To protect the privacy of my fellow psych ward patients, I had always intended to change their names while writing The Dickensian Reset. Unfortunately, the stigma surrounding mental illness is too great to even consider otherwise.
What was less clear to me was the need to alter my own identity, not to mention the identity of my family, coworkers, doctors, hospital staff, and nurses. Both Lilly and Phoebe (not their real names) have encouraged me to do so to protect myself from both stalkers and potential litigation.
Phoebe suggested I take it one step even further; to change the names of certain places and other details mentioned in the book to make this transformation even more complete. One thing that I'm not changing is Erie County Medical Center, the setting of most of the story.
When I originally wrote the manuscript for The Dickensian Reset, I used everyone's real names just to keep my own confusion to a minimum. Now as I go back and anonymize the text, I feel less connected to it. It's been a difficult exercise to come up with names for people that are just as fitting as their real ones.
I wish I didn't have to do it at all. There's a large part of me that wants to live openly with my disorder; the world simply isn't ready to accept mentally ill people.
The stigma is real.
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