You Are Loved // DADZAWA

1M Reads - A New Start

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Hey guys, it's been a while!

Let's chat, shall we?

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I'll be honest, things haven't been going the best for me.

I first started writing this story due to the boredom COVID lockdown gave me, and I never expected how big the story would grow to be in such a short amount of time (no, literally—it took one night for me to get over 200 reads and a group of extremely supportive and excited comments from people ready to read the next chapter). I was so excited that people were actually reading and enjoying this story, no matter how dark it was.

When I was writing this book, I was in the second semester of my eighth grade year—my final year of middle school. I was only fourteen years old.

Now I'm nearly eighteen, and starting my senior year of high school in three weeks.

And what a ride it's been.

It's been nearly three and-a-half years since I started this book, and it only took my two months to write it. The story was rushed, and the plot was so random, but writing it and interacting with other people in the BNHA fandom was the most fun I had gotten to experience in a long while at the time. If you look at my A/N's from the beginning chapters, you can see that my life was obviously a mess, and that I was in a very dark place.

I've always been in a dark place, but 2020 was just different. I know it was different for everyone else, too.

So, instead of creating a carefully structured plot line, I kinda just ended up going crazy at the end and killing off background characters. I'm all about the angst, you see.

I wrote the sequel to You Are Loved (known as You Are Worthy) to be just as crazy and unhinged. And when I started the third book, You Are Protected, I had planned out a ten book series. I was rushing to get each book out as quickly as I could, but people still loved and enjoyed the story just as much. I rarely ever got any hate comments on the story, and when I did, I just ignored or deleted them and moved on.

But there was something more going on behind the scenes that no one truly knew.

Not even me.

Now, if you've been with me for a while, you'll know that I've always been very open with my mental health struggles. One of the reasons I wrote YAL was as a coping mechanism, and I hoped to pass along the message to people that they aren't alone during COVID—even if the erratic plot made it feel like that wasn't the point.

In early 2021, along with a few other things, I was officially diagnosed with early onset Bipolar Depression (also known as Bipolar II) with mixed features. The main difference between Bipolar I and Bipolar II is that people who have Bipolar I experience Manic Episodes in a different way than those who have Bipolar II.

People with Bipolar II experience more extreme Depressive Episodes than what someone with Bipolar I would go through. Bipolar I comes with more severe Manic Episodes, while people with Bipolar II only experience something called Hypomania. Both Bipolar diagnoses are two completely separate disorders. So, instead experiencing Mania, I (being diagnosed with Bipolar II) have majorly dark Depressive Episodes and go through Hypomania.