It’s a bit early as of this posting, but starting tomorrow (May 1) and running through the rest of the month, Therapist Omnibus 1 will be part of a set of four book bundles for Mental Health Awareness Month. All of the included books feature mental health / representation in some way, across various genres.
I was excited to hear about this bundle, because (as one might guess, based on what I write) this is a topic I care a lot about. Honestly, I’m looking forward to reading some of the other books in the bundles as well. My TBR is already out of control, but who cares.
Edit: The URLs for the With & Without Spice SFF bundles were swapped; should be fixed now.
All of the bundles, by genre (and try as I might, I could not get some of these lined up in WordPress):
Independently, I’ve decided to donate my portion of the proceeds to the International Association for Suicide Prevention, once the sale is complete and itch.io has done all its calculations. Suicide prevention is only a small part of mental health as a whole, but it is an important one, and I wanted to choose an international organization. Also, I have a day job and can afford to donate some of what I make from writing. It’s not a hardship.
This is the first year for this bundle, and the organizer didn’t have time to collect details about representation both on the author side or the book side. So, with no pressure toward anyone else, I’d like to volunteer that info for mine.
Hi. I have a mild/chronic form of depression called dysthymia. I can function almost all of the time, but it can be a hampering force in my life; sometimes I function at what feels like 100% and sometimes it’s 65%. I’m lucky in that it doesn’t spike drastically, but it doesn’t fully go away, either. I struggle with motivation and mood regulation, which, like a lot of people, I have a whole host of coping mechanisms to try and mitigate.
That’s the diagnosis that I know about, and so it’s the one thing I can prove. I’m also anxious a noticeable amount of the time, but I don’t know whether I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety (ask me about socializing — or, well, don’t).
How I Became a Therapist in Another World is what it says on the tin: it’s a light fantasy series in a colorful, Euro-fairy-tale-inspired world that depicts mental health earnestly, if not always in great length or depth. The main character is a therapist from Earth who is reincarnated into this fantasy world, and finds that she can still help people with the aid of her clinical experience, education, and now, magic that creates a pocket universe where people can talk through their problems.
The volume included in this sale consists of the first four novellas, which touch on:
- Intense social anxiety, through the supporting character Hazel
- Some PTSD and grief through the main character, primarily in the first novella
- Anger issues, through a bit character in novella 1; anxiety, phobias, and substance abuse are also mentioned through bit characters who are clients in the main character’s practice
- Codependency, through the side character Greta, and to a lesser degree with a trio of characters who appear in novella 3
- Depression, trauma, and passive suicidal ideation, through the side character Morel
- Social isolation and stress resulting from it, through a side character in novella 4
In many cases, these concepts are fictionalized/symbolized through supernatural creatures — “demons” that feed on sentient beings’ distress — and while this is a goofy fantasy conceit, I’ve made every effort I can not to trivialize the underlying situations. They’re real. The demons just make the situation into something I can describe in a dream-logic metaphorical way.
I started writing the series because of a joke an anime reviewer made on a podcast I listen to (someone ought to make “I Became a Therapist in Another World”; I tacked on the “how” for some reason), and kept going because, at the end of the day, I want to prove to myself and the world that light and dark can coexist, that we can experience joy even if it’s not all the time, and that representation — even for identities and experiences that some people find “uncozy” or “offputting” — still matters.
…Oh, and the series is almost constantly queer. Just because I say so.
So that’s my representation affidavit. Whether the depression rep is ownvoices or not depends on whether you want to break down the severity of the diagnosis. I don’t make any claims about that.
That’s all for now. The sale runs from May 1 through 31, only on itch.io.