Simcoe author’s memoir shortlisted for 2024 Speaker’s Book Award

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Liz Grace didn’t plan to become an author. She started writing to explore her own thoughts.

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Grace’s memoir, Resilient: Surviving My Mental Illness, began as a therapeutic journal to help her teenage self cope with grief, severe hearing loss, and a progressive mental illness later diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder.

“I needed an outlet, so I just started writing. And then it became quite a lot of words,” the Simcoe author said during an interview at Beach Reads Bookshop in Port Dover, with her hearing dog Metta by her side.

The death of her mother plunged ten-year-old Grace into depression. She withdrew from her family and began to self-harm to release her pain and pent-up emotions.

While studying, she suffered from bipolar disorder and the onset of deafness “made everything even more difficult,” says Grace.

“Especially because we didn’t know it was happening,” she said. “It was just another thing we had to resist.”

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Grace, now 36, learned American Sign Language and eventually had to relearn how to hear after receiving cochlear implants – all while undergoing various medical and psychological treatments.

Encouraged by some close friends with whom she shared early excerpts from her writings, Grace decided to put her honest and raw thoughts on living with mental illness into a book that she hopes will help others in her situation.

“It was initially written for me. For my healing,” Grace said. “And then it was written for other people.”

Readers gain insight into Grace’s mind as she details her struggles in a fragmented and nonlinear narrative that reflects the gaps in Grace’s own understanding of her life.

Trigger warnings about suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and bondage alert the reader to the impending intensity.

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“Reading this is not always easy or pleasant, just as it is not easy or pleasant to live with it,” she writes in the introduction.

Grace said it was hard to relive the trauma of being dismissed as attention-seeking by some family members and medical staff.

“It was very, very hard to go back and recognize the negative self-talk that was going on in my head,” she said of rereading her teenage diaries.

“I thought this was really important because I think adults and parents and even therapists don’t understand what’s actually going on in a teenager’s brain. And if you don’t understand it, how can you help them?”

The memoir was published last fall by Sisters Ignited Media and Publishing in Simcoe and has since been marketed primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom.

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“And not in Canada, because I wanted people to read the book that I wouldn’t otherwise meet,” laughed Grace.

Many more local readers may discover Resilient now that it has been named one of six finalists for the 2024 Speaker’s Book Award, which recognizes Ontario’s best nonfiction books.

“It was really surprising and really exciting,” Grace said of the nomination.

“I am honoured to be included among these amazing authors and look forward to meeting them all at Queen’s Park in November.”

The first-time author recently shared her story with an audience of Rotarians in Simcoe and hopes to make more speaking appearances, both in person and virtually.

“I still find it very difficult to go back and read it again because it puts me in the same state of mind again,” Grace said.

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“So when I’m looking for a quote or something like that, I try not to get caught up in the whole book because that can be very emotionally upsetting.”

It was “very scary” to reveal her very personal story to the world, says Grace, who uses a pseudonym to protect the privacy of the people she writes about.

“I was really worried about the reaction,” she said.

But the reaction from readers – including family and friends – was “very positive.”

“A lot of people were really grateful,” she said. “The story really touched them.”

She hopes her story will inspire empathy among medical professionals and readers whose loved ones suffer from a mental illness, while also encouraging people struggling with their own challenges that recovery is possible.

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“I was made to feel like it was my fault and that I was basically a bad child because I was mentally ill,” she said.

“So writing the book helped me process it myself and come to terms with it and understand that it wasn’t my fault.”

Grace now works as an occupational therapist, helping patients who have suffered head injuries and strokes.

“I have great compassion for people who are going through difficult times,” she said.

“Recovery is hard. It doesn’t just take one day. It takes the rest of your life.”

“Resilient: Surviving My Mental Illness” is available at Beach Reads Bookshop in Port Dover, at Firefly and Fox Books in Simcoe, and online through Sisters Ignited Media and Publishing and Amazon.

JP Antonacci is a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator’s Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the Canadian government.

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