ALLISON MARTIN

Trigger: Discussion of PTSD from multiple Sexual Assaults (non-graphic). These are my experiences and I recognize that symptom severity, healing timelines, and experiences are all unique to those who live through them. I do not, and will not ever, speak about mental health in a prescriptive way, only through my own lens.

Fantasy and magic have long since been allegories for real-world ideas. Religion, oppression, war, class, etc have been finely woven into the tapestries of literary speculative books for as long as books have been written. But what about romantic fantasy? What about simple tales of love, adventure, and self-discovery? 

What could be said of a young woman so traumatized by events in her past that it tears a hole in her memories and casts shadows so long she believes herself to be lost to darkness forever? 

If that woman began having real-world and immediate consequences because these memories are not lost but fractured, shattered, and scattered through her subconscious to wreak havoc on her life.

This is not magic, it’s a brain injury.

I was barely sixteen the first time it happened. Then I was gaslit so bad that it happened again only months later. After that, I found myself in a string of extremely toxic relationships where the lines of consent were continuously being blurred. 

This is where my PTSD formed (although I didn’t know that until years later), an injury growing deep in my brain and slashed ever wider, deeper, with each passing year as I tried desperately to be ‘okay’ on the outside. And I was.

On the outside, I was outspoken and blunt. I was an artist, feminist, bartender, writer, and fierce protector of my friends. Inside, I was always one step away from completely shattering. I had believed so deeply that the way I felt was my fault, that I protected myself from the world. I became what people wanted me to be, I performed my act as Ella performed hers. 

When I decided to take my cute little angsty novella Of Silk and Fire and turn it into a full-length novel, I knew it needed to be darker, more dangerous, and more honest about what my scared past self was trying to say. I saw the hesitant threads that snaked through the story, hinting at but never really touching on the idea of fragmented memories and those memories coming back with a vengeance to haunt me only after I was safe.

OF DUST AND FLAME is much more to the point, raw, and rage-filled than its predecessor, but that’s because I finally saw the story for what it was. It was a passive plea to heal. Over half a decade ago, I finally recognized what was happening to me as PTSD and sought professional help. I learned that it’s not actually a disorder but an injury. I began my healing process which was stressful, exhausting, and liberating. There will always be a scar from this injury, but it’s been years since I’ve had a full episode and for that I am grateful.

The memory loss in ODAF was not simply to have a cool/creative/convenient way to add mystery to the story. Ella’s fractured memories were an integral part of her story, her magic, and her future. 

Her rage was familiar to me. Her fear, her wariness, her mistrust. These are all reflections of my own journey. The ways in which she almost became her own worst enemy, and how she almost destroyed the very things she claimed to love were also difficult to write about. I have destroyed a great many good things in my life because of this debilitating fear.  

On the surface, ODAF is a simple fantasy romance about a depression-era circus with magic, mystery and mayhem, but for me, Ella’s story is a healing journey through awakening, revelation, and slowly finding a way back to the carefree younger version—the girl before.

The one who knows joy.

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