Intentions for My First Zine Publication

I’ve been thinking about starting a zine for a while now. I figure I kind of have a lot to talk about. The problem I’ve been running into is how to make certain life experiences of mine a story. I felt that I had a problem that writers into with making a book into a film. Not everything in my life translates to story form well.

I knew I wanted to talk about my failed marriage and how there was a clear cut change in how I felt.

Specifically before I was married I was happy, full of life, and full of energy and two weeks after my STBX decided he wanted to be divorced too I changed back into that person (though I am concerned about the amount of happiness I feel). I did have manic episodes while I was married, in fact I had my first one less than a month after we were married because one of his actions had put me in a extremely stressful situation, but while in a relationship with him I was either manic, severely depressed, or depressed.

I wanted to compare and contrast my relationship with him and my relationships with other people be they friendships or romantic interests. I wanted to show how other people I knew dealt with me being bipolar; how people other than him reacted to me and treated me.

I also knew I wanted to share what being bipolar is like. In a clear way I wanted to convey how severe my depression was. I wanted to show the whimsical euphoria that was my manic episodes and how I was whimsical in general. I found that it would be best to compare my relationships with men by having one Character be my soon to be ex and the other character be a combination of some of my other relationships. I have never had a friendship or romantic interest that treated me the way my soon to be ex treated me once we were married so I couldn’t add anyone to the character that is essentially my exhusband.

The stories that describe my depression will be 99.9% true (the turnout of the last story will be changed.

It could have easily happened. I was just lucky. This change is regarding something I did to myself and is taken from my adolescence as opposed to my early young adulthood.) The parts about depression will be portrayed as accurately and as vividly as I can make them. I will do the same thing with mania as well as my more normal (normal meaning not on the depressive or manic spectrum or at least as close to it as I get) state. The only changes that are near major changes are that the second character is a mixture of people so that I can portray my mania as best as possible as well as how I act in relationships with other people and how other people treat me and deal with my bipolar. The overarching story is based on something that happened in my life, but I will change certain things to portray spousal abuse and bipolar in the most effective way possible and cut out things that are unessential.