Today on our show, we bring you a story by Danielle Huggins. Danielle has been featured twice before on WCR. In Episode 105: Teach Us Something We Don’t Know where she shared her experience with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Danielle was also featured in Episode 139: This Is What Mania Looks Like where she takes us through a manic episode. If you haven’t listened to those episodes, definitely check them out.

Today’s story was written for our December 2022 writing retreat in Key Largo, edited by Andrea and Allison, revised by Danielle, then brought to the retreat for edits from the group. Today, we will bring you Danielle’s final version.

This story is a great example of writing in the moment (without distance and perspective) and how to end a story. Danielle also uses song lyrics to reveal emotion and mood.

Danielle Huggins is a former middle school math teacher. Now she’s a writer, and student of Writing Class Radio. She has written for the Washington Post and Gomag.com and has been featured on the writing class radio podcast twice. She lives with her husband, daughter and mom in northern New Jersey. She can be found on social media @bipolardanielle on TikTok, My Life as a Bipolar Mom on Facebook, and @DanHuggins123 on Twitter.

Writing Class Radio is hosted by Allison Langer and Andrea Askowitz. Audio production by Matt Cundilll, Aidan Glassey, Chloe Emond Lane and Evan Surminski at the Sound Off Media Company Theme music is by Emia.

There’s more writing class on our website including stories we study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats, and live online classes. Join our writing community by following us on Patreon.

If you want to write with us every week, you can join our First Draft weekly writers groups. You have the option to join Allison Langer on Tuesdays 12-1 ET and/or Zorina Frey Wednesdays 7-8pm ET. You’ll write to a prompt and share what you wrote. If you’re looking to take your writing to the next level, or if you are a business owner, community activist, group that needs healing, entrepreneur and you want to help your team write better, check out all the classes we offer on our website, writingclassradio.com.

Join the community that comes together for instruction, an excuse to write, and most importantly, the support from other writers. To learn more, go to www.Patreon.com/writingclassradio. Or sign up HERE for First Draft for a FREE Zoom link.

A new episode will drop every other WEDNESDAY.

There’s no better way to understand ourselves and each other, than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What’s yours?

If you would like a transcript of the episode read below:

Allison Langer 00:00:07

I'm Alison Langer.

Andrea Askowitz 00:00:08

I'm Andrea Askowitz and this is writing class radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories. Together, we produce this podcast, which is equal parts heart and art. By heart, we mean the truth in a story. By art, we mean the craft of writing. No matter what's going on in our lives, writing Class is where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our she. There's no place in the world like Writing class. And we want to bring you in.

Allison Langer 00:00:41

Today on our show, we are bringing you a story by Danielle Huggins. Danielle has been featured twice before on writing class radio in episode 105 called Teach us Something We Don't know. That episode was about her experience with ECT, which is an electroconvulsive therapy. She was also on 139 called this Is What Mania Looks Like, where she took us through a manic episode. If you have not listened to those episodes, you definitely want to check them out.

Andrea Askowitz 00:01:08

They are very good.

Allison Langer 00:01:10

Yeah, but let's tell them about this one.

Andrea Askowitz 00:01:12

Okay.

Allison Langer 00:01:13

This story was written for our December 2022 writing retreat in Key Largo. So before the retreat, we ask all our participants to please submit an essay with 850 words only. And then Andrea and I both edit them.

Andrea Askowitz 00:01:28

Send them back. Well, first, everyone cries.

Allison Langer 00:01:30

Oh, cries. Of course they do.

Andrea Askowitz 00:01:32

Yeah, they cry because they're like, what? Why only 850 words? No. Can mine be 1000? That always happens. But you know who doesn't do that? Danielle Huggins. She follows the rules.

Allison Langer 00:01:44

She's a saint. We love her.

Andrea Askowitz 00:01:46

Yeah, she's cool.

Allison Langer 00:01:47

Anyway, she got a chance to revise it and bring it back for the group. So then the whole group gets to hear it and give her more edits. And by the end of the retreat, she makes all her edits and brings everything on the very last day. And so what we're bringing you today is Danielle's final version. Pretty cool.

Andrea Askowitz 00:02:03

It is really cool. And what the episode is about and what the story shows us is how it is possible to write a story that shows a narrator's evolution, even in the midst of a story that that person is living. And it's also an amazing example of how to end a story. She really lands it.

Allison Langer 00:02:26

And also how to use music to bring in emotion and mood into a piece. So I thought that was really good.

