Archive for the ‘real life’ Category

2025 to 2026

Posted: January 5, 2026 in real life, writing
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Well. It has been another year. An eventful one at that.

I published Red Walls (twice) in addition to a couple shorts. I did book signings and events, presented at Colorado Festival of Horror again. It was a wild ride, overshadowed by a lot of grief and stress.

I gave up New Year’s Resolutions a while ago. I was never good at keeping them anyway. At some point, I switched to selecting an intentional word. A goal theme for the year. I have used “healing” and “simplify” in past years.

This year, I’m going with reset.

I chose reset because largely I want to start over. For the past 5ish years, it has felt like one thing after another. The pandemic into severe health issues into half a year of unemployment. There hasn’t really been a break or recovery, and I have been trying to cram in life around the struggles and traumas.

Last year, I lost. I lost people. I lost my job. (That doesn’t even include the everything else that has been happening in the larger world.) And through the grief, I just kept swimming.

This year, I need to make some decisions. What happened with Red Walls has me very in my head about writing and being an author. I thought Red Walls was finally progress on my author journey, but having to start over with it makes that feel less real. I find myself questioning if I should keep fighting my way up this hill.

I had a great time doing so many events and selling books this year. Yet, I don’t feel inspired to pursue more of it. Have I really changed, or is this depression (symptom: loss of interest or pleasure in things once enjoyed)?

I have read some amazing books lately. But instead of leaving me inspired, they make me realize that I will likely never attain that level. Is that imposter syndrome or an honest assessment?

All these feelings could easily correlate to depression and burnout. Or they could be a genuine indication that it is time to put the aspiration down. It’s an odd conversation to have with two books coming out in the next year or two and another book and short story currently in draft.

I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know what I want. Beside a reset.

I think I need to stabilize my foundation before I can assess clearly. I was able to take a breath and rest over the holidays, and many things bubbled up and unraveled in that space within me. If I can be healthy and employed, if there can be a moment between traumas (though the world does not seem poised for that AT ALL), maybe I can give myself that reset.

I begin 2026 ambiguous, confused, and undecided. But I am choosing to rebrand that as flexible. I am choosing to draw an arbitrary line through the bullshit construction of time. Everything before is past, and I am resetting myself from it for everything now and after.

At least that’s the 2026 aspiration.

In general, I don’t tackle current events on this narcissist blog endeavor. However, I admittedly feel uncomfortable posting “normal life” stuff (books, signings, performances, etc.) in the face of such a global shit show. I feel compelled to provide some context.

In my teens and early 20s, I was utterly lost. I honestly do not know how I survived. I spent those years in a blur of pain, trauma, mental illness, substance abuse, and self-destruction. Looking back, I have always resented squandering my youth that way. In hindsight, I understand I didn’t know how to do anything else, but that doesn’t change how I have always felt about it.

I apply this to the current doom all around me. I could (very easily) let it consume me, fall apart beneath it. But then I give it all this time. I deny myself joy for things I cannot control or influence.

Instead, I try to do both.

The doom affects me. It scares me, worries me, devastates me. But I try to continue sucking out what marrow of life I can in its shadow. Maybe even more because of the shadow.

It feels weird to be happy when the darkness is all around, but I also find that the darkness gives more reason to appreciate any light. Joy is resistance, and they can’t have mine.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Red Walls – When Talia’s parents go after the monsters who hurt her, they never expected real monsters.
  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Whirlwind

Posted: September 3, 2025 in real life
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I extroverted HARD last weekend, put myself out there (literally) at events across Colorado. Between dance performances and book events, there was no shortage of artistic expression for me.

I started with the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. I have performed at the fair with a dance collective for a few years now, usually with my duet partner. Unfortunately, my partner is recovering from surgery, so it was a solo endeavor this year.

Despite later internet backlash (don’t get me started), the show itself was a delight. My children so rarely get to see my perform (as they are not old enough for bars and clubs), and since they both helped me with my KPOP Demon Hunters dance, I was thrilled for them to see it onstage.

Then, I hit an author milestone: a Barnes & Noble book signing. Red Walls is the second of my books to be carried by Barnes & Noble, but Followers came out on the heels of the pandemic, so I never did in-person events for it.

I know Barnes & Noble is one of many book retailers out there. Yet, somehow, it felt validating, like a rite of passage in my author journey. Traffic was relatively light while my table was up, and I don’t know that I found my target audience in Boulder, but I talked to people and sold a few copies. So I call it a success!

