RECENT POSTS

I read Stephen King's Pet Semetary during the first month of quarantine, back in March of 2020.

Remember when we all thought it was going to be a quick two weeks and then we would all move on?

I was glued to the book for two days straight. The real life terror of loss and grief that rips a family apart planted a fear inside of me that was becoming a little too real around me. Every day that I watched the news I watched the death tolls rise and the families around the world mourn for the loss of their loved ones. It made me realize how easily any of us could be Louis Creed if in the worst situation with the right opportunity. Stephen King simply asks if your wildest dream could come true and you could bring back the one you loved the most...would you? 

​

But in King's world "sometimes dead is better". 

​

So the days go on. I lose my first job, then my second job and I mourn the loss with alcohol. Because drinking with friends is easier than facing the wave of stress that comes with income instability in the middle of a global pandemic. Then I get my job back at the cost of constant emotional and mental abuse...so I walk out. I decide that I can make it a short time without a job and am lucky enough to find another within a week. 

I am drinking. 

​

Within three weeks of being in my new job I am being sexually harassed and coerced by my boss. I am always afraid to go to work. I don't know if I should tell because I am so new. And even if I wasn't...maybe no one would believe me. 

I bite my tongue. 

​

Weeks go by and the death toll is rising and my palms start to sweat when I think about the moment when I will have to leave my house to get in my car for work.

Days go by and I start to wake up just a little bit earlier to watch out the front window of my home. I need to watch for at least ten minutes to make sure there is no one waiting near my car for me. 

I start running from my house to my car. 

Very suddenly I am waiting, watching, running and crying after locking the door in my car and checking the backseat for someone waiting there to kill me. 

​

At night I start to look out of my bedroom window. I'm waiting for the person hiding next door to slip up and show themselves to me. Every bump, every creak...I am scared. And even on quiet nights I know that someone will murder my family or they will all die of cancer and I will have to wait and watch and know that somehow it is my fault. 

I have convinced myself that death is around every corner. And by the time I seek help it is only because I am very sure that at this time dead is certainly better than the way I am feeling every single day. But I don't say a word to anyone because that's embarrassing  and I don't want it to seem like I'm complaining and I don't want to put that on anyone and they willprobablyjustgetmadatmebecause iamtalking to th em about itand they willhate youforsaying anything andthennononewillwanttobeyourfriendeveragainyoustupidfuckingidiotwhywouldyoueventhinkabouttalkingtosomeoneaboutthis!

​

At this point I am having panic attacks every day. I know someone is stalking me and going to kill me even though there is no clear evidence that anyone else can see. But I know. And I know that if I do not check out of my window in pulses of three, lock the doors and check them three times and ALWAYS be running to my car at anytime of day They. Will. Kill. Me. 

​

I get help. 

The doctor tells me that I very clearly have OCD, anxiety, depression and minor psychosis. So I start a regimen of pills for the first time in my life. It's a long road, one of the worst experiences of my life I would say.

I stop drinking. I tell someone about my boss. 

The experience of adjusting to medication while being on what feels like the brink of losing your grip on reality is terrifying. Why isn't it working already? It's been two weeks and I still feel afraid. Maybe I'm so crazy that no medication can help me and I just need to accept my insanity.

Around week four the clouds part.

My therapist tells me that the loss of a family member coupled with the constant loss and real fear of disease and dying all around set off my already chemically and traumatically imbalanced brain. I don't know how to grieve or even attempt to face the real fear in any way. So I was drinking and pretending like everything was okay until I had no other choice than to face it. If you've known me for any portion of my life you will know that this is a CLASSIC Harper move. So I began talking about it. Saying the things I was thinking that I thought were crazy to ever say out loud. I started with my therapist and slowly graduated to my mom. She's my mom so even if I tell her the crazy things I'm thinking she will still have to love me, right? Then I let a little bit slip to my partner and my friends. This far I have received nothing more that positive support and love.

​

I reread Pet Semetary very soon after this breakthrough and saw so much more than the gore and death. I saw a man who didn't know how to grieve. I saw a family shattered by loss that allowed the silence between them to be filled with the fear and insanity that can come from trauma and prolonged isolation.

This book is terrifying because it's about real life horror. A horror that walked right up to all of our doors and knocked with great power in 2020. Death is the great equalizer and therefore so is grief just the same.

I share the grief of my lost family member, the loss of everyone affected by this virus and for the time we have all lost with one another because of it. But I share the grief with so many others and I know that makes us stronger. 

​

“That lesson suggests that in the end, we can only find peace in our human lives by accepting the will of the universe.”

​

This book was a blessing in horrifying disguise. 

​