To celebrate the release of the new charity anthology, Children of War (review), I am doing a series of author interviews and guest posts, featuring several of the authors who wrote a short story for this anthology. This multigenre anthology supports the children of Ukraine. All proceeds of this anthology will be donated in perpetuity to the Voices of Children Foundation in Ukraine or another similar charity. This foundation is “a Ukrainian charity providing counselling and other forms of psychological support to war-trauma victims. The charity was established in 2015 and has been working with volunteer psychologists to bring art therapy and mobile psychologists to the most vulnerable in Ukrainian society, victims now of yet another armed conflict.”
The fifth author I’ve interviewed is Darrah Steffen! Her story in Children of War is Not Dead, Just Sleeping. It’s a fantasy story, set in the same world as the Legends of Ethota Series. It tells the tale of Corryn, a young woman who has survived a gruesome war and who is now struggling with the effects thereof. Check out my review of the anthology for more info!
Author Interview
About the author
Hobbies: Hiking, painting, playing board games
What was your favourite book as a kid? Coraline by Neil Gaiman
What kind of a book would you love to write one day? I would like to write a story with a character where you aren’t quite sure of their sanity.
What is your motto as a writer? Write the story you would like to read. Chances are someone else does too!
About the anthology
Why did you decide to write a story for this anthology? When Russia invaded Ukraine, I didn’t know what to do. I was at a loss on how to help. I just kept thinking about the families that would be affected and the children. I also feel very strongly about mental health issues. I am somewhat neurodivergent myself. The idea of these children growing up with the mental and emotional trauma really made me want to do something.
If there was one message linked to this that you could pass on to the world, what would it be? One action can cause a chain reaction. This book may not be much, but it could greatly affect the life of one person. And that is enough.
Quick Round
Tropical island or Antarctica? Antarctica
Night or day? Day
Ice cream or pizza? Ice Cream
Coffee or chocolate? Chocolate
Culture or nature? Nature
Guest Post: how mental and physical health conditions have inspired different myths in cultures around the world.
Stories have been used over the span of human culture to explain things that humans have had a difficult time processing or didn’t have answers for. Oral histories were passed down through the generations. This provided a fuller picture of the past by contributing eyewitness accounts to events that happened long ago. However, the histories became a generational game of telephone and the stories changed with each telling, distorting into the myths we know today. Some of the stories we commonly tell in our mythologies were stories that were used to help explain behaviors that were so outside the norm that they must have a magical origin. Here are some common myths that were likely inspired by mental health or medical conditions
Werewolves
Werewolves are a widespread concept in European and Slavic folklore. It is considered to be a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or a hybrid creature. This is usually due to a curse or affliction associated with the full moon. However, werewolves were most likely not afflicted with lycanthropy.
Rabies is a fatal viral disease that can spread between animals and to people if they are scratched or bitten. In the United States, rabies is mostly found in bats, raccoon, skunks, and foxes. However, in many other countries, dogs still carry rabies. Most rabies deaths in people are caused by dog bites. The rabies virus infects the central nervous system, causing disease in the brain, and ultimately death.
Humans affected by this disease are often afflicted with fever, headaches, nausea, and changes in appetite. As the symptoms progress, they can become aggressive, confused, hallucinate, have seizures, and be extremely sensitive to sound and light. Those afflicted also produce excess saliva and have difficulty swallowing. This produces the foaming of the mouth effect.
Incubus and Succubus
The incubus and succubus are demons who lie upon sleeping persons in order to engage in sexual activities with then. Repeated assaults with these demons result in deterioration of health, impaired mental state, and even death. While religions have debated the possibility of these sexual demons for many years, the actual origins are based in science. Many scientists agree that the foundation for the myth of incubi and succubi comes from sleep paralysis.
We usually think of being asleep or awake as clearly defined states. However, conditions like sleep paralysis muddy the waters. Episodes involve elements of both sleep and wakefulness, which is why distressing symptoms arise. Sleep paralysis is a condition identified by a brief loss of muscle control that happens just after falling asleep or waking up. In addition, people often experience hallucinations and difficulty breathing during episodes of sleep paralysis.
During sleep paralysis, wakefulness blends with REM sleep. In effect, the atonia (loss of muscle control) and mental imagery of REM sleeps seems to persist even into a state of being aware and awake. Episodes average around seven minutes in length where suffers can perceive intruders, chest pressure, or experience out of body sensations.
