Debra Whittam is a licensed, practicing mental health
therapist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
who specializes in addiction, anxiety and depression, grief and loss. Whittam
is passionate about her work in all areas of her specialties, especially
addiction. Working in a detox unit for over three years before beginning her
own private practice, Whittam realized, while counseling patients in the life
and death arena of the detox unit, how much the loss of a beloved through death
or a relationship impacted those struggling with addiction.
In this memoir, Whittam skillfully infuses her
memories, stories and professional insights to remind us that the most
important relationship we will ever have is with ourselves. She splits her time
between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New
York and Paris, France.
Am
I Going To Be Okay? Weathering the Storms of Mental Illness, Addiction and
Grief is her first book.
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It’s a pleasure to have you here today, Debra. Can you
tell us what your new book is about?
Am I Going To Be Okay?
Weathering the Storms of Mental Illness, Addiction and Grief is a memoir
told by a life. Meaning that it’s about
my life with my mother, whole family really, but my mom and I form my birth
until her death, interwoven with all of the untreated mental illness, untreated
In my book I share what it was
like from my perception to watch the adults acting like little monsters
thinking that there either was something wrong with me or I had done something
wrong. Those were the choices. Those messages picked up early in life travel
with us into adulthood impacting the people we chose and the life choices we
make.
Can you tell us a little about your main and supporting
characters?
My book goes back into the lives of my grandparents when
they were young, what they went through as very little children and how it
impacted them. These universal and
generational issues of chronic anxiety, depression and unacknowledged grief
settled into their lives and instilled in them how to be in relationship with each
other and eventually their children. My
relationship with my mother is the main story so I guess she and I share the
main character parts. She continually
asked who ever would listen, “Am I going to be okay?” She was orphaned at a very early age, suffered
through several foster families eventually ending up in the last one until she
married at the age of 22. None od the foster homes would keep her because she
had rheumatic fever which sent her on a perpetual search of safety with only
herself on her mind.
Your book is set in (the city of Schenectady
and eventually the small village
of Delanson, New
York).
Can you tell us why you chose this city in particular?
My book flows back and forth through three generations
showing how the Triad of mental illness, addiction and grief flows through then
all. With the immigration of my mother’s
father, Gabriel, into Schenectady, New
York from Rome, Italy,
the story finds him marrying Josephine when she was only 17 and he 32 years
old. At that time General Electric was
hiring hundreds of immigrants as well as anyone who needed a job. My father’s parents worked there too. Each set of grandparents struggled through
the depression terribly where their children suffered the most. My mother’s mother abandoned her five
children when my mother was about 4 years old. At that time in the late 30s and
40s the value of children was much different than it is today. Then Gabriel put all of the children ranging
in age from seven to six months into an orphanage, but he kept the cows. Children’s lives were worth less than the
animals.
Open the book to page 69.
What is happening?
On page 69 I describe our lives as they revolved around our
small town of Delanson’s Catholic
Church Our Lady of Fatima. Masses were
still said in Latin and Mom and I would go to the church on Saturday’s to clean
the altar with the rest of the women from the Rosary Altar Society. My mother, who was normally in a state of
anxiety and panic if not at home on the sofa, was somehow transformed when she
was in the church into a state of peace, calm and serenity. She was safe there, wrapped in the arms o the
Virgin Mary her one connection to the maternal.
What has been the most pivotal point of your writing life?
The most pivotal point of my writing life was when my friend
Kathy Jo thought my manuscript was far better than I did and made me call her
editor, Judi Moreo. I was petrified
thinking my book sounded like a terrible third grade book report. Even though Judi was very busy with no extra
time, when I called her she said for me to send my first chapter and she’d try
to read it in the next few weeks. She
called me the next day telling me she loved it and for me to send the rest of
the manuscript. She wanted to be my
editor. I still am in shock that it
happened that quickly.
What kind of advice would you give other fiction authors?
This is a non-fiction book but I would have any writer
follow the book “The Artist’s Way” for inspiration to keep on writing and never
never give up.