On the heels of the signing, I sprinted back from Boulder to Colorado Springs to perform again in the annual Inappropriate Recital. My children helped with my makeup so I could present “My Idol” once again.

I explained my love of KPOP Demon Hunters in my last post. Finding a metal version of my (maybe) favorite song on the soundtrack then collaborating with my children on look and choreography made it all the more fun.

I also got to perform with a new troupe in a fusion of styles, neither of which I am very fluent with. So it presented a fun challenge.

Every time I take a break from the stage or deprioritize performing, I miss it. I guess I can’t quit it.

But whew, that was a lot of putting myself out there (and driving) in a 48 hour period. I go through a rollercoaster of emotions with these sorts of activities. The excitement and anxiety of preparation, the thrill of connection and expression (and positive reception), the drop of the thing finally being over. Call it exercise for the upcoming Colorado Festival of Horror weekend!

I have a stacked schedule of panels and signing and volunteering at CoFoH this year, so I better get my stamina up. This autumn was scheduled by a very optimistic, motivated, and employed past me. I’m hoping to skid into the end of the year still sane and intact.

Until then, enjoy a compilation of my performances of “My Idol”:

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Red Walls – When Talia’s parents go after the monsters who hurt her, they never expected real monsters.
  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

My Own Honmoon

Posted: August 27, 2025 in real life
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If your algorithm overlaps mine at all, KPOP Demon Hunters has taken over the internet. If your children are anything like mine, KPOP Demon Hunters has also taken over your house. It’s on Netflix all the time. The songs are playing in the car. There is choreography in the kitchen.

What is unexpected, however, is that is has taken over ME.

Wait, this is a horror writing blog. Why are we talking about KPOP Demon Hunters? you might be asking. It may not be horror, but stick with me…

I’ve seen about a thousand animated kids movies in the past decade plus. I mean, I get the surface appeal of KPOP Demon Hunters. The soundtrack is catchy as shit. The animation is cool. The main trio are a badass girl group who slay demons without breaking a sweat.

But what makes this movie more? What makes it actually hit? What makes it reach across the generations in our house and get under my skin?

***SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS AHEAD ***

They say KPOP Demon Hunters in Netflix’s Frozen. You could compare them on success but also on story. Like Elsa in Frozen, Rumi has something fundamental about who she is that her family and friends tell her is wrong or broken and that she needs to hide. I don’t think it’s an accident that movies on this thematic foundation are wildly popular. Something in the message resonates with the kids. And with the parents that are paying for it.

Like me. I’m sure people are out there dissecting this moving in articles and videos (believe me, I could think of several dissertation level topics), but this blog is, selfishly, about me.

The story of a woman trying to hide and fix some perceived defect to get people to love and accept her treads on braids of scar tissue in me. When I was younger, I was never what my family wanted (at times, still am not). When I was a mess, a lot of people left, whether I pushed them away or they abandoned me. That era of my life also contains some of my more lingering traumas.

So Rumi’s experience resonates with me. I know what it feels like to be rejected (or fear rejection) by those you love, feel like you have to choose between who you are and being accepted. Apparently, that wound in me is still quite tender. As an animated Netflix movie can consistently unravel me.

When Rumi’s demon nature surfaces, she confronts Celine, the woman who raised her. She asks her to kill her because she has always been a mistake. Then she begs Celine to love her–all of her.

BAM. This was me. I lived this scene when I was a teenager (minus the kill me part). More than once. And to be honest, decades later, the same scenario still plays out. People close to me love me–but not all of me. We have to not talk about parts of me or my life. And in that silence, their judgement is still loud.

I tell myself I don’t care anymore. I do care. And all that care just pours out of my eyes when I watch this movie.

I didn’t know my seventeenth year would echo across eternity, would be the base point I always return to, would be the version of me layers deep at my core. It’s all still there, even now that I’m the parent of the teenager. Over and over just this year, I have said to myself, why is this just like when I was 17? Things don’t seem to change; I just get older.

Did I mention the soundtrack? Bangers, bops, infectious tracks all around. Music is always a shortcut straight to my feels, but the lyrics in these songs hit me right in the chest.

“Golden” is not my favorite track (I dance to a metal cover of “Your Idol”), but these lines harmonize with my past.

Called a problem child ’cause I got too wild
But now that’s how I’m getting paid

Oof if that doesn’t sum up my adolescence to adult success. I may not be a pop star, but my horror writing and metal fusion belly dancing have never been universally accepted in my life. Good enough to get published. Good enough to be invited to perform. Yet all of that is somehow negated by the type of art I create. If only it was a different genre. If only it was a different style.

If only I wasn’t me.

I cannot make it through “What It Sounds Like” without dissolving into a blubbering mess. Tell me you have unresolved trauma without telling me you have unresolved trauma.

I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back
But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass
The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony
My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like
Why did I cover up the colors stuck inside my head?
I should’ve let the jagged edges meet the light instead

I spent a lifetime thinking there was something wrong with me. I spent a lifetime hating myself. I tried to kill myself. I used to hurt myself. I lost myself in self-destructive behaviors. I punished myself so hard that I very likely triggered the alopecia flare that took my hair. I turned on myself enough that my immune system identified me as the enemy. *(don’t take that as science, but it feels right and sound poetic)

So, when Rumi sings about finding beauty in what’s broken in her and accepting her scars and when her friends return to “dive in the fire, and I’ll be right here by your side“, I’m done for. It’s what I wanted most back then and, sometimes, what I still want now.

So, yes, KPOP Demon Hunters is some animated kids movie on Netflix, but it feeds the damaged kid still in me. Even though I’m weeping through the scenes, it feels like healing. I’m processing something repressed, bandaging old wounds to a dance-worthy beat. Could we be sealing my own honmoon against my own demons? Maybe… Go ahead, children, play it again! 😭😭😭

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Red Walls – When Talia’s parents go after the monsters who hurt her, they never expected real monsters.
  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

2024 in Review

Posted: January 1, 2025 in real life, writing
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Here we are again. The end of the year. The annual retrospective. It was another challenging year full of fresh hells but also peppered with healing and joy. Perhaps closer to balance than I’ve been in a long time.

Writing

After Followers, I did a lot of producing but not a lot of editing, querying, or publishing. This year, it finally caught up to me. I focused a lot on editing and critique group sessions and made it through my WIP stack (three books) at last! Then I even got around to submitting.

It paid off. Red Walls is under contract with Graveside Press, targeting a 2025 release. Invisible Girls also has a pending contract and potential 2026 release. (Working titles for both, of course).

Unfortunately, Savage Island (Savages #2) has only found rejection so far. The rejection was particularly crushing since Savages is my first and favorite book and the story is very close to my heart. In all naked honesty, it made me want to quit the entire publication pursuit. But I have worked through it and resolved to find Savage Island the right home.

As far as short stories, “Freaks” found a new home in The Horror Collection: Topaz Edition. More rejections on other stories, naturally, but I also had a couple more shorts picked up that will be released in the coming year.

2025 is shaping up to see new work from me out on the pages.

Events

I was quite busy with events this year. From vending to conventions to film festivals, it was horror year round.

I worked several different events, sharing a table with the delightful Mighty Quinn from Wyrd Wanderings. We paired my horror books and razor blade art with old medical texts and Uranium glass from his ghost hunting adventures.

My husband and I had a fantastic time volunteering at Colorado Festival of Horror, and I also spoke on multiple panels over the weekend.

We went to Telluride Horror Show, like every year. Only this year was different as we took our son fresh from the hospital with us.

I did talks and readings and saw a lot of horror movies. I danced and performed.

It was a full year, full of things I love.

Regular Life

Health-wise, this was a year of healing for me. After problems with medication and losing all my hair yet again, I got on a new regime that appears to be working. I have hair again, but more importantly, I am seeing improvement in my labs and symptoms that I have not experienced in years. I feel better. I might even say I feel like myself at times.

We had big traumas this year, but they were easier to navigate being physically stronger and more stable.

Many things were put into perspective for me this year. The most important of which is that, even on the worse day, I have a pretty damn good life. Worth living and worth appreciating.

So, while there are many broken things in the micro and macro-cosms, here we go into the next year.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Horror and Trauma

Posted: November 13, 2024 in horror, real life, writing
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Horror is a genre about trauma. Whether it is the fictional trauma being inflicted on the characters or the zeitgeist of fear it confronts for us.

At Colorado Festival of Horror 2024, I participated in two panels on the horror genre and trauma. Both sessions were so compelling and cathartic for me that I needed to share some thoughts here.

Horror can be a way of coping with trauma both by ingesting it and by creating it. In both cases, horror allows you to interact with or process something scary or hurtful in a “safe” environment. You are on your couch; you know the screen or the page cannot really hurt you. You can experience all those emotions knowing how it will safely end. Not unlike exposure therapy.

