Brittany Wilcox: How Fan Fiction Became My Tool for Healing

Anyway, the whole brain infection conundrum made me realize I have a covert mental illness. It didn’t make itself known to me until I almost died and *had* to become aware of it in order to survive.

You’ll know it as DID (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder for the Boomers 😉). I went into trauma therapy after leaving my ex and was formerly diagnosed during this time. (Anyone who has questions about this, I’m willing to answer. What is widely known about this mental illness to the public is very, very wrong).

Once I started to heal, the compulsion I felt to write these stories (it was all for one particular fandom, by the way. I only wrote for a single fandom 99 percent of the time) lessened, and I realized that I was writing these stories to try and communicate with myself. I was trying to tell myself about my other parts that were separated from me. It became a tool of healing and expression of the abuse I had suffered throughout my life via the use of metaphors and storytelling. It gave me enough emotional and psychological distance from what happened to get it out without spiraling into the throws of a CPTSD episode.

Of course, it couldn’t prevent every spiral, and due to both the physical trauma of the infection and the rampant abuse I had suffered at the hands of many for my entire life, I succumbed to the spiral two more times and had to be hospitalized. (I didn’t try to unalive myself. My nervous system would just get so out of whack that I would be convinced I was dying and stay awake for days on end until I was in full-blown psychosis. 0/4 stars do not recommend).

Read the full article:

https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2024/03/brittany-wilcox-how-fan-fiction-became.html