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Wait With Me A Mental Health Story by Emily Ava Gillespie · Inspiring Stories

0:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the picture of the radiant.
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Speaker 2: Rat.
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Speaker 3: You readything to me? Oh well, well say, oh well.
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Speaker 4: Not a bad due stop.
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Speaker 3: Alone?
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Speaker 2: I just need.
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Speaker 3: So camashion stop.
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Speaker 4: Alone?
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Speaker 1: Is it?
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Speaker 3: Test?
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Speaker 2: Well?
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Speaker 5: Welcome back once again. It is time for us to
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gather up those snacks, find that favorite beverage, that relaxing chairs,
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so we can listen to Emily Ava Gillspie as she
1:51
speaks about her book Wait with Me. Okay, a little
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bit about Emily though. Emily is a fifteen year veteran
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in working in disability in disabilities, can and including. She
2:05
has a master's and critical disability studies highlighted including extensive
2:14
research and experience in mental health peer support.
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Speaker 4: Uh.
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Speaker 5: She also has an award and a grant winning published author,
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and she has taught creative writing for over five years
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with a focus on her memoirs. So let's talk a
2:37
little bit about Emily as as an activist. Emily Able
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Gillespie is a disability activist and a professional daydreamer. And
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I want to want to want to stress the daydream apart,
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because that's what makes Emily so unique.
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Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 5: In twenty twenty one, Doctor James, they won the Doctor
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Doctor James Jamison Influential Alumni Award from Nepinski University. Emily
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has a bachelor's in Gender Equality and Social Justice and
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master's in Critical Disability Studies as We Said, and has
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earned a Certificate a Creative Writing from Concordia University and
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has volunteered work in the disability community as an activist, researcher,
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peer support facilacitator for over fifteen years. Gillespie also and
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author and performance artists. Her work explorse themes of memory, identity,
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mental health journeys. It also enjoys working in community spaces,
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examining individuals and collective experiences. Her works include Dancing with
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Ghosts and which was her first novel. Her poetry and
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short stories can be found in several different journals and anthologies.
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She co edited Mighty and Anthology of Disabled Superheroes by
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Renaissance Press and Fall of twenty twenty three, and we're
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going to speak with her about her latest release and book,
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Wait with Me. Wait with Me is a felt an
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individual's journey through mental health and mental health care and
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what it means to get to be cared for as
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a mental health patient and what it means to navigate
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that that care as an individual, and what it means
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for their friends to join in, fade out, come back again.
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It is a true journey for an individual with mental
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health finding their way through life and through our society.
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So Emily is going to talk to us about this
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book and what it kind of means for her also,
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So let's join in with Emily.
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Speaker 3: Something you can.
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Speaker 1: Emily, I think it's a good afternoon. There isn't it
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where you are? Because there are different times?
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Speaker 2: Were twenty four in Ontario?
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Speaker 1: Wow? All right, so it's still technically afternoon, not quite
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evening yet where you are in afternoon here where I am.
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So do you have exciting news that you wrote a
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new book? Wait for me and you actually physically have
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a shipment of them in your hands? Is that right?
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Speaker 2: I do? They just came in the mail a few
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days ago, and I haven't sitting right in front of
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me right now.
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Speaker 1: Cool. So you know you've been you've you've been on
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the show a couple of times before. So what inspired
7:11
a new book?
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Speaker 2: Okay, so this book was inspired by my real life
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but is now largely fiction. Thinking about there's always this push.
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So this book, let me tell you a bit about it.
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So this book is about this main character, Jade, who's
7:33
having a mental health crisis, and she goes for help,
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and she keeps getting rejected at hospitals, Spretay, Knights in
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a Row, and eventually she kind of gets caring and
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community and recovers that way. And I'm really interested in
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mental health narratives, and one of them is just ask
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for help. There's help there if you're brave and ask
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for it. So I wanted this book to ask the
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question back, what is getting help look like? What help
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is there when somebody does reach out, which is this
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character Jade, who does reach out, what does that look like?
