Today I’m going to be at a book fair. I’ll sit at a table with copies of my book, business cards, postcards, and other paraphernalia that begs for attention. I am not sure what to expect–I don’t have as many extra author’s copies as I would like; I might sell out and have to encourage people to use my QR code to go straight to Amazon and buy it. On the other hand, I might sell only one or two the whole afternoon.
It’s doesn’t matter. The coolest thing about the book fair is that I’ll get to talk to people about the stuff in the book…mental health issues, addiction, shame, perfectionism, eating disorders, impostor syndrome, etc.–But it’s more than just talking. In person, I fight stigma not only by sharing my experience with honesty, but with the way I look. What I mean by that is that, in the realm of addiction for example, many people have conscious or unconscious ideas of what a junkie looks and talks like. And I, physically, look nothing like that. And I talk like the love child of a poet and a psychologist.
It’s one way to help people know that addicts are everywhere, and we look just like you. And the mentally ill are everywhere, too. And the person who looks so confident on the outside could be drowning in a swamp of shame.
(Haven’t read my book yet? It’s not too late!)
Lori Lynne Armstrong 