Andrea Askowitz 00:02:35

Yes. We'll be back with Danielle's story after the break. We're back. And this is Andrea Askowitz and you're listening to Ready Class Radio. Up next is Danielle Huggins reading her story. Oh, where, oh, where could my baby be? Danielle Huggins is a former middle school math teacher. Now she's a writer and a student of Writing Class Radio. She's written for The Washington Post and Gomag.com and has been featured on the Writing Class Radio podcast now three times. I mean, she's a regular contributor to the Writing Class radio podcast. Clearly, she lives with her husband, daughter and mom in northern New Jersey. She can be found on social media. Bipolar Danielle on TikTok my Life is a Bipolar Mom on Facebook and Dan Huggins one, two, Three on Twitter Actually, you can find Danielle Huggins on all the social media channels and we will put her links in the show notes and do follow her because she is a really interesting and outspoken voice for bipolar disorder.

Allison Langer 00:03:38

And she's also really cute and fun and funny. And today on her what was the post you just showed me? She has like, pink hair. It's very cool.

Andrea Askowitz 00:03:45

Yeah, she's just fun. Pink lion today. Here's danielle Huggins reading her story. Aware, aware, could my baby be?

Danielle 00:04:01

Oh where Oh Where could my baby be? Is the first line of a Pearl Jam song called Last Kiss. It's a remake of a song from 1961 by Wayne Cochrane about a girlfriend dying. To me it's more literal. My love, my baby is my 15 year old daughter. She is in a psychiatric day program. How did my baby become this person with slashes up her forearms? How did she become someone who pulls out chunks of hair gnaws on her lip until it's so swollen it inhibits her speech and bites and picks her fingers until so much blood has seeped onto her hoodie it looks like a chocolate ice cream stain.Last week I was hammer curling 15 pound dumbbells at the gym. The song. How far I'll go from the movie? Moana came through my earbuds. Kate played Moana in her 6th grade play. I envision the enormous curly brown wig with a pink plumeria flower over one ear on Kate's face. Her blue eyes and dimples were visible from my seat and I marveled with pride at her lack of stagebright. Kate sang I've been staring at the edge of the water long as I can remember, never really knowing why. My eyes well up and I turn off the tunes on my drive home. Dave Matthews dreaming tree comes on. The lyrics hit hard remembered mother's words you'll always be my baby. Mommy, come quick, the dreaming tree has died. Can't find my way home, I have no place to hide. The dreaming tree has died. I want to come quick and help Kate, but I don't know how I lose it. My eyes are burning, tears are mixing with the salty sweat from the gym and I can't see. I pull into a parking lot and weep so hard my sedan rocks. She used to be so happy. Anytime she played by herself, I'd hear her humming. I picture Kate and me going to her preschool in our black Honda Cr V. She is behind me in her car seat, pink with white daisies. She has shoulder length hair with bangs and a mermaid on her shirt. We are belting out the words born this Way by Lady Gaga. Don't hide yourself in regret just love yourself in your set whether life's disabilities left you outcast, bullied or teased, rejoice and love yourself today because baby, you were born this way. The lyrics prove prophetic. Because Kate was and is bullied and she has disabilities, she does not rejoice in herself. However, in fact, she's admitted she hates herself. Kate was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety disorder at twelve and since has been identified as having all the acronyms. Besides Gad, there is ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, OCD obsessive compulsive disorder, SPCD social pragmatic communication disorder and ASD autism spectrum disorder. She had a four day stay at an inpatient psychiatric facility at 13 because she was cutting her wrist with a box cutter and planning on swallowing all of her exapro. She says she wanted to die because of bullying, which took various forms. She was called toddler and flat. Classmates refused to let her sit with them on the bus or in lunch, often placing a band instrument or backpack on the seat to signify. There was no place for her. Once at an activity night, a girl pretended to be her friend and asked Kate if she would take a selfie with her. When Kate took the picture, the girl stuck out her tongue and licked the whole side of Kate's face. The girl cracked up with her actual friends and Kate spent the rest of the night crying and hiding in the bathroom. That bullying happened in middle school and now when not in the day program, kate is in a vocational high school where she majors in graphic arts. She has actual friends, but they joke with her sometimes at her expense. They ridicule her because she can never tell if she's supposed to be in on the joke or the butt of it. Even at the psych program, she is known as the girl who can't take a joke. I'm a misfit among misfits, she says. Kate says she cuts and picks until she's bloodied because people are mean and the world is unfair. But besides her self hatred, she despises income inequality, bigots, homophobes, and ableists. I feel utterly helpless. I can't solve these world problems. My forever humming, once carefree child is in crisis, I can't convince her she is on the right track. Baby, you were born this way. I can keep reminding her of what a therapist at her program said, that she's perfect as is and the world is a better place with her in it. But every day that I sign her into this program take the elevator down to my car and turn it on. I tried to find a song that won't make me cry and the truth is there isn't one.

