey withdrawal in order to flush them
out of my system once and for all. This is not a practice
recommended by doctors and I don’t advocate it, but it was the only
thing I felt able to do at the time. Coming home from that holiday
I had a fresh perspective on my physical health, realising that I
was never mentally depressed, but that my body was the one letting
me down. I had an illness and it took me another whole year before
I met a doctor who could put the label M.E. to my symptoms.
Armed with this knowledge I returned to
college and then went on to university, all the while making my way
through different doctors and different treatments until I could
find one who would push to get the diagnosis I so desperately
needed. I was 22 years old when the letter finally came to tell me
what I had been suffering from for the last nine years. It was a
relief, but also a sadness, the final confirmation that I am living
with a condition that has no known cure and will be likely to
affect me for the rest of my life. At the point when I received
that letter in November 2011, I felt as though the life I had been
wading through suddenly needed a new purpose and a proper
direction, something I would still be able to achieve if and when
my condition worsened.
So I started to write.
I have written several self-published books
in the last twelve months and it has been pointed out to me
repeatedly that each one of them contains characters that are
physically limited, pained and/or mentally scarred in some way.
This is no co-incidence, but it is something that was creeping into
my work without a definite conscious knowledge; I think I simply
found it more engaging personally to write about imperfect people.
That was until I sat down to write my first novel for Clean Teen
Publishing, entitled The Mind’s Eye. In this book my central
character suffers from Juvenile Systemic Arthritis, a severe and
debilitating condition that presents many of the same
musculoskeletal symptoms that I face every day. Whilst I am not
always bound to a wheelchair, the immobility that my character Kit
faces isn’t just about her legs not working. The Mind’s Eye is an
exciting wartime adventure with paranormal fun, but at its heart it
is also a story about a girl just like me, struggling to work out
how to find a place in the world where she can feel valued and
still be useful to the people she cares about.
Scenes within The Mind’s Eye are a mixture
of Kit’s psychic visions of the Second World War interspersed with
her own struggles in her home life. I have a feeling that some
people might consider those latter scenes to be the ‘boring bits’,
the ‘filler’ that has to happen between the tense, exciting action
moments. To me, however, I could take or leave the incredible and
heart breaking scenes of war, because the real struggle that
touches my heart is that of a lonely young girl quite literally
trying to stand on her own two feet in a world where all the odds
are stacked against her. When you read The Mind’s Eye, spare a
thought for Kit and the life she has to lead every day, because her
fictional creation represents countless other people out there who
face physical and emotional struggles that ordinary folk can barely
comprehend.
The real story of The Mind’s Eye isn’t that
of the glorious Allies beating back Jerry, but of Kit Cavendish
beating back the sentence that life has handed her with the
newfound love and support of the people around her. It is a story
that is very important to me and I sincerely hope it will find a
place in your hearts too.
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