For me, it is definitely that, but it is also more. The awful things I see in horror help normalize how I am feeling, make me feel less alone in my pain. Horror also provides a worse-er scenario, which helps me keep my reality in perspective.

People often have “comfort horror”, stories they revisit in times of stress or pain. From the outside, it may seem odd to find solace in something terrible. However, when you unpack the movie and discover what resonates with you, you will often find it hits on something personal. Maybe it lets you control the situation. Maybe it lets you re-experience things knowing how it ends. Maybe it shows you a character like you surviving or being vindicated. But something in that horror is a salve to your wound.

For the panel, I had to think about my comfort horror movies. And why they are therapeutic to me. I came up with:

  • Scream: Aside from this being my first horror movie and introduction to the genre, Scream definitely hits something for me. When I stopped to actually consider it, I realized it is the deceit, the betrayal. Sidney’s friends lie to her, work against her, try to hurt her, but once she figures it out, she survives. And kills them all.
  • You’re Next: The same as Scream, You’re Next introduces a final girl who is being lied to and used. Yet when she fights for her life, it is her intelligence that keeps her alive.
  • Revenge: Rape revenge is pretty self-explanatory. I usually find this subgenre very triggering (Irreversible, Last House on the Left, etc.). Yet this one was different. I attribute the distinction to the female filmmaker (Coralie Fargeat). After Jen is assaulted and left for dead, she returns almost supernaturally in her vengeance.
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street: Nightmares and night terrors brought me to the horror genre. Seeing scary things outside my mind made me feel more normal. There was comfort in not being alone, in seeing what my mind mapped every night on external landscape. Watching Nancy confront her nightmares and ultimately defeat them in a way I never have soothes me.

Reading horror hits me even harder. In the past few months, I have been crying my eyes out over multiple books. American Rapture by CJ Leede, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones, Lone Women by Victor Lavalle, The Angel of Indian Lake (the entire trilogy) by Stephen Graham Jones, The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, Maeve Fly by CJ Leede… to name a few.

More than watching or reading, more than anything, creating horror is how I deal with my trauma. I have always written about my pain from journaling to blogging to essays to stories and books. It is more effective for me than any therapy I have tried (and I have tried many). Sometimes, the trauma is the inspiration, sometimes the thread, sometimes the whole damn story.

Tour my horror library with me:

  • How to Kill Yourself Slowly: The first thing I ever published. I wrote this satirical essay for a nonfiction class in college. All my trauma packaged up into one catty rant.
  • Savages: My first and perhaps my best book. Going to Iraq as a contractor deeply affected me. It changed how I saw humanity. I worked that out in this book.
  • “The Last Christmas Dinner” in Collected Christmas: A character based on my mother and maybe what she should have done one unappreciated holiday.
  • “After the Screaming Stopped” in Graveyard Girls: My post-partum story. This one was hard to find a home for. No one wants to look at how ugly and scary those new mother emotions can be.
  • “Personas” in Colorado’s Emerging Writers nonfiction: A deep dive into the many faces and roles of me.
  • “Under the Rapids”, Ink and Sword, Issue 4: I almost drown white water rafting when I was in my 20s. This story covers what I can remember.
  • “Awake” in America’s Emerging Horror Writers: West Region: I had hip surgery to repair a torn labrum. This story confronts how helpless I felt under anesthesia and after the operation.
  • “Hairs”, 96th of October, Autumn 2023: I lost my hair to Alopecia multiple times in recent years. In this story, I start there and make it oh so much worse.
  • Followers: Questioning how safe we are on the internet. This book has roots in online stalkers and one I briefly had in Iraq.

Not included on this list are works where I borrowed other people’s traumas. Their experiences served as inspiration for me, but hopefully my resulting work can be therapy for them.

“Hairs” and “After the Screaming Stopped” are the most literal examples of me writing out my trauma (aside from maybe Savages where I put myself in a story to change my mind about the world). In both, I took the literal trauma–severe hair loss and post partum depression–as the premise. Then I stretched it, elongated it into something grotesque and horrendous.

And at the end of both (of them all), I felt better. The trauma felt processed and exorcised.

I understand that horror is not for everyone. It is full of terrible things that can be triggering or make people uncomfortable. Even people who do enjoy the genre may not interact with it the same way. However, for me, I have found a way to make it therapeutic. It speaks to my traumas in their native tongue, soothing and hushing them so that I can claim more of myself.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Where Have I Been?