Andrea Askowitz 00:10:20

What really hit me about this story right now as we I just heard it again is the ending and how the ending is it's so true. It's just like landing on this narrator in the car, like trying to find a song that won't make her cry and there is no song. So she is in the thick of it. We talk a lot about needing distance to write a story, but I don't think so. And here is a great example of this happened today.

Allison Langer 00:10:49

It's a brutally heavy story. I mean, now we heard it at the retreat and now I read it over last night before I sent it to her to record. And now hearing it again, it hasn't lessened the severity of what this family is going through. And my heart just breaks. I get it. This mom, she just doesn't know what to do and everything makes her sad.

Andrea Askowitz 00:11:18

She can't protect her kid and she's using songs as like I don't want to say that goofy object correlative thing, which means like, an object that stands in for an emotion. So I don't think it's exactly that. But she's using songs in the story to show us throughout her day that everything reminds her of this situation that she is like, in the midst of to me just feels so real.

Allison Langer 00:11:48

It's a brilliant technique. I mean, it really is because somebody else has already come up with the sentiment and the song. And song has just this incredible way of putting you right into a mood, a mode even. And it takes you right out of where you're at presently. So it's like you're kind of in the middle. It can jog your memory. So now she's remembering all the good things and then it's reminding her of where they're at. I don't know. It's a brilliant mechanism to tell a story.

Andrea Askowitz 00:12:19

There was one thing that I wanted that I noticed right now. I hate doing this because right, like, it's too late, but the narrator said that she used to hear whenever her daughter would be playing by herself, I'd hear her humming and now, what song? I don't know, but maybe it was.

Allison Langer 00:12:37

No song because kids like.

Andrea Askowitz 00:12:42

Just like, kid, little kid. Oh, maybe. I'm guessing it was the song, but it's okay. God.

Allison Langer 00:12:52

Yeah. Really cool.

Andrea Askowitz 00:12:55

The specifics are vivid and scary. The biting and the picking and the hair pulling. She tells us that her daughter was in four days in a mental hospital. She tells us all the acronyms and then explains them. Damn.

Allison Langer 00:13:14

God. Yeah. Really good. We learn about the narrator, too. We get that she goes to the gym. We get what kind of music she likes. We get what kind of mom she is. And then we get a lot about Kate as well, who she used to be, who she currently is, what she's gone through. We get a lot of information in just very few words.

Andrea Askowitz 00:13:35

How long is it?

Allison Langer 00:13:36

I know you're going to ask me that question.

Andrea Askowitz 00:13:38

Sorry.

Allison Langer 00:13:39

For our purposes, it was meant to be 850 words, and I think it is 850.

Andrea Askowitz 00:13:45

I think she told me.

Allison Langer 00:13:47

Yeah, I'm going to look well measure. Yeah, it's 836.

Andrea Askowitz 00:13:53

836 words. Yeah. We get a whole story. But let's talk about is it satisfying to you that this narrator wrote this story in the moment rather than getting distance?

Allison Langer 00:14:04

Oh, yeah. I like it 100%.

Andrea Askowitz 00:14:07

Yeah, I do, too. I just know that writing teachers often say you need to get distance so that you can make meaning of a situation. But this narrator made meaning of this situation by just really reporting what the situation is and basically the meaning that I'm taking away from it. Well, she talks about how she can't convince her that she's okay. I love this. This is something that I think is a really great technique. At the very end of the story, she says, I can't convince her she's on the right track, baby. Which is great because she brings back that lyric. I can keep reminding her of what a therapist at her program said. So by bringing in an outsider we've talked about this before in class. It's sort of like someone else speaks the truth. So the therapist says the world is a better place with her in it. So that's a really awesome technique when you bring in an outside player that doesn't have skin in the game, because you can 100% trust that person. And I think of it as like that person is the chorus, like in Greek theater. Do you get what I'm saying?

Allison Langer 00:15:23

Yeah.

Andrea Askowitz 00:15:24

Oh, you do? Okay. So that person is saying what's true, what we all know is true. So that was well done.

Allison Langer 00:15:30

I'm just trying to think because we always talk about what makes the story. Has the narrator changed? What has she learned all that stuff just so that it's different than a situation? So what makes this one not just a situation, but more of a story?