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And also offer some hope. You know, this is a
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narrative ultimately a messy narrative of recovery and possibility and hope.
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Speaker 1: Wow, because mental health is a right now in some areas.
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Help is kind of messy, isn't it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah. And there's so many layers to it too.
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There's community mental health and weightless and private insurance, and
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then there's emergency, which is what Weight with Me is
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dealing with. When someone's in crisis. What is getting help
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in that crisis look like effectually for somebody who might
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have other disabilities, who might not have a family and
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friend network to help. So what does navigating crisis look
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like surviving crisis? Well, it's not just navigating, but living
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through and surviving you know, is ultimately an errantem of survival.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't want to ask too many questions to
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give away too much about the characters, so people will
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have to go buy the book to find out, of course. Ah,
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but there's like you said, in crisis, there's awn depending
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on if you have other disabilities and things like that,
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help can look very very different for each each person.
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Somebody seemed as not disabled, who is who may be
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cognitive or you know, seen socially as cognitive. Things like that,
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help is going to look very different than say, somebody
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who is uh not as able to verbally express themselves.
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Speaker 2: Right M. I agree? So so, and I don't necessarily
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think emergency systems or the public health system is prepared
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to navigate people with multiple disabilities who are also experiencing
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mental illness, you know, complexities of that.
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Speaker 1: So while reporting those people, Yeah, why do you think that?
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Speaker 2: Sometimes? I think, say, for instance, women often like say
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somebody has the diagnosis of anxiety or some kind of
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psychiatric disorder, but then they also have physical health. It
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often comes back to you know, I find in my
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personal experience, doctors or healthcare practitioners often just want to
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point back to the mental health diagnosis, and then physical
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or other cognitive things get overlooked. So I think, I
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think people aren't. I don't think it's of anyone's fault,
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But I don't think we have holistic health care. So
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I don't think we look at someone's spirit, someone's physical body,
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someone's cognition, someone's mental health altogether. I think we're trying
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to practitioners are trying to look at individual pieces and
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don't get the full picture. And I don't think there's
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the resources to support the whole individual, you know, when
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people when people need complex layers of help, be it
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filling out forms, be it advocating, be it someone to
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make phone calls for them. Unless you're really independent, sometimes
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you can't access to that care. I think that's the barrier.
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But we're getting off topic to a bigger, bigger topic
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of navigating health care for disabled folks.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's all. That is always a huge topic
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right now.
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Speaker 2: If anyone wants to guess lecture on that I could,
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I could pull that one off.
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Speaker 1: I know you've been navocating for disabilities, uh, for your
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entire life, Yeah.
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Speaker 2: My entire life as a disabled person, as a person
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with multiple disabilities, and then also you know, in my
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larger community.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So so yeah, that's what inspired partly what inspired the book,
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you know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so back to the book for a little bit,
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because you know, I'm always put.
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Speaker 2: Out for a second, can you repeat that?
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Speaker 1: Back to your book? Uh? For for uh? Because we
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want we want to focus on on people knowing what
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their book is, yeah, so that they can go out
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and get it. It's available of course in all the
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usual places like Amazon and everything too.
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Speaker 2: Right, it's available on Amazon as a print book or
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as a kindle. They can order it to your kindle.
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And I also really want to get it into libraries.
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So if it's not in your local library, please think
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about ordering it. You can ask for weight with me
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by Emily Eva Glass State, and then your library staff
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can order it to your branch for you.
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Speaker 1: Very cool. That's because some of the people that actually
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need to get this get this book in their hands
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may not be able to just simply order by way
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of Amazon. They may not have the resources. So, so
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the story is is about Jade and her journey with
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mental health. What are some of the Jade.
