Suicide Junkie By Steve Westwood

I met Steve Westwood over at Facebook in one of the many mental health groups that I belong too and after reading his profile, the book description to Suicide Junkie and the wonderful advice he gives to people in pain I asked him to write a guest post here on Untreatable Online. Steve Westwood was kind enough to write a post specifically for this blog and urge all of you to seek out his site and his book. Take care

When I wrote ‘Suicide Junkie’ I didn’t stop to think if the book had an audience; I didn’t hold back any facts in case they made me or anyone in it ‘look bad’; I didn’t worry about how to promote it or how to get it published, I just wrote. It was almost as if I were on the psychiatrists couch, crying and pouring out my heart, the truths I believed, the events in my life that shaped my dark and twisted psyche. It was a catharsis. And here I was, trying to explain it all to myself as much as anything, though I think the main reason I wrote it was so that I could put those years behind me and not have them wasted. I wanted people to know what I had been through, to understand how it was to be me, every suicide attempt, every cut of the blade, every pill that passed my lips. I told my story so that I had something tangible from all those years, something salvaged, art of the only kind I knew how- the written word.

In a month or so the whole story was told, and in it were all my ideas, all my philosophies, all the things I, as a writer, as a survivor, wanted to say. When I read it back I guess I was surprised that it was even readable, but as it turned out it was the best thing I had ever written. And the end result was something I didn’t think had ever been done before, a truly honest account of a suicidal, fragile, disordered human being.

Finding a publisher to take a chance on me was hard. I had written three fiction novels previously and had more rejections than I cared to remember, but I was never so focussed as I was now. I had lost my job due to poor mental health and my boss had suggested I try to focus on my writing. That was exactly what I was doing and, after seeing Jason Pegler on a TV chat show, I found my publisher. Jason runs a company called Chipmunka that publishes nothing but mental health related material. They agreed to take on ‘Suicide Junkie’.

I still didn’t realise what I had written. For fifteen years I had known that I was depressed and had always downplayed the importance my appearance had on my mental state, feeling I was being silly or vain. For fifteen years I wore makeup, spent hours in front of mirrors, hated how I looked, thought about it 24/7, thought my skin was disgusting. I was the phantom of the opera, hiding it all away. But I was, at length, diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder. The feelings I had about my looks were a mental disorder! I wasn’t totally crazy or monstrously ugly, it had a name. It had a name, but it didn’t have a voice. I had never heard of it, if I had perhaps fifteen years of distress could have been avoided. I was never going to be a shinny happy person, I had depression, a symptom of my borderline personality. I did not rate life, my glass was half empty, usually because I had drunk the rest of the bottle. But my skin… my ugliness was not real. Why hadn’t I told someone sooner? Well I could make a difference, I could be that voice, and that was how I decided to ‘go public’ with this thing.

I wrote to a magazine and they featured the story, from my wife’s point of view… ‘My hunky hubby felt too ugly to live’. I had a sellable story for them to sensationalise, but so what if I was the butt of a few jokes, I was raising awareness of BDD. If just one person read it, or read my book and saw themselves, I could make a difference. The book came out in paperback and I then realised that it was the only book out there about suffering with BDD. The TV show ‘This Morning’ wanted me on. I was nervous, but my own BDD was in check with the new meds so… why not? Live TV! And that is how it all came to be, my book, my mission; to raise awareness. Since then I have been on TV a few more times, made films and been in other publications. Now I’m writing on this blog, two years later, giving a voice to us BDD sufferers, the borderlines, the depressed, the people who get overlooked as too hard to treat when really there is so much you can do to help. Perhaps everyone with a mental disorder should write, perhaps the best art comes from the dark places. I continue to write and have just had my book of short prose ‘A Moment Gone’ published. I am now married with a two year old son. If I had told the old Stephen, the depressed, suicidal hermit, what my life would achieve I never would have believed it. If there is hope for me, someone that has played so closely with death, there is hope for us all.

‘Suicide Junkie’ and ‘A Moment Gone’ by S.Westwood are available at £10 from Chipmunka publishing from all good book shops including Amazon.

S Westwood also has a website www.swestwood.com

Incoming search terms:

• suicide junkie
• steven westwood
• steve westwood
• stephen westwood bdd
• stephen westwood junkie
• stephen westwood suicide
• stephen westwood suicide junkie
• steve westwood facebook
• steve westwood suicide junkie

Related posts:

1. Surviving A Loved One’s Suicide – Article
2. Parents of suicide find ‘immediate bond’ in each other
3. National Suicide Prevention Week – Article
4. More people calling suicide prevention hot line – Article
5. Suicide Prevention: R U OK? – Article
6. Economy prompts more calls to suicide hotlines – Article
7. CNN Article – Military Suicide
8. Youth driving discussions about suicide – Article
9. Suicide
10. Suicide risk with antidepressants linked to age – Article