Seraphic Daydreams

May 10, 2021June 24, 2021Leave a comment

Seraphic Daydreams by Valerie Parente

Hope has always been so much bigger than the pain and the recovery,
Seraphic daydreams have always been the predominant part of me,
An ideal reality I blew into the air, as natural as the wind,
but I worried about the intrusive thoughts that persist,
and the truth is, you can think all you want,
but it’s belief in the heart…
that is the real charge.
I do not fear my demonic OCD fixations anymore,
because I know they don’t represent my angelic core.

– Valerie Parente (5-10-2021)

“In Touch” by Valerie Parente

August 5, 2018August 16, 2018Leave a comment

I have officially published my first full length fiction novel, “In Touch”!

In Touch by Valerie Parente (Book Jacket)

You can purchase “In Touch” by Valerie Parente on Amazon.com

Buy “In Touch” by Valerie Parente

“Undergraduate physics student, Jef Sterling, has done enough textbook reading to know that the universe is home to countless mind-blowing discoveries. But Jef never expected one of those discoveries to be the mind of an obsessive compulsive writer sharing the same campus as him. After reading a poem by Lacey Parker about her personal struggle with OCD, Jef’s highly rational brain fixates on uncovering the mysteries held captive in Lacey’s highly irrational brain. Throughout the course of a school year these two students exchange ideas that merge science with art, reality with fantasy, and physical phenomena with mental phenomena. While learning from one another Jef makes it his mission to make sense of Lacey’s nonsensical disorder and all of its incredible ironies; how she lives by the notion of feeling everything emotionally but dreads feeling anything physically, how her mind lives to protect as it gradually wreaks destruction, and most paradoxically how both Lacey’s most rewarding qualities and most detrimental flaws manifest from the same brain. In Touch by Valerie Parente is a realistic fiction novel alive with intellectual discussion, mental strife, heartache, and anecdotal insight into the cognitive confines of obsessive compulsive disorder.”

– Valerie Parente (8-5-2018)

Protection

May 24, 2018December 16, 2019Leave a comment

One of the hardest notions for me to come to terms with in my tug-of-war with OCD is that you don’t need to be afraid to be protected. The intrusive thoughts make baseless threats, and entertaining them with your attention or compulsions only gives them artificial credibility. Peace of mind does not come from obsessing and the arduous resisting or amusing of OCD thoughts that might follow. Peace of mind comes from trust in the greater scheme of things and acceptance in what you cannot control.

– Valerie Parente (5-24-2018)

Hindsight of the Falsehood

October 14, 2017December 6, 2017Leave a comment

Hindsight of the Falsehood by Valerie Parente

I thought a lot about things that weren’t true,
and took for granted the innocence of something new.
Some feelings more common than I realized,
sculpted from hormones, wrongly idealized.
Written off as young love gone wrong,
no more than a dramatic falsehood all along.
Turning fleeting feelings into fixations,
a pruning brain learning the process of iterations.
But I am older now and I know the truth,
New wisdom can only enrich my youth.

"Eponia's Token" by Valerie Parente