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Speaker 2: In her community? You know, her friends and people are
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trying to support her.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about her friends. How do her
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friends try to help support her as this journey moves forward.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Jade has well intentioned but misguided, slightly misguided,
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but really well intentioned community of friends who are trying
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to help her. Jade's mid twenties trying to navigate this
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and then, for instance, she has a best friend named
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v who tries to get her support. She goes and
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sits with her an emergency and really encourages her to
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get support. When that doesn't work, friends of friends try
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to help. She has friends who are a couple and
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she stays over at their house when she's in crisis
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because she's not well enough to be alone. So people
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are standing up and trying to offer what they can.
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And I think that's a lot about what community is
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is no one has all the answers or all the supports,
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but people offering the help they can. Also, it's you know,
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thinking out learning to be adults when no one has
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all of the answers. You know, young adults who are
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just trying to help each other, trying to survive and
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trying to figure it out together.
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Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, well, it is one of the points of
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the Sorry, It's one of the points of the book
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to actually get people to jump in there and and
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be community and help their friends.
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Speaker 6: Also, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I wanted to point
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out the nuances of that that people can be really
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well intentioned but not know how to help each other,
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or really well intentioned and have limits and burnout and
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boundaries and what that looks like.
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Speaker 4: You know.
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Speaker 2: Also people, I wanted to explore millennials. I'm a millennial
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living outside of traditional structures. So you know, Jade doesn't
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have boyfriends, doesn't have a husband to go to for support,
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you know, to go home to, or that traditional family.
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So what happens then to those people? And then when
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the commune and he tries to step in. So I
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wanted to I think a lot of my friends my
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community relate to that because not everybody's living traditional kind
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of nuclear families that used to exist. So what is
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getting help outside of that structure that people are saying
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you have look like?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because you're talking about a person that has
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a disability. We were talking about another friend, uh and
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UH of of this of this show and of of
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our broadcast system, Kelly Rayburn, who used to live in
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supportive housing. He he was his design is should we say,
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quote unquote disabled designation meant that he wasn't allowed to
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to UH to live on his own. So that that
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can be different. It can be different than say somebody
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who has UH who might be on a lesser scale
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of it and is allowed to live alone, but they
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probably may they may live completely alone and may not
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have have the traditional significant other involved in their life.
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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, nuclear family support structures. Yeah, So.
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Speaker 1: How does that, I mean, how does that affect Jadeen?
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How does that affect Jadeen and her friends as the
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story moves forward.
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Speaker 2: I think that affects Jade in the way that the
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doctors and the people trying to help her in the
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emergency assume that she has people assume that she is
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a structure and she doesn't. And then even the people
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trying to help, like be Jade's best friend when we
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can't help V doesn't know who to pass Jade along
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to because there's not necessarily like oh, go call the mom,
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or go call the husband or the wife or whatever.
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Right Like, there isn't that you know, emergency contact, Like
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I think about that a lot in my community but
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also for myself. Is not everybody has that emergency contact.
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Not everybody has that person to call it bram or
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that automatic go to. So, yeah, when when Jade's friends
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hit a wall, like when b hits the boundary, can't
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help anymore, or there's a love interest that shows up
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named North when they leave, there's not necessarily like the
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next person to contact or reach out to. It's just
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you know, kind of like most this's abandonment. But in
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the name of boundaries, Well, how to put this?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, how to put this? Because I'll be because because
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uh always being trying to be the person who helps
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in stretching the limits to as far as as as
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you possibly can. What does that look and feel like
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when when when someone crosses a boundary and you really
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just can't reach anymore.
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Speaker 2: I think one of the themes I was trying to
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get at with and wait with me was that when
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there's a circle of care, when there's multiple people helping
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and carrying and offering skills, then when someone reaches like
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their characiver burnout or their boundary. They can you know,
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kind of reach out to the next person, But what
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does that look like when there's not a next person
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to reach out to? Yeah, and then potentially, you know,
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some of that guilt, Like I've been in situations when
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I couldn't help somebody, but you feel, you know, tremendous
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guilt sometimes that you couldn't do more, you.
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Speaker 1: Know, m Yeah, I get that.
