Interview with Beth Fehlbaum - Author of Hope in patience

Note: Some elements of the plot are revealed, so if you don't want to know in advance, please read the book first! It's not only engaging, but offers great lessons and encouragement for abuse survivors. The book is available here at Amazon.com.

1. Hi Beth, thank you for joining us today. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your book, Hope In Patience.  What is your background and what prompted you to write the book?

Hi, Adam! Thanks for asking me to be here!  I’d love to talk to you about Hope in Patience. 

I “arrived” in Patience, Texas—the fictional town that is the setting for both the books I’ve written, Courage in Patience and most recently Hope in Patience—via my own recovery from childhood sexual abuse.  I have always been a writer.  Even as a small child, I was writing stories and poems.  I spent a lot of time inside my imagination as a way of escaping the abuse I was endured from age 8 to my late teens. A couple of years into my recovery, I was writing short stories and poems as a way of processing my grief, rage, and disbelief that I had not been protected from being abused, even after I made an outcry to my mom about it. 

My therapist suggested that I try writing a novel, and after a lot of stopping and starting, I forced myself out of my own situation and imagined what it would have been like for someone else to experience.  By doing this, I was able to look more objectively at what had happened and how I felt about it.   
 
2. For those who don't know, this book is the 2nd book in a planned trilogy. When you finished the first book, did you plan a sequel in your mind? Or how did the idea of a trilogy came about? Why not more than three?   

When I was writing my first book, Courage in Patience, I didn’t even intend to share it with anyone but my therapist.  It was only after I finished it and realized that Ashley Asher’s story might help others heal like it had helped me, that I began to look into the publishing process. Writing the Patience stories has been very reflective of where I was in my own recovery at the time.  About six months after Courage was published, I realized that I had not finished Ashley’s story yet, mainly because mine was not finished.  I was struggling with acceptance, and writing Hope in Patience helped me find it in a way that I had been unable to do through other means. 

I knew immediately after finishing Hope in Patience that I needed to explore the storyline further, taking it beyond Ashley’s relationship with her mom and moving into the realm of Ashley having a boyfriend and struggling with the physical side of romantic relationships. The third book is Truth in Patience.  I anticipate the Patience books will be a trilogy; however, I am open to writing them as long as Ashley has work to do and there is an audience that wants to know more about where her life is going.

3. For those who haven't read the first book, the main plotline involved Ashley getting away from her abusive family and into the caring arms of her blended family with her birth father, David. On p. 153 of Hope in Patience, Ashley is using the phrase "No comment" and doesn't decide to explain why she self-harms. It's little details like this that make the story realistic. How much of this is based on your own experience and how much of it did you have to "make up"?   

I never scratched myself to the extent that Ashley does; however, I have struggled with other types of self-harm.  I focused on the feelings I had—the intense feelings of self-consciousness when other people noticed what I had done to myself—and drew on those to make Ashley’s “voice” realistic.

4. One of the things in the story that I thought made for a nice touch was that Bev (Ashley's stepmom) was also a teacher at the school. Bev could step in and support Ashley whenever the school environment "triggered" painful feelings. For instance, on p. 203, we see Bev explaining to one of Ashley's teachers why Ashley is having a hard time talking about her family of origin for the teacher's geneology assignment. How did you come up with the idea for this dynamic?     

I am a professional educator myself, and I am also very motherly toward my students.  When I have a student who has suffered abuse, I am very sensitive to their needs and act as their advocate in trying to get other adults to understand that the reason the student may be acting a certain way has nothing to do with their life at school—and that we as educators need to be sensitive to our students’ needs. 

I know from personal experience that abuse causes a shadow to hang over all aspects of one’s life.  That does not mean a student should not have to meet the curriculum requirements—you saw in the book that Ashley still had to do the assignments—but adults who extend compassion and empathy for a child dealing with very tough stuff will be able to reach that child both academically and emotionally, and it makes a huge difference.

5. What would be your advice to abuse survivors in school who don't have a supportive ally like Bev? How do you find one? 

As a child, I was afraid to tell, because I had been told that if I did, my abuser would leave my mother.  I knew that my mother feared being alone more than anything else, because she had told me numerous times that she could not be alone.  My advice to kids is this: you are a child and you are not in charge of taking care of the adults in your life.  You need to do what you have to do to make the abuse stop, because then your life can start again. 