Posted: September 10, 2024 in real life
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It has been a long time, and this blog is not the only thing I have neglected. My health the past few years unmoored me, but life sprinted on ahead. It feels like we have returned to pre-pandemic pace, but I am not the same person as before. I am broken and hobbling. I have lost the stamina to keep up with my own life.

That’s not to say I’ve been doing nothing. I have been doing plenty. Just not like I could before.

For months, I have been working on my three WIP novels. I have drafted and revised and put them through critique group and revised again. Now, two of them are out on submission.

Let the torture begin.

Query composition. Inadequate summaries. Form rejections. Miniature panic at every email. I wait for the guillotine to fall while hoping my hardest.

I’ve written more shorts. Some rejected, some accepted.

Ironically, I have done more speaking and vending events than I have in a long time. Readings with author groups, booths at Prides or oddities festivals, even podcast appearances.

I have been trying. Maybe I even have been accomplishing it. Perhaps I am the duck, gliding smooth along the surface while I’m kicking like hell underwater. But man, I still feel like I’m drowning.

The health stuff has slowed me down physically, obviously, but it has changed me mentally too. Bipolar has always been a thing; depression has always been a thing. So long that they became consistent companions, expected experiences.

Now, they have changed. What used to squeeze and suffocate me now leaves me feeling vacant. What used to torment me now numbs me. It feels like it is all happening to someone else and I am simply observing.

And I know how worrisome a symptom that is.

(Even now, the words trickle from my fingers rather than pour from my mind.)

So I continue to trip and stumble. I continue to try. Career, family, writing, existing. I just keep paddling and swimming.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

My Own Hell

Posted: April 8, 2024 in psychology, real life
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If I were to manufacture a hell for someone with body dysmorphia and/or an eating disorder, it would be this. It would be an ill-defined, easily denied health problem (likely caused by damage from decades of the eating disorder).

That removes the ability to affect that hated body.

That makes it so no matter how they starve or purge or work, the weight packs on with no explanation.

That turns those hallucinated pounds into reality then adds more.

That steals the lie from the dysmorphia then steals their hair.

That compromises every objection to the hate flowing through their mind.

That makes the mirror more unbearable than when the cutter waited there.

That they blame themselves for, just like everyone else.

That traps them in their own skin, steadily drowning in the increasing weight of their flesh.

That is only outweighed by the humiliation of losing to whatever this is.

That has no treatment or cure.

That has no stillpoint to accept.

That makes them dearly miss the time when it was just dysmorphia’s distortions and eating disorder’s demands.

That makes it seem like they were so much happier when they just hated themselves.

That makes them want to cut just to exert some control over their body again.

That makes them want to end things not to die but to be out of this broken vessel.

Sorry. We’re here again. Alopecia flared and took all my hair again.
Side effects and backsliding. And dark feelings.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Drowning Inside

Posted: February 8, 2024 in real life
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My mind has been completely hijacked. As usual, by itself.

I have had body dysmorphia and an eating disorder since probably the late 90s. Hell, they were standard issue being raised back then. But it all masked very nicely under being “healthy” or “losing weight”. I even went to get treatment for it years ago and managed to run the therapy sessions. I am so painfully high functioning with it that it took going completely bald for it to break me.

And it has broken me. It has taken over my mind in a way it never had opportunity before.

It feels like the past decade has been tagging one physical suffering for the next. I had a miserable pregnancy, rough birth, and terrible recovery that ate a couple years. Then I tore my hip, which took over two years to just get properly treated. I had a major surgery, and the fix only lasted a few months. Then I got sick. With whatever all this has been.

As that (allegedly) recedes, it leaves me feeling a bit like a broken husk.

My appearance has always been a source of fixation and distortion, creating a rift between my sense of self and physical vessel. It never looked how I wanted (not that it could with my cracked lens), so I hated it. Now, as my body has literally turned on me and itself, it feels like it is all backlash from the years of abuse I delivered to my flesh.

The health details and symptoms and side effects are incidental. Things have been managed enough to alleviate the daily misery and anxiety, leaving me in the aftermath. Better but not good. Between survive and thrive. Relieved enough to focus on the undesirable and annoying.

My eating disorder, my dysmorphia had been flowing like a current all along. I was aware of it, but no one else needed to be. It was pacified with enough restriction, dieting, starving, and compulsive exercise. I never realized how deep it ran until I was staring at a bald gremlin in the mirror, until my body dissolved into foreign landscape.