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Speaker 2: I think it's always better when there's multiple people, multiple resources,
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multiple places to go, and it doesn't all fall into
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one person.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, then it becomes a question of you know,
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and I kind of kind of agree with you on
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this one, that maybe our society has a short fall,
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even even for for people that don't have a have
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a disability, that there's a shortfall of oh wait, now
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that person just fell and fell between the cracks because
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one group couldn't reach out far enough because of a boundary,
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and the other group couldn't reach out far enough because
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of the boundary, and poop, there goes uh, there goes
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J through the cracks, right exactly exactly.
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Speaker 2: So Well said, yeah, but but we can figure we
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about those cracks. You hear so many people talking about
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the physical or mental health system and the cracks of
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the system. You know, yeah, falling through the cracks.
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Speaker 1: It's the saying yeah, yeah, I mean it's a it's
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a saying for for the reason of the one resource
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can't reach the other resource because they don't overlap.
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Speaker 2: M And I'm not sure what BC looks like, but
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Ontario's healthcare system is very underfunded, keeps getting cut back
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over the years.
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Speaker 1: It without getting too political, you know, because because uh,
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we have two we have two different premiers, also in
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two different attitudes towards it, because they are two different people.
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But but yeah, I in different ways. Uh, British Columbia
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the healthcare fall falls short of helping the whole person,
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versus how Ontario falls short of of those Those cracks
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look differently, but they're definitely there, you know what I mean?
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That makes sense, that does Yeah. So back to Jade,
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of course and her friends. So how how do our
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friends try to help Jade from not falling in between
22:46
those cracks and and and getting lost in the system.
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Speaker 2: So some people, some of them wait with me. I
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was thinking of that image of that hospital chair, which
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is often very lonely and very uncomfortable, and then someone
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physically sitting and waiting beside you, so Be her best
23:05
friend physically shows up. Her cousin Mary, who's really well
23:10
intentioned but not that emotionally present, you know, physically shows
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up for her. Some friends of friends show up. Jade
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isn't well enough to be alone, so ends up at
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friends of friends houses kind of living physically in support,
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you know, when she's not well enough to go be
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by herself. Same with v. She ends up on Bee's
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coach Be's her best friend. She ends up physically supported
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by them. They really try to All of her community,
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especially be A North North ends up being a bit
23:47
of a romance there amongst the crisis, but they try
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to emotionally support her. They try to understand what she's
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gone through, even though she doesn't know. Jay doesn't know
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what's wrong with her. So it's wait with me as
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Jade tries to understand and live through a psychiatric crisis.
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And then her friends are also waiting and also waiting
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for her to get better, and also trying to support
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her and also trying to take care of themselves, you know. Yeah,
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and her friends do encourage her to get help. Jade
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eventually gets a really quirky fund psychiatrist that you'll get
24:23
to meet, and you're looking forward to responses to this character,
24:30
but encouraging her to get help after, you know, navigating
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those community those community resources, and just physically being present.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, in your opinion, how many different ways is
24:49
are there to be present for a.
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Speaker 2: Person and help are there to be partner?
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Speaker 1: How many different ways can you be present for a
24:57
person and help them?
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Speaker 2: That's a great question. I think in Jade's story, there's
25:05
the first crisis, and then there's logistics of getting Jade
25:10
to the hospital and being with her and making sure
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she gets care. And then there's the you know, these
25:19
helping her practically, vise feeding her, making sure she eats,
25:23
making sure she sleeps, emotionally validating. Yeah, I think there's
25:31
many different ways, and different people with different skill sets
25:34
can help their friends in different ways as well, I think,
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you know, yeah, and then being present, you know, the
25:39
psychiatrict is present in a very different way, you know,
25:42
a very practical psychiatric support. A psychiatrist is never going
25:46
to make you dinner, but they are going to support
25:50
your mental health in a very structured way. You know. Also,
25:53
I think the different people in Jade's lives and in
25:57
all of our lives, you know, support in different ways
25:59
to the inner rolls.
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Speaker 1: Right, right, And I guess it's important to also understand
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when you're when you have a friend who's going through
26:14
a crisis like this, it's important to understand who you
26:17
are and what your strengths are yourself so you can
26:20
best serve your your friends and your community, right.
26:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would highlight that, and also your boundaries and
26:30
what you're not good at and what maybe somebody else
26:33
in that circle of care might be good at, what
26:36
you're willing to do, what you're not willing to do, yeah,
26:41
and how you take care of yourself because helping someone
26:44
else can be really hard sometimes on your own mental health,
26:47
you know, So how you're going to take care of
26:49
yourself amongst us?
26:52
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, that's true. There. Do you actually get
27:00
into that with in your book? How how her friends
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do self care so that they can can be there
27:06
for Jade?
27:07
Speaker 2: This wasn't, uh, you know, a mental health by any means,
27:11
the mental health how to guide so her friends kind
27:16
of all burnt out and left because they didn't take
27:18
care of themselves. So that was kind of one of
27:21
the things in the book, like b gets burnt out
27:24
because she's not taking care of herself, yes, like partying
27:28
a lot and seeing a lot of boys and being
27:30
kind of reckless and not setting those boundaries and eventually
27:33
just leaves. And the people who are in and out.
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A lot of people in this in Jade's story come
27:40
kind of in and out because they aren't ready to
27:45
kind of take a full a full role in Jade's
27:47
life or aren't taking care of themselves. So yeah, no,
27:52
this this book doesn't offer any practical tips on that,
27:57
but when you look at it, the people left because
28:00
as they weren't necessarily doing the work.
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Speaker 4: Right.
28:05
Speaker 1: Well, okay, it's not a how to guide, but it
28:08
definitely does offer that thought process of well, what.
28:15
Speaker 2: Sure rights some reflection there.
28:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that makes it a very important book to
28:25
make sure. Go back to your statement about the libraries,
28:28
it makes it a very important book to make sure
28:29
we get it into the libraries and into classrooms so
28:35
that so we can talk about this because we can't
28:41
fix what we can't talk about, right.
28:43
Speaker 2: I think it'd be great too, even in classrooms, to
28:46
think about when there's someone like Jane in your life
28:49
going through stuff. What is you being a friend to
28:52
look like? What are your boundaries? What could you do?
28:55
You know, reading these or all the best friends and
28:57
the cousin Mary and Keith her lover or I'm not Keith, sorry,
29:01
nor with her lover, thinking about how you could have
29:05
acted differently, maybe what you would have done in these positions,
29:08
because I do think that while we might not know
29:12
Jade exactly, that a lot of us end up in
29:15
these roles, in these positions and thinking about how to
29:19
handle them proactively, because that's one of the qualms in
29:22
the book is her friends kind of got thrown into
29:25
it and don't know how to handle it, don't know
29:27
how to address it. So I think it'd be great for,
29:31
you know, students to think.
29:32
Speaker 1: About yeah, yeah exactly, So something else to think about
29:40
that for because we do have some teachers who listened
29:45
to the show that hey, maybe this book is good
29:48
for your classroom, you know exactly, you know, in students
29:54
come in all different color too with.
29:58
Speaker 2: The classroom piece. And again, this isn't a how to god.
30:02
Jade mental health breaches the point that she's in emergency distress,
30:07
but there's all these warning signs. So I think classrooms
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and teachers sitting and thinking with their students about how
30:14
to recognize mental health crisises before they escalate to this point,
30:21
and something to think about too, you know.
30:23
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the book itself isn't should inspire conversations.
30:34
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, I agree. I think it will. I
30:37
hope it will. So far it has inspired a few conversations.
30:40
I guess. People have talked to me about trying to
30:44
navigate the mental health system for themselves or loved one,
30:48
or other healthcare systems as disabled folks, you know, someone
30:52
navigating cancer or waiting or trying to get treatment, and
30:55
anxiety and the feelings that come up, advocating in the
30:59
system and telling the same we've all told us, the
31:02
disabled folks. We've also told the same story or doctor
31:04
a million times, hoping someone believes us, and all of that,
31:08
you know that comes up, and even the trauma with
31:10
the healthcare system, you know, right right. So, yeah, lots
31:15
of conversations there, I hope, And if anybody reads it
31:20
has thoughts, has wants to engage, I really encourage you
31:24
to leave reviews and comments on good Reads, and you
31:28
can reach me directly on there too.
