Features “Hindsight of the Falsehood”, “Imagination Is Not Free”, and “Normal” from The Artist, The Muse on Amazon.com
Tag: mental disorder
“In Touch” FREE ON KINDLE through 7/9/2020
From now through July 9, 2020, my full length novel about obsessive compulsive disorder, In Touch, is FREE on Kindle. Click here!
“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.”
New to Patreon!
For anyone interested in supporting my mission to find beauty in darknes, I just made a Patreon account. No pressure to join, I just figured I should make the option available as an artist in this day and age. http://www.patreon.com/valerieparente
The overarching theme to all my artwork- whether it is poetry, prose, stories, drawings, paintings, or photography- is finding beautiful darkness. I love finding the positive in dark moods, situations, and imagery. This is evident in my written work on my website, valerieparente.wordpress.com, and in my novels available on Amazon (“The Artist, The Muse”, “In Touch”, and “Rather Be Haunted”. I draw inspiration from a lifelong and personal struggle with very severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and anorexia. Each body of work I create centers around mental illness.
The Artist, The Muse : a poetry and prose collection about what it is like to have a mental disorder that influences your art.
In Touch : a fiction novel about a female with OCD, based on my real-life struggle with OCD, through the eyes of a male without the disorder.
Rather Be Haunted : a poetry and prose collection that explores love, heartache, and death from the perspective of a girl with OCD that feels “haunted” by the motifs in life that define her humanity, including my signature Mannequin Art (used as a commentary on what it means to learn how to be a “normal” human).
Thank you from the bottom of my heart if you are interested in my journey to discover beauty in darkness.
Love Vs. Obsession (One in the Same)
Love Vs. Obsession (One in the Same) by Valerie Parente
What is the difference between love and obsession?
Because the two are synonymous in a mind like mine.
And I’m really not trying to cross a line
but I can’t control the way feelings reorganize my mind.
Why is obsession only beautiful
when obsession is mutual?
You say I have to apologize when I care in that beautiful way
Everybody else gets to experience love without the shame
Now the girl with OCD starts to love and it’s called insane
But I really can’t help it that love and obsession have always been one in the same.
– Valerie Parente (4-24-2020)
Valerie’s Thesis
Valerie’s Thesis by Valerie Parente
If there’s one goal in my social life it’s to enchant another person’s mind
The perfect interaction is a transaction where I teach you and you teach me
Just promise you’ll teach me without being preachy
because I thrive on being enlightened and I die when you condescend
so help me understand the world outside and I’ll translate the art sitting in your psyche.
Nothing bothers me more than when someone thinks I’m just a dumb girl
because inside my mind is a large web of things that make me obsessed
and I know that comes across like I can’t find my thoughts.
The truth is I just struggle with my words when I have to speak them into the world
but give me paper and a pen to write and I promise I’ll blow your mind.
I know it sounds pretentious but if I’m being perfectly honest
I’d rather you read what I write than see my picture and click “like”
Yes I still have an aesthetic but that’s just the visual poetry of my intellect
If I have to post my face to get your attention and enter the conversation
then I’ll gladly pose in place only to switch your direction to mental reflection.
I believe our minds are a never-ending storm given a body in this crazy world
that God gave us physical anatomy as our way of making sense of mentality
The pain that comes with having an ego serves to recognize the other in a collective soul
So you better be damn sure that if I find another mind that can discuss this even one time
then I’m going to hold onto that conversation like it’s my most valuable human connection.
– Valerie Parente (4-16-2020)
A Germaphobe’s Hell
A Germaphobe’s Hell by Valerie Parente
When someone else understands the anxiety I’ve been feeling for half my life
I don’t feel comfort, I feel competition.
I worked from the inside out to walk through this hell
and now you’re telling me to turn around and walk with everyone else.
No, I don’t want the world to change their mind and say that my mental strife was justified
don’t tell me that my fears were right all along.
Why would I want to see my disorder become mainstream
after you spent years telling me that my pain is unique?
I understand the necessity to chain us all down as a way to protect ourselves
but I can’t pretend it doesn’t feel like hell
to be told to back-track all your progress
because now it really is a matter of life or death.
– Valerie Parente (4-13-2020)
An Obsessive Compulsive’s Take on the Coronavirus Crisis
An Obsessive Compulsive’s Take on the Coronavirus Crisis by Valerie Parente
Day Five in quarantine, and I am full of so many uncomfortable thoughts. How odd it is to live during a time when everybody else is performing the compulsions you’ve been told were “irrational” for over a decade.
I have been wildly afraid of germs since I was 13 years old (I’m 25 now). I don’t touch my face unless it’s right after washing my hands. I deem my clothes “dirty” as soon as I exit my home. I keep bottles of hand sanitizer in my car and every bag I have. And in the past few years I have gotten really good about challenging these germaphobic thoughts and compulsions by going out more, touching my face, not taking a shower immediately upon coming home from being out in public, and doing so many more little acts. Now with the COVID-19 crisis it feels like everything I’ve been told was “irrational” is becoming the norm. Yes, this is an unprecedented situation and the rules of what is “cleanly” and “germy” have now changed, but that doesn’t make it any less bizarre for someone who has been told for the past decade that constant hand washing and not touching your face is unreasonable and compulsions of the mentally ill. Now we’re desperate not to fall ill in the name of doing these manic compulsions. The acts that were was once deemed over-the-top are now being drilled into our brains.
I can’t speak for everyone with OCD, but for me, there was always a sense of “I’m being ridiculous, but I’m going to do it anways” when I performed a compulsion to get rid of germs. I always kind of knew I was overreacting. I knew it. Did I believe it? No. Knowing and believing are two very different things. I very much believed I would get sick if I didn’t shower before going in my bed, but I knew deep down that this was not a normal thought process and that I was being crazy. This coronavirus crisis really is an OCD sufferer’s worst case scenario played out. It’s everything we’ve ever been told was an overreaction now being categorized as a necessary course of action.
People always told me it wasn’t the end of the world if I let a germ touch my skin. Now the world is in this freak situation where it might be the end of the world. We’re in a realm of danger where it actually can be a matter of life or death if you don’t wash your skin. That’s absolutely mind boggling for me. I’m not necessarily upset, and I’m not even complaining, I’m just uncomfortable. Perplexed. Shocked. I never thought I’d see the day where all of the obsessions I was told were unnecessary to entertain have now been given credibility on a global scale. I guess the best word I can use to describe all of this is wild. It’s just wild.
Social distancing. Hand washing. “Don’t touch your face”. I’m equally curious as I am concerned with how society is going to behave once we move past this traumatic chapter. My gut tells me a lot of people are going to develop obsessive compulsive disorder after this. We’re fostering that obsessive compulsive mindset and placing it on a pedestal of “life or death” importance (and rightfully so), so how can you go from that drastic and dire mindset back to “oh you’re being ridiculous for wiping down your seat every time you go to sit in it”? I really don’t have the answer. I guess we’ll all find out, together.
– Valerie Parente (3-17-2020)
Noise
Noise by Valerie Parente
Chaos is noisy.
When you finally get out
Prepared for the silence of safety
But for some reason there is still noise
That noise is the trauma.
Echoes are normal as you distance from the moment of chaos
Music is normal as you feel newfound inspiration
But noise,
Noise is the sign of post traumatic stress.
If it is noisy instead of quiet, that is how you know you have been traumatized.
– Valerie Parente (2-19-2020)
Connection
Connection by Valerie Parente
I’ve been looking for a way out of this mind
And somewhere along the line I realized
that connecting to someone else was my way out
and that’s why I acted like it was do or die
when I recognized your third eye
I was crazy and intense and emotions were high
because I swore this connection was my only chance
to be freed from the pain I idealized
and when you say something I really want to know why
because finally I’m intrigued by a mind other than mine.
– Valerie Parente (2-6-2020)
Cruelty & Credulity
Cruelty & Credulity by Valerie Parente
Not knowing what is normal has become the norm for me.
And not knowing what’s real has become my reality.
I’m trying to be mindful of what’s fabricated in my mind.
So the cruelest thing you could do is make me believe that my perception is make-believe.
– Valerie Parente (1-31-2020)
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