Memoir of a Sex Addict by K E Garland + Meditation Apps + Pod

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bKmdGi98yHTSe70pLcbyf?si=33f1746da075448f

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Confession: I do my best to improve myself, to broaden my self-knowledge and empathy, but I’m not that great at it. Moreover, rarely does what I read, see, and hear on the topic resonate. My health insurance includes a meditation app filled with gazillions of celebs promising to teach emotional nirvana. 99.99% of them sound like such money-grubbing fakes that I can’t help myself from groaning, “Come on, now. How the #$% do people fall for them?!” Admittedly, I could be touchy, given my soothing-resistant turmoil over finding a literary agent for my novels…

Step aside charlatans. K (Kathy) E Garland is the real deal.

Too bad Kathy’s not on the app — fingers crossed, maybe that’s just a matter of time? A genuine warrior of the soul, she lays bare her struggles, makes no bones that she’s a work in progress, and invites us to glean from her humility and wisdom.

Her blog, Kwoted, (she’s also the author of a string of books, an associate professor at a community college, and much more) is a soul-broadening cool-drink-of-water oasis free of bumpersticker-speak, memes, gifs, and photos of her manicures and meals.

Perhaps you remember her from when she guested here and here and here? This time around, she’s here to let us in on her latest book and goals…

3 Things I Hoped to Accomplish with In Search of a Salve: Memoir of a Sex Addict by K E Garland

My debut memoir, In Search of a Salve was published on September 26, 2023, with NEW Reads Publications. Since then, I created a three-city international “healing tour,” as well as appeared on several podcasts, where I’ve discussed sex addiction, adoption, and being a Black writer. But what I haven’t discussed in detail is what I have hoped to accomplish by writing a memoir focused on trauma and hypersexuality. So, here goes:

Black Families have Mental Health Issues, Too

A central goal for writing Salve was to tell a story about Black families who have mental health issues, mental illnesses, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Many times, mainstream media has depicted how other races or ethnicities develop and live with mental health issues; however, Black family’s stories have largely been left out of this conversation. And when we are included, the narratives are exaggerated and jarring, leaving many to compare and question if what they have is a mental illness at all. 

Therefore, I wanted to provide the details of a true story, illustrating a range of issues through implied questions, like what happens when a person has unchecked anxiety or depression? What happens when a Black female adoptee never processes her adoption identity? What happens when that girl’s adoptive mother dies? Subsequently, my hope was to delineate the difference between a mental health issue (e.g., anxiety) as opposed to mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia); the two are not synonymous, yet we discuss them today as if they are. The intent of Salve was to use the elements of storytelling to describe interrelated traumatic events and then to move forward in time to show how everyone in a family can be affected. 

Sex Addiction is an Intimacy Disorder

A secondary goal was to dispel the myth of sex addiction as made up or not being worthy to be a part of the DSM, the “bible” that mental health professionals use. One way to do this was to help readers visualize how an intimacy disorder—problems developing, maintaining, and expressing appropriate kinds and levels of intimacy—are created. Conversely, many scholars, psychologists, and certified sex addiction therapists (CSATs) have noted that sex addiction is an intimacy disorder created and exacerbated by unresolved childhood trauma. 

With this book, I wanted to show what it was like to be a successful adult with multiple unresolved childhood traumas, and I wanted to illustrate how sex addiction can manifest. Over the past few decades, people have had a surface-level understanding of this type of addiction. People hear the term and tend to laugh or brush it off as fun and pleasurable. Who isn’t or doesn’t want to be addicted to sex? However, there is no light version of this subject. In Search of a Salve is a deep dive into the topic, so that the concept of hypersexuality is no longer marginalized. As a result, two CSATs have validated my experiences.

The Art of Memoir is to Write a Relatable Story

The goal of memoir is not only to share a part of one’s life, but it is also to describe a relatable story about that life, no matter the subject. You shouldn’t have to be the same race, ethnicity, or gender to relate to a memoir. Though I am a Black woman, who intended to write about a Black woman’s experience, I maintained both a bird’s eye view and a worm’s eye view. This seemed to have worked. Erica Garza, author of Getting Off reviewed Salve and offered this blurb: “You don’t have to be a sex addict, or an addict at all, to identify with this story. If you’ve ever felt out of place, unseen by your family, or weighed down by shame, you will see yourself on these pages.” 

Garza’s words are high praise because they’ve affirmed one of my goals—that people would see themselves in one way or another. Other reviews have echoed Garza’s sentiments. Recently, a young man from Iraq reached out to tell me how much the contents resonated because he, too, was abandoned by his father. Another person remarked about how well I portrayed the Gen X experience. And yet another noted how it helped him to think deeper about the role he has played in dismissing Black women’s pain. I’m glad this book is shaping how readers think about how they are in relationship with others and how they can be better mothers, fathers, adult children, siblings, or friends. 

What are your thoughts on meditation apps?