Greenburgh Public Library Blog

Connection and Healing Through Writing with Author, Vivian Conan

My name is Nancy Larrabee. As a librarian in the Adult Services Department, I facilitate several zoom programs for adults these days, including those focused on writing and poetry. One of the best things for a librarian is to arrange for author talks.  It is even better when you know the author and have worked with them for several years.  Participants in the GPL Writers Community have heard several authors speak over the years about their writing and publishing experiences.  On February 9 via zoom, author and former GPL Librarian, Vivian Conan, discussed her experiences writing and publishing her book Losing the Atmosphere: A Memoir, available in audiobook on Hoopla.  I wanted to share further insight on her experiences, so she graciously agreed to an email interview. 

Congratulations on the publication of Losing the Atmosphere, A Memoir. Could you tell us about it?
Thank you. My memoir is about living with and healing from mental illness. The subtitle is, “A Baffling Disorder, a Search for Help, and the Therapist Who Understood.” Though I’d known since I was a teenager that something was wrong and spent years in the mental health system, neither I nor a series of therapists realized until I was middle aged that I had what was then called multiple personality disorder—now called dissociative identity disorder—complicated by an attachment disorder. Then came the hardest task of all: healing.

The story spans my life from birth through age 65 (full disclosure: I am now 78). I show what it was like to live in two worlds: the “normal” one, in which I went to school, had friends, and built a career; and the chaotic one inside me. I also show what therapy is like, and how getting better meant having to re-map my brain and fit myself into a new concept of myself.

What is your connection to the Greenburgh Public Library? Could you share some fond memories of the library?
I worked as a part-time reference librarian from the early 1980s until 2015. I started out in the old building, then, during the renovation, moved to temporary quarters in Town Hall on Hillside Avenue, then to the new, ultra-modern building on Tarrytown Road, where I helped unpack the books that had been in storage. My biggest passion, both before and after the renovation, was assisting patrons, whether with complicated research projects or filling out job applications on the computer. One young boy stands out in my mind from a day I was covering in the children’s room. He told me he bought books from Amazon, because he liked to own them, but he always came to the library to read them first, to see whether they were worth buying.

How do you describe yourself as a writer? What advice would you give to other writers?
If I had known when I started my book that it would take 25 years to complete, I don’t know that I would have continued, so I’m glad I didn’t know. What proved invaluable over the course of those years was being in a writing workshop. Each session ran for ten weeks, and I kept re-enrolling for the same workshop with the same teacher. I and my fellow students would critique one another’s chapters and essays. We let each other know which parts were interesting, which lagged, where something would be best illustrated by a scene, where dialogue was called for. I learned as much from seeing what worked and didn’t work in the pieces of others as I did from hearing feedback on my own submissions. And through the workshops, I made friends and became part of a community of writers.

My advice is to read a lot. Write every day if you can, even if you don’t like what you’re producing—you can’t edit something that’s not there. Keep sending your stuff out. Rejection is likely, but you’ll never get anything published unless you keep submitting.

How does it feel to have your book published and on shelves in libraries? 
Being mentally ill and trying to pass for normal can make you feel very lonely. I wrote the book because I needed to be seen and understood. I also wanted people who have the same or different problems to know that you can get better. It’s nice to know that someone, somewhere, may be reading my book right now.

I was a bit afraid of coming out of the closet at first. In fact, my original intention had been to publish under a pseudonym. But the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and I now feel good about owning my story. I am also finding that when I talk to groups about my book, one or more people invariably contact me afterward to tell me of their own mental health issues and thank me for being so honest.

This month’s library newsletter emphasizes health and wellness. What would you say to readers struggling with mental health issues? Could you recommend ways to cope with mental health problems? Could you recommend any community resources?
It’s not easy navigating the mental health system. Just as there are clinicians who specialize in cardiology, or cancer, or dermatology, with mental health there are clinicians who specialize in different issues. One size does not fit all. But mental problems are often harder to diagnose than physical ones. I didn’t know I had dissociative identity disorder until I was 46, and I didn’t find someone skilled in treating it until I was 50.

Be a creative Googler. You will find that there are support groups and other resources you never thought of. In my case, some resources I found helpful were:

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation

An Infinite Mind and a podcast called System Speak

There are also resources that are not targeted to one particular diagnosis. In Westchester, some of these are:

• Mental Health Association of Westchester 
• Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health 
• Westchester Behavioral Health Center 
• Westchester Jewish Community Services, Mental Health
• NAMI Westchester 

Vivian will be back with GPL on April 20th via Zoom to share more of her story and mental health journey as part of the Library's Building a Resilient Westchester series.  Learn more and register for this event here.