31:29
Speaker 1: If you want to talk about it, that would be
31:32
good Reads.
31:34
Speaker 2: Good Reads that's the book review site, or Amazon. You
31:36
can leave the comment, but I'd love to hear people's thoughts,
31:39
the good, the bad, ugly.
31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean that helps inspire the next story
31:49
and the next piece of pie, you know, yeah, because
31:54
every work of fiction is a piece of art, but
31:59
are is meant to inspire us to do better as people.
32:02
Speaker 2: Right, inspire and question and all sorts of things.
32:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
32:10
Speaker 2: And feel I hope you feel with Jade and her friends,
32:12
you know, yes.
32:14
Speaker 1: Yes, what what type of things do you want people
32:18
to feel when they when when they read this?
32:24
Speaker 2: I think that's that's a complicated question. And for anyone listening,
32:30
sorry for ramsaying. These topics are just so big in
32:32
my head. But I think the first thing I would
32:35
say is empathy, not sympathy, empathy for Jade, because at times,
32:40
my one of my first editors was kind of didn't
32:42
like Jade. You know, she's hard to love, she's stubborn,
32:45
she's privileged, she's being a bit of a piece of work.
32:51
And folks in mental health crisis is sometimes are very
32:57
you know, we're all human, lovable people, but sometimes it
33:00
might not be pretty. Mental health often isn't. But can
33:04
you hold on to and hold space for Jade as
33:07
her friends hold space and literally literally wait, you know.
33:11
And it might be a book you have to put
33:12
down once or twice, But can you hold that space
33:15
and the empathy for her and her friends and hope?
33:21
I want the feeling of empathy and courage. It takes
33:28
a lot of courage to face any illness, but especially
33:30
mental illness, and then hope as she navigates Jake goes
33:34
through gets mental health help, she also gets some spiritual
33:37
help and holding on to this feeling of hope and
33:41
this feeling of optimism, you know, like, what does optimism
33:45
look like during health crisis? What is hope? What is empathy?
33:49
What is courage?
33:50
Speaker 4: You know?
33:51
Speaker 1: Yeah? What does hope look like? In I guess I
33:58
haven't actually asked this part of the question. Have you
34:01
gone through a mental health crisis?
34:05
Speaker 2: Sorry?
34:06
Speaker 1: Have you gone through a mental health crisis? Oh?
34:09
Speaker 2: For sure? Yeah. This isn't my story, but it's inspired
34:15
by what navigating emergency mental health looks like and the
34:19
frustrations I've experienced trying to navigate that. So and that's
34:24
why I felt compelled to write this narrative.
34:27
Speaker 1: So, in your situation, what did hope look like for you?
34:36
Speaker 2: Knock down nine times, get up ten? What's that I'll
34:39
saying it looks, you know, finding gratitude, finding something to
34:44
look forward to every day, Finding people who believed in
34:48
you and you didn't believe in tomorrow, pushing finding something
34:53
anything to look forward to, Believing in recovery, in the
34:57
potential possibility of recovery, continually advocating for resources even when
35:04
when you get turned down, you know, And sometimes that's logistics.
35:07
Sometimes that's leaving the hundreds voicemail and the doctor who
35:12
never calls you back. Sometimes that's advocating when you don't
35:15
feel like it anymore, but always always one foot in
35:20
front of another, you know. And it's not linear, you know,
35:24
like recovery is not linear. I don't think hope is
35:27
like some days you're not feeling too hopeful, but you
35:29
just keep going and other days other days you have it. Yeah,
35:35
And sometimes you need people to carry your hope for you, you know,
35:38
like some days your friends believe that things will get better,
35:44
when when you don't believe it and you just got
35:45
to trust. There's wise people in your life that that
35:49
might see a future beyond what you know.