Vampires
The myth of the vampire has been around for a long time. They are most commonly seen as evil beings who roam the night looking for blood to feast on. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures often visiting loved ones and cause mischief in the neighborhood they used to live in. They wore shrouds and were described as bloated, remarkably different from the pale, gaunt vampires we know today.
Vlad the Impaler is commonly attributed with being the inspiration for vampires. While this is true for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, vampires existed long before the story was written. There is another medical explanation to vampirism.
We can look to the New England Vampire Panic of the 1730’s to see the cause. A mysterious force was coming back from the dead to take down loved ones. As seen in many vampire myths, one person would start wasting away, showing signs of weakness, pale skin, and even bleeding from their face.
Once one person in the family became sick, many others would follow. It was thought that the original was coming back from their grave to drain the life of their family members. Looking back on these symptoms, we realize now, the afflicted were suffering from consumption – now called Tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis was not a known disease. In fact, the bacteria causing the sickness would not be identified until 1882. During this time, TB killed one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe. Examining the symptoms of TB and comparing the usual markers of a vampire, we can see a large number of overlaps. The pale bodies, blood, and wasting body can all be drawn back to those afflicted with TB.
The Changeling
A changeling is a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human child stolen by the fae folk. The truth behind this tale is much sadder.
Some historians believe that the origin of the changeling myth stems from a dark place. Changeling tales illustrate an aspect of family survival in the pre-industrial age. A peasant family relies on every family member for survival. It was challenging to provide for the disabled or infirm. If the family felt unable to care for a child – particularly those ill or deformed – it was easier for them to lose the child to “fairies” than it was to believe they were going to let their child die.
Demon Possessions
Demon possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness. It is associated with behaviors purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of possession exists in many cultures and religions such as Christianity, Haitian Vodou, Islam, Wicca, and Native American traditions. Depending on the context, the possession may be voluntary or involuntary and could be beneficial or harmful to the host.
Modern psychologists believe that historic accounts of possessions are actually cases of those suffering from Schizophrenia or Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning. Many suffering with this condition describe the presence of voices in their mind.
Someone with DID has multiple, distinct personalities. The various identities control a person’s behavior at different times. The condition can cause memory loss, delusions or depression. Someone with an untreated condition can switch randomly between personalities in times of stress. As each is a unique identity, it can appear as if the person is possessed by another entity.
Conclusion
It is easy to look at these myths with the lens of the modern day. We can easily tease out the origins of these stories and pass judgement. These conditions in their time were difficult to comprehend, thus treated as things to be feared and were turned into myth – stories we still pass on today.
While we cannot fault our ancestors for their fear, we can learn from it. We must look at our treatment of those afflicted by conditions such as these. What is our treatment of them in society? In our stories?
As storytellers, we have a responsibility to learn about these conditions and the humans behind them. We should not relegate anyone to monsters in the dark so that is all they become in our mythos.
Sources
Dissociative identity disorder: What is it, symptoms & treatment. Cleveland Clinic. (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9792-dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder#:~:text=from%20Cleveland%20Clinic-,Dissociative%20identity%20disorder%20(DID)%20is%20a%20mental%20health%20condition.,usually%20caused%20by%20past%20trauma.
History.com Editors. (2017, August 23). Werewolf legends. History.com. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/history-of-the-werewolf-legend#:~:text=Werewolves%20also%20emerged%20in%20early,killing%20rampage%20in%20the%20forest.
Katherine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies “Changelings”
Lee, C. H. (1991). Regional inequalities in Infant Mortality in Britain, 1861-1971: Patterns and hypotheses. Population Studies, 45(1), 55–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/0032472031000145086
Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2020, January 7). Schizophrenia. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443#:~:text=Schizophrenia%20is%20a%20serious%20mental,with%20schizophrenia%20require%20lifelong%20treatment.
Santiago, Christopher (Autumn 2021). Costa, Luiz; Ferme, Marianne; Kaur, Raminder; Kipnis, Andrew B. (eds.). “Twilight states: Comparing case studies of hysteria and spirit possession”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. University of Chicago Press. 11 (2): 635–659.
Sleep paralysis: What it is, causes, and how to stop it. Sleep Foundation. (2022, June 24). Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.sleepfoundation.org/parasomnias/sleep-paralysis
Stephens, Walter (2002), Demon Lovers, p. 23, The University of Chicago Press
Tucker, Abigail. “The Great New England Vampire Panic”. Smithsonian magazine (October 2012).
World Health Organization. (n.d.). Tuberculosis (TB). World Health Organization. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis