40536086When a piece of paper is folded, it results in a crease being left behind. This crease remains as a sign of the trauma it once received. Sometimes, people can have creases.

Most days I struggle to get out of bed. I live with depression. A medical condition that is rapidly on the rise. For some, the condition will come and go in their lifetime. For some of us, it’s a chronic condition that offers little to no respite. I’m often told that it is ok to not be ok. I disagree. It’s not ok to not be ok.

For me, my depression is much more than feeling lethargic, sad or lonely. It’s the daily battle with my voice of hate. But where can I turn to when I have no friends or family left, and that battle starts to become a little too difficult?

This is not a nice story. This is not a story about happily ever after. This is a story that unapologetically doesn’t hold back. This, is my story.

Source Format Pages Publisher Genre Publication Date
Smashwords ebook 54 indie Fiction (Mental Health) June 15th, 2018

Creases is a short story at 54 pages, but for its small size, it has all the emotional impact it intends to deliver as it opens a window and gives you an honest, heartbreaking glimpse into one day with depression! One! A day that starts with depression and a day that ends with depression. A day that has apathy, anxiety, worry and tears, a cry for help, an internal battle, exhaustion. I imagine someone, or myself, living this very kind of day 5475+ times – day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year- and it leaves me speechless, dumbfounded and wanting to do something about it so that no one ever has to feel this way…

Creases is not one of those stories that end on a high note, after which we all live happily ever after. Instead, it’s an unapologetic account of depression’s most evil grip. An unapologetic view of a mental health service failing someone point-blank asking for help and support. An unapologetic invite into the thoughts of a person teetering in between wanting to get better and wanting to end it all. It’s about witnessing how one moment after another fills up one side of the scales of life and death more than the other. In this story, the scales tip towards not existing. Because it happens, every day! Creases is straight up and it does not shy away or gloss over the real and most hopeless, darkest feelings and thoughts which guide a soul into the abyss of nothingness.

Creases explores the mantra of ‘It’s ok to not be ok’ which as of late has become the force to break the stigma around depression and mental health illnesses. In Creases, a question is asked- is it really ok to not be ok? Because, no matter how easily we want to find a solution to any of our problems, personal or global, it truly is not that straight forward as repeating ‘It’s ok’ over an over. To accept that we’re not ok, to live with this decision to not be okay whilst battling the healthcare system for meaningful help and support.

‘It’s ok’- in Creases, these two tiny words are a bandaid over a deep, gaping wound of a mind full of turmoil and truth. Truth about the real state of mind as it plots to give in to death in a million possible ways. We are humans with hidden depths and layers, and sometimes those layers have creases… Creases that are not okay. Creases that hurt and inject doubt. Creases that keep reminding us of those difficult times, pulling us back under…

Creases shows you what it’s like to wake up with depression and manage the morning routine, what it’s like to go to and be at work with depression, what it’s like to ask for help and what it’s like to give up… That ending was loud and clear- too many times those two words- It’s ok- were used to get from one moment to the next. As if a burden… as if an excess to society- ‘It’s ok’ turned into: ‘It’s ok, I know I’m not ok, so I am going to remove myself from the picture. Truly, it’s ok.’

It’s not ok.

You can find ‘Creases‘ on Smashwords for free in and in your preferred format.

Creases on Goodreads ¦ Smashwords

About the author:

18130013Jack CJ Stark, known as Jack, CJ, or simply Stark finds it difficult to talk about himself in third person. He grew up in a wet grey town in the north of England. He spent his childhood sat on park benches, and at cafe tables imagining backstories and fictional lives for the people that walked by. A habit that has followed him into his adult life. Now, he wants to share some of those stories with the world.

When he isn’t furiously rewriting drafts of his manuscripts, or plotting out stories that he never finishes, he can be found with his head in a good book, or getting lost in a vidya game.

He also likes melons and donuts.

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