My body does not feel like mine. Ironic, since I always drew such an illusory line between myself and it. It does not look, feel, or function like mine. No longer in the killing me way but in a way that constantly grates on my nerves. I feel every thread in my clothes, every fold in my skin, every ache in my joints.

I feel consistently and constantly uncomfortable.

And with that static in my brain, I can’t think of much else. My body feels like a sinking ship. It feels like the water is rising, cresting my chin, flirting with my mouth, and I am about to be suffocated by my own flesh. And my mind is compelled to catalog and broadcast that in real time every moment of every day.

I want to work. I want to write. I want to experience. I want to escape. But my mind has been completely hijacked by these relentless sensations.

So I am working on it in specialized therapy. Therapy I could have used 10-20 years ago. I’m not new to therapy or treatment. I know how this works. As we trench up these pervasive, deep rooted, dusty issues, their true form and extent are revealed. The carefully constructed walls and masks are revoked, and it all get so much worse. The monster feels untamed and bigger than ever.

But that is the only way to actually deal with and change it.

I haven’t had to do a full, retrospective unpacking since my bipolar diagnosis over two decades ago. I have been spoiled into complacency, coasting by on functionality. Opening these wounds has me vulnerable, insecure, off balance. That fucked up, lost kid again.

I’m old enough to know THIS TOO SHALL PASS is the truest thing someone can say about life. But I’m also dumb enough to forget it every time the situation swallows me. Last year, I was barely struggling through. I would have given anything to get this far. Pragmatically, I can understand this is another step, another transitory thing. Yet my emotions mire me in the suffering.

I want my life back. I want my mind back. I want to reclaim all the space this is taking in me. Even if it’s just enough to get lost back in my stories again.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

Surviving 2023

Posted: January 2, 2024 in real life
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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I would open by commenting on what a rollercoaster of a year 2023 was. However, saying that four years in a row now takes the impact out of the sentiment. 2023 was a lot, but it appears this is just the tone since 2020.

Last calendar year concluded with me freshly hairless and mired in autoimmune and medical issues. That adventure devoured a lot of this year too. However, I saw progress in treatment and coping, shifting it from something smothering me to something standing menacingly beside me.

I have hair regrowth. I don’t feel like shit every moment I’m awake. Gladly, I take these victories.

In all honesty, health issues and other losses were consuming for a long time. Writing and even more the business of being an author took a backseat to survival.

And much of it was survival. More so than I was willing to acknowledge at the time. On the other side of the storm, I can truly see how dark the clouds were.

Yet I still accomplished things. Part of it was therapeutic. The rest might have been compulsion.

I did get published this year:

“Hairs” is a special piece. I poured in all my Alopecia pain and trauma and made it horror (as if it wasn’t already). It was cathartic, and I needed it.

What I want, however, is another published novel. Not this year. I have three novels written–in various stages of editing. This is largely because I escaped into writing. I lived in the story then plunged into the next without a breath or a glance so I didn’t have to feel my life.

Again, survival.

With this editing backlog, I did skip NaNoWriMo this year. Since I was more functional by November, I repurposed the time for editing–NaNoEdiMo. It was ridiculously more challenging to quantify content reviewed and reworked versus pages written. I set my goal to go through two of my WIP novels–and I made it!

That progress leaves Invisible Girls ready for final polish (though I still have doubts about querying it), Monster Lane (for which “Opportunity” is a prequel) ready for critique group, and Savages 2 next in line.

Nothing may be “done”, but the progress must be acknowledged.

Now, I find myself torn. I want to write new works (I have a short and a novel knocking at my brain), but I need to get these WIPs out. And I’m not very good at alternating between the tasks.

I just end up with three unedited novels.

Perhaps the largest accomplishment of 2023 is that now, finally I feel capable of working again. I wrote, and I edited. Next, I can find my way back querying and promoting.

I had to set much aside and give myself a lot of grace to make it through the last year (+). What I find now is the optimism to be able to do more than just survive.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies

“Hairs” – Reading Body Horror

Posted: October 3, 2023 in horror anthologies, real life, writing
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

I’m back! I have been avoiding the camera since losing my hair. But here I am, reading horror I wrote inspired by said loss. It then, of course, gets so much worse.

You can read my short “Hairs” in its entirety for free at the 96th of October.

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

  • Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
  • The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
  • Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
  • The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
  • Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
  • Horror Anthologies
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