I think the way for kids to find a supportive ally is to tell, and if the first person does not listen, keep telling until someone does.  I work in education and as I write this I am trying to think of even one person on my staff who would NOT be a supportive ally for a child who came to them with an outcry.  I can’t think of one.  The point is, look to your teachers, because these are people who do what they do because they care so deeply about kids. 

6. There are several points in the story when Ashley feels like she is not in her body, and she experiences a Whoosh inside her head. This is of course one of the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Towards the end of the book, although it seems like Ashley is doing better, she may not necessarily be entirely over her battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. In your experience, how long does it take to get over something like that?   

I think PTSD is a scar that lasts a lifetime.  I don’t think you really get over it (although I am NOT a mental health professional and I am NOT qualified to speak for anyone but myself).  I have learned to manage the symptoms, and my family has learned to help me manage them by not doing things like startling me on purpose (you know—sneaking up on somebody and saying, “Boo!”—I do NOT handle that well at all.) I avoid situations that could be triggering, and I listen to my body and act on the warning signs that I may be  in a bad spot that could set off an episode.  

If my husband has seen a TV show or movie that has something like a person being raped, he’ll warn me about it if I walk into the room and the show is on.   Songs that were popular when I was a child can have a triggering effect for me, too, and if I feel uneasy when I hear something on the radio, I immediately change the station.  I really think that PTSD can be managed, but it means paying attention to the signals your body is sending in order to do it.

7. One thing I have to compliment you on is that the characters in your book are so real and so three-dimensional. How did you go about creating some of the main characters in the book? Are any of the characters autobiographical in nature?   

Thank you, Adam!  I imagined the characters.  None of them are autobiographical, although some are composites of people I’ve known.  Like most authors, I draw on real life around me to create characters. 8. The story also shows Ashley beginning to have a love interest in the form of a sensitive young man named Joshua Brandt. With a supportive family and a potential first relationship on the horizon, it seems like things are coming together nicely for Ashley. Why did you make Joshua so nice? You could have made him mean and given Ashley another challenge....   

Joshua’s not perfect, as you’ll find when you read Truth in Patience... [hint hint]

9. One of the interesting ideas you illustrate in the book is how Ashley is struggling to come to grips with the fact that her mom doesn't care about her. For someone like Ashley, while it can be easy to know on an intellectual level that this is true, how hard is it to realize on an emotional level? And how would someone like Ashley make that leap? Because it still seems like she's struggling with it at the end of the book...

I’ll put it like this:  when a child makes an outcry to a parent, if the parent acts on the outcry and protects the child from further abuse, the child receives a message that he or she is worthy of love and protection.  When the opposite happens, it creates a broken person.  I think the way people make the leap probably varies from person to person. 

For Ashley, it’s very difficult because at one point in her life, she was a carefree child and she did not doubt her mother’s love.  Ashley has all these people telling her that being sexually  abused was not her fault, but the person whose love is supposed to be unconditional says just the opposite AND chooses to believe that the abuser is a good person.   It’s one of the hardest things in the world to embrace and accept: the notion that one’s parent does not care about one’s well-being.  
 
10. Do you have any parting words of wisdom you would like to give to sexual abuse survivors or abuse survivors in general?

You are not alone; it’s NOT your fault, regardless of what anyone may have told you; there are millions of others who have walked in your shoes, and, finally: Tell someone and get some help.  http://rainn.org is a great resource.

11. Are there any upcoming books or work you would like readers to know about?   

I’m hoping to finish Truth in Patience and turn it in to my editor by the end of this coming summer, 2011.  Hope in Patience is nominated for a 2011 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, and I’m excited about that!  Thanks so much for having me in for an interview, Adam!  I invite your readers to check out my website by going to: http://www.bethfehlbaumya.com.  

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Powerful stuff isn't it? I've read Hope in Patience myself and can honestly say not only is it a great book that offers lessons in healing for abuse survivors, but it is also a great read as well.

ZenTactics extends a sincere thank you to Beth Fehlbaum for writing this book and sharing her time and expertise with us. Please visit Beth's website and show your support for this author's work by buying a copy from any of the private sellers on Amazon (see below), Barnes & Noble, and other online outlets.

Click here to read a book review of Beth's other book, Courage in Patience.

~Adam Appleson

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