Andrea Askowitz 00:15:45

I think it's that very end. I think that the narrator hasn't changed exactly, but she has learned that she just has to persevere.

Allison Langer 00:15:56

And I think it can be that simple because I felt satisfied. She's, like, at a place where, like, okay, we're on this path, and we're just going to keep doing it until hopefully she gets to the place where she realizes she's perfect as she is and that the world is a better place with her in it and that she was just born this way and learns to deal with it. And I think that's also another beautiful thing about the therapist, because the therapist has obviously seen many, many kids go through this. So by her saying that we get that it's going to be okay if we can just stay on track and just support her as best we can, then she can make it through this tough time.

Andrea Askowitz 00:16:29

It would have sounded so fake if the narrator spun it in any kind of positive way. Yeah, 100%, because at the very, very end, she's like, the truth is, there isn't one. There isn't one song that she can find that won't make her cry.

Allison Langer 00:16:45

No, god. Well, thank you, Danielle, for sharing your story with us. And thank you guys for listening.

Andrea Askowitz 00:16:52

Wait, before we stop, I want to say that this totally hits home for me, and sometimes we talk about our own lives, but my daughter, at this same age, was cutting and spent five days in a mental hospital. I was there exactly in this moment, and now my daughter's 19, and now I can tell a story with some perspective because it's only been four years, but those four years were huge. And, I mean, my daughter is not, like, out of the woods 100%, but she's not in crisis, not at all. She's totally doing well in college.

Allison Langer 00:17:34

So if you had to give advice to this narrator, what would you say? Not that we're in the business of giving advice, but no, but.

Andrea Askowitz 00:17:42

I mean, I would say do exactly what you're doing. Just remember yourself what that therapist said, that she's perfect as she is and the world is a better place with her in it. Because that therapist, like you said a minute ago, Allison, that therapist has seen this, and they know that kids sometimes are just like, I don't know that this is true for my daughter, but I do think that there are some kids who are just, like, way adult before their time. Do you know what I mean? Like, they're just, like, too advanced for kids their age. And I think that's Kate, just based on what I know about her, what this narrator has told me, and Danielle came to our writing retreat in Key Largo. And we workshop this, and we got to talking about a lot of stuff, and we have a lot in common with our children. And I just think that that's what Kate is like. Kids don't understand her, but adults will, and adults do. So I don't know. I hope this narrator just keeps remembering that she's perfect as is or could enough. My mom always says, you're perfect, but you don't have to be.

Allison Langer 00:18:51

AW, that's sweet. I love your mom.

Andrea Askowitz 00:18:54

AW.

Allison Langer 00:19:02

Well, thank you, Danielle, for sharing your story. I'm sure there's a lot of people that will connect with it, and it's an important story to share. And thank you guys all for listening. Writing class Radio is hosted by me, Alison Langer and me, Andrea Askowitz. Audio production by Matt Kundal, Evan Sirminsky and Aidan Glassy at the Sound Off Media Company. Theme music Is by EMEA There's more writing class on our website, writingclassradio.com, including stories we study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats, and live online classes. Join our community by following us on patreon. If you want to write with us every week, you can join our first draft weekly writers group. You have the option to join me on Tuesdays, 1220 Eastern, and Serena Fry Wednesdays, seven to 08:00 p.m. Eastern.

Andrea Askowitz 00:19:52

I just want to say that sorry. If you want to write with us every week, who doesn't want to write with us every week? I mean, it's pretty crowded in our group, but it's open to anyone and, like, come on, it's so much fun.

Allison Langer 00:20:10

It's really fun.

Andrea Askowitz 00:20:11

We are hanging out twice a week, actually, but I mostly come on Tuesdays and it's just like, so much fun. Okay, go on, carry on.

Allison Langer 00:20:21

I will say, it does always make me feel like a better writer. And I do seem to come up with new things, and I'm like, oh, my God, look, this could actually be something. So I do think 30 minutes of writing is just enough time to get a solid outline or draft of something, and then you go back and work on it and boom, you get to submit. It happens all the time. So come join us. So exactly what I just said. You'll write to a prompt and share what you wrote. And if you're looking to take your writing to the next level, if you're a business owner, entrepreneur, community activist, or a group that needs healing and want to help your whole team and all your people write better, check out all the classes we offer on Writingclass Radio. Join the community that comes together for instruction and excuse to write. And most importantly, with support from other writers, a new episode will drop every other Wednesday.

Andrea Askowitz 00:21:09

There's no better way to understand ourselves and each other than by writing and sharing our stories. There really isn't. Everyone has a story. What's yours?

Speaker 4 00:21:23

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