Student describes self-injury, pregnancy in novel

    “I wish I could tell someone about the things I’ve kept secret for so long, but no one would understand or even want to hear it. I’m not telling anyone. I can’t, I won’t. It’s no one’s burden but mine, and I’ll carry it alone. One quick slice, and I was okay for the moment.”
    These were the words of a 17-year-old who, instead of planning for prom and summer break had to deal with pregnancy, tendinitis,  a bipolar brother, a distant mother, a difficult father, a sick grandmother and the everyday problems of being a teenager.
    This is the story of Jessie McDowell, freshman from Smithland, Ky., and author of the published non-fiction novel “Where My Ink Comes From.”
    Using a compilation of entries from her journals, notebooks, blog and songs she wrote, McDowell was not only able to self-publish a book, but regain control of her life.
    “I wanted to write a book, but I didn’t know how to tell a story better than my journal,” McDowell said.
    McDowell said she began writing when she was 8 years old after watching the film “Harriet the Spy.” It was not until later that writing in her journal became an outlet for her; self-injury soon followed, she said.
    “It was something I felt obligated to do,” McDowell said about both writing and cutting.
At 12 years old McDowell said she began cutting to cope with problems at home. McDowell journals about her family, particularly her brother, a constant source of pain, she said.
    “My brother is crazy. I mean, he’s really bad bipolar,” McDowell wrote in a Feb. 5 entry. “He threatens to beat us all up regularly when things don’t go his way, beats and throws our two dogs around. When he was little, he was unnaturally violent towards animals and on video games. Now, he’s big enough to act out his fantasies, and that scares me.”   
    McDowell writes not only about her brother’s terrifying behavior, but also about her responses to other difficulties at school and home.
    McDowell said she remembers several times when she wanted to kill herself because of the stresses of her life.
    “One morning, I just got really upset and took a bottle of pills,” McDowell said. “I took them because, in my mind (I thought) ‘I will be dead before school, I won’t have to worry about it.’ By the time second period started, I could hear my heart pounding. I wasn’t in the same state of mind I was that morning. I was, like, ‘I might really die.’”
    She said all of these problems escalated when she found out she was pregnant.
    “It didn’t actually sink (in) at first,” she said. “I panicked. I did everything in the world to prove this test was wrong.”
    After numerous pregnancy tests and visits to the doctor, McDowell said she finally believed the two pink lines that appeared over and over.
    “I feel sick. Absolutely sick,” she wrote in her journal on March 4. “Not morning sickness sick, but a timorous sick. What do I do? Do I go ahead and kill myself, knowing that I’d be taking someone with me that doesn’t get a say? I’m not supposed to be pregnant.”
    McDowell said it took a while for her to come to terms with her pregnancy.
    “It was actually seven or eight months that I was pregnant that I finally decided, ‘Ok, you’re going to have to get ready to be a mom,’” McDowell said.
    While students at her high school were curious about her pregnancy, McDowell said she was surprised at how supportive her school and family were.
     McDowell gave birth to her son Benjamin on Oct. 7, 2008, just four days before her eighteenth birthday.
    In her novel, McDowell takes the reader through each day and examines every aspect around her, from Halloween and the presidential election to the ice storm and her days taking care of Benjamin.
    “Benjamin threw up everywhere earlier,” McDowell wrote on Oct. 23. “Not spit up, I mean puked. He made pretty good distance.”
    She said these journal entries were included in the book to describe life after pregnancy.
    McDowell explained her struggles after Benjamin’s birth.
    “All my friends and family thought, ‘This baby will be so good for her, maybe she won’t (cut) anymore,” McDowell said. “That didn’t happen. I was so worried about how everything was going to work, the baby didn’t help. The fighting didn’t stop and then I had the baby to take care of—it all happened at once.”
    McDowell said it was a friend from school who ultimately helped her turn her life around and quit cutting in April.
    “He was encouraging,” McDowell said. “He had said things other people … told me, but there was something special about him. He was a Christian and I knew he was. He was the one who really got me to stop.”
    McDowell said this friend helped her publish “Where My Ink Comes From.”
    She said it was challenging to self-publish while raising her son.
    “Sometimes I would have Benjamin in my lap and I would hold the bottle with my right hand and type with my left,” McDowell said.
    Though difficult, she said she received assistance from Create Space, an online publisher that prints books on-demand and sells them internationally.
    In June, McDowell’s book began selling. More than 160 copies have sold through Create Space and Amazon.com.  
    It wasn’t until August that Donna Witherspoon, trade book merchandiser at the University Bookstore, met McDowell.
    “In the process of Jessie getting her (textbooks), she said, ‘I have a book I’ve written.’ I was totally blown away,” Witherspoon said.
    Witherspoon, who is in charge of signings at the bookstore, encouraged McDowell to do a signing, which was Thursday.
    “She opens up her life for everyone to see,” Witherspoon said. “It’s enlightening to have her as a role model for anyone who has had emotional problems in their life. Her book says ‘I’ve made it, and so can you.’ It’s really nice to know that there’s people who have similar problems as you and who’s survived them.”
    McDowell said she was nervous for the signing on Thursday because of a comment she heard.
    “Someone said, ‘I hope you sign your pen name and not your real name,’” McDowell said.
    Choosing the pen name C. N. King, McDowell’s name is not part of her novel.                McDowell said she also has plans for another novel since she felt she may have left the reader wondering what happened when she got to college.
    “I think I might do it as a series of letters to my son,” McDowell said.
    While Witherspoon and McDowell are both hopeful that “Where My Ink Comes From” will be chosen for the Freshman Reading Experience book for fall 2011, both say everyone can benefit from reading the book.
    “I chose to go on with the self-injury for so long it was hard it stop it,” McDowell said. “It’s still hard, but maybe they can get my experience and stop that early on before it gets worse. I hope they take something from it.”
    Contact Phelps at robinj.phelps@murraystate.edu.

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