35:51
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, do you think it's important to make
35:59
sure we have those people to see that brightness in
36:02
our eyes even when we can't.
36:05
Speaker 2: I think being able to validate yourself is really important.
36:08
And believe in yourself no matter how many people believe
36:12
in you. If you don't believe in yourself, I don't think.
36:15
I don't think you get too far. But I also
36:19
do think you need the doctors and the friends and
36:21
the family and people who believe.
36:24
Speaker 7: Believe in your wildest dreams, believe in your recovery, believe
36:27
in that you're gonna live, believe that you'll be you know,
36:32
relatively okay when you don't believe.
36:34
Speaker 2: It, you know.
36:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:38
Speaker 2: And for me, like my sister is always, you know,
36:40
I always the person who has faith, you know, no
36:42
matter what when going through My sister always always very
36:46
wise person. But you know I always says faith, he'll
36:50
be fine, and sometimes I drop from that because I
36:52
don't always have it. I do most days though.
36:59
Speaker 1: Well, in many, many, many ways. You're quite this successful person,
37:08
so thank you. I know you have some fans here
37:13
in British Columbia, so it means something right, So believing
37:23
in yourself mm hmmm. In how is it for you
37:32
to believe in yourself? Was that easy or hard?
37:44
Speaker 2: I'm trying to relate the doc to the book so
37:47
we don't end up too far too far.
37:49
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm gonna bring you back to the book in
37:51
a second. Yeah.
37:53
Speaker 2: So, I gotta say, as an autistic person with mental
37:56
health challenges and a learning disability, the world was off
38:00
be pretty cruel to me. So that definitely took a
38:03
stab at my self confidence when I was younger. As
38:07
I got more successful, as I healed my mental health,
38:11
as I got to know myself, as I gained confidence
38:15
in my abilities, having hope in myself, believing in myself
38:20
got a lot easier.
38:21
Speaker 1: You know.
38:22
Speaker 2: I know I'll do things because I prove it to
38:23
myself time and time again. Yeah, but as a little
38:28
disabled kid, it was often quite hard because the world
38:32
isn't isn't always contest.
38:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, when as you were writing writing Jade her character,
38:42
how did you did you build in her ability to
38:48
to believe in herself or or how far did you
38:51
go with that when you as you're writing Jade.
38:54
Speaker 2: I think so, Jade's quite young, mid twenties, and I
38:58
don't think she developed that yet. I think that's I
39:02
think she was quite uncertain. You know, she finished school
39:06
school and has a useless degree, and it's between jobs
39:11
and feels displaced and isn't closed with her family. And
39:16
I think that's why she's seeking so much validation and
39:19
support from her friends, is because she doesn't believe in
39:22
herself yet. You know, the economy hasn't been great with her.
39:27
She has a she studied museum studies and can't between jobs.
39:36
And right when she's having this mental health crisis, she
39:38
worked at a bookstore. The bookstore just closed. So she
39:41
doesn't have any fundamental things in her life. You know,
39:44
she lives in some kind of rundown apartment, and she
39:51
doesn't think too much of herself, and she's relying, maybe overly,
39:55
of relying on the people in her life to hold
39:58
up that image because you.
40:00
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that part.
40:06
Speaker 2: I wanted someone that was relatable for a lot of
40:10
my generations. I wrote this back in twenty eighteen, but
40:14
a lot of us got degrees that weren't necessarily super useful,
40:18
or tried to get starter jobs and got bounced around
40:21
a lot or tried to get housing and couldn't get
40:27
adequate housing. And then I do think those things take
40:30
a stab at yourself, this jam you know, you don't
40:34
have the fundamental fnction need.
40:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do, being from one of the generations ahead
40:41
of yours. Yeah, that was one of the slabsige. You know,
40:48
you thought that, oh, well, I'll go to school and
40:51
get a good education so I can get a good job.
40:53
And I had this wonderful brand apartment and then reality
41:00
happened and exactly.
41:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, so Jade's just at that stage twenty
41:07
twenty four, she got a master's degree and reality slaping
41:11
Jade in the face. You know, she doesn't have any
41:13
of the things that were promised to her by the
41:15
generations before. Yeah, And I think that's why Jade's friends
41:21
are trying to help her out so much, because the
41:23
older generations don't know how to help that generation necessarily
41:26
because they lived you know, the cards were different when
41:30
they're when they were that age, Like there was different opportunities,
41:33
different employment opportunities, different you know, housing opportunities, Like it's
41:39
a different world.
41:41
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah. That that that part is very very
41:46
very true. You know that things would have been different
41:53
from my generation to the millennial generation, you know, being.
41:58
Speaker 2: And then to the generation I'm men. Thirty is just
42:01
thirty five right now, but the generations after me, like
42:04
I don't understand, I don't know the all of gen
42:08
z struggles, right like their each generation has its own
42:12
unique strengths and struggles and experiences socioeconomic experiences, you know.
42:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I will say that say this much as
42:27
a parent of a gen Zer, uh and being a
42:31
gen Xer that uh, you just gid is supporting in hope.
42:42
You know, that's they you know, Hey, don't give up
42:46
the hope.
42:48
Speaker 2: I think hope is hope. Hope is key to to everything.
42:52
If people walk away with one thing from this, you know, hope.
42:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I was going to ask that question if
43:00
that was what the ultimate goal was for people who
43:03
read the book, is to find hope and to offer
43:06
that hope to others.
43:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:11
Speaker 1: Uh.
43:12
Speaker 2: At the beginning, you know, there's points in the book
43:15
when everything's kind of stacked against Jade, and hope's often
43:23
easy to find when there's lots of money in the
43:25
bank and lots of friends to be found and great
43:28
jobs and everything's smooth selling But what is finding hope
43:34
that tiny kernel with hope looked like when everything is
43:37
relatively pretty awful and no one's there, and your health
43:43
is awful, and the doctors and the supports aren't listening
43:48
and it's just you and you got to find some
43:50
belief in yourself and some hope. So what does that
43:53
look like? What is believing in yourself and finding a
43:56
way to go on? And I think survives very creative.
44:01
We're talking about creativity. You know, Jade had to get
44:03
pretty creative with with with living to continue on this path.
44:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So all right, because you're out of time
44:15
and the always time always flies when I when I
44:19
talk to you. Uh, such a such a wonderful and
44:22
beautiful person that you are. But what are the best
44:26
ways to find the book? On Amazon?
44:30
Speaker 2: And we're else Amazon search Weight with Me by Emily
44:36
Ava Gillespie. It's on you can order print or to
44:42
your kindle and you can also please order it to
44:46
your library. I'm trying to get it in libraries all
44:49
across Canada. And if there's any teachers listening, you know,
44:55
I think there's some really rich conversation that could potentially
45:00
come out of this or high school level or college
45:04
students as well.
45:05
Speaker 1: Very cool. All right, thank you for your time today, Emily. Yeah,
45:11
thank you so much having you on the show. So
45:14
we should do this.
45:15
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me all right, you take care.
45:18
Speaker 1: All right, Thank everybody for listening today, and we'll see
45:21
you next time. Go check out Wait for Me by
45:25
Emily Ava Gillespie. H she is a wonderful advocate for
45:30
people with disabilities and now a fictional author. Congratulations, thank you.
45:44
Speaker 2: Recording stopped. Oh it's hard not to ramble on some
45:49
of those answers.
46:01
Speaker 4: That so bad. So I don't know, so I gon action.
46:23
Speaker 1: So why.
46:31
Speaker 4: This is?
46:32
Speaker 3: Says I reason should be a Chow shows you can't
46:53
t wait? Yes, she go to.
47:34
Speaker 2: It st.
47:39
Speaker 1: St ST I know.
47:51
Speaker 2: M.
48:13
Speaker 1: The show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please contact
48:18
us at Depictions dot media for more information.