So Not Me
SO NOT ME – is for you if you’ve ever felt lost, broken or if you’re tired of living like you’re just existing.
It’s the story of what it’s like to die inside and yet somehow survive, when your heart just won’t stop beating and the life growing inside you is all that keeps you alive.
Written from the heart and infused with the wisdom of lived experience, Tracy Martin’s debut novel is a story of heartbreak, resilience, of the mysteries that linger between this life and the next, and ultimately of the courage it takes to find your soul in any circumstance.
So Not Me - the story
One day you’re getting ready to celebrate the end of school. The next you wake up strapped to a Stryker frame bed, in the kind of agony reserved for hell. Not so much a twist of fate, a severing. You are eighteen years old, your boyfriend is dead and there are other secrets yet to discover. Your life, just like your spinal cord has been fractured in two.
You have to make a choice. Do you let yourself die, or do you somehow find a way to live?
Your body may be different but your life force demands you survive on your own terms.
Raw and unflinching, this is both Faye and Rob’s story, set in rural Ireland in the late 1980’s. A story of fractured lives, shattered dreams, redemption and hope. It will leave you questioning if the veil between life and death actually does exist.
what can this book do for you?
It can help you to….
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Rewrite the next chapter of your life story, to one that you truly love.
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Re-evaluate your own life and appreciate everything you take for granted.
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Understand the challenges of having a spinal cord injury/disability and the impact it can leave both on the mind and on the body.
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Feel ready to let go of old limiting beliefs that have been holding you back and say yes to life.
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Learn to tune in and trust in the voice of your higher self.
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Understand that letting go can be the key to finally moving on.
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Break through the barrier of keeping yourself small and instead step into living with more joy.
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Reframe that story you’ve been carrying quietly inside for so long.
The Author - Tracy Martin
Tracy has been dealing with paraplegia and has been a full-time wheelchair user for the past 36 years due to a car accident in 1989. So Not Me is based on the heart of her own life experiences, the kind of book she wishes she’d read all those years ago when she tried to make sense of her world as she lay on a Stryker frame bed with a 7lb weight hanging from calipers screwed into her skull. The medical attempt to piece her back together again.
She’s not only a bit of an enigma, but also a rolling stone, having lived in Co Monaghan, Co Wicklow and Co Galway over the years. These days she finds herself back at her roots in her home county again.
In 2015 she moved to Madrid for 5 years, alone with no knowledge of the Spanish language.That’s the kind of woman Tracy is. Adventure resides within her. It had to, as does creativity.
She paints with both words and oils. Her paintings never turn out as they are supposed to, but instead evolve to accommodate her mistakes.
Just like life, or at least, that’s what she tells herself, anyhow.
A Message From The Author
I’ve been sitting on this story for way too long, nearly as long as I’ve been sitting in my wheelchair actually. To be honest, it’s been filed away on my laptop for almost five years now, waiting for me to finally release my grip and let it out into the ether for everyone or no one to see. Holding onto it has done my body no favours, I blatantly ignored the whispers, even the screams as my body protested noisily. Chronic pain has been not only my constant companion of late but it’s also taught me a lot about myself and life in general it seems. It’s changed me.
What I now understand is that my body has never betrayed me. It was speaking the truth—the truth I didn’t yet have words for, couldn’t articulate or that I couldn’t bear to see. The language of a nervous system shaped in the absence of safety. The echo of un-metabolized grief and suppressed emotions crying out for attention. The way the body keeps the score when no one else is keeping track. So Not Me has been a huge part of my healing journey.
I’ve had quite the life. Already orphaned at the age of 15 , paraplegia was a word I hadn’t stumbled upon until age 18. It did seem easier to swallow at the time though than, ‘You probably won’t ever walk again’. I believed I was invincible, Teflon coated, things ricocheted off me. Then I found myself staring at a hospital ceiling, totally reliant on strangers to wash my ‘private parts’ and to keep my body functioning. Dignity was out the window.
There was more to come when the sentence, ‘Oh and of course, you already know that you’re about 8 weeks pregnant’, was delivered nonchalantly. Another body blow that I’d been in denial about until that moment. I’d learned to bury things, to run from them. Easier said than done when your legs won’t move.
The dream of holding our unborn baby dissolved too in the weeks that followed. Another domino to fall. My body was already numb, the rest of me then joined it in sympathy. It felt so much easier for me to go than to choose to stay. That’s what happens when your heart is ripped asunder and it seems like almost everyone you love has been taken away. There’s only so much trauma you can absorb and bury as you grieve for all that you’ve lost, for the person you thought you were, and for the future you felt you were just about to have.
This story has not only lived in my bones, it’s coagulated in my veins for all these years. You don’t have the above kind of life without having to dig deep in the hope of stumbling across some form of bigger picture, even if it has taken me more than 35 years to haphazardly piece the jagged shards of the mosaic of it together.
I can only hope that I’ve taken the raw material of my life and of my world and shaped it into something authentic and more beautiful, not just for me, but for all of you who take the time to read this book. The thing is, I believe that trauma doesn’t just go away, it surfaces when the time is right for it to be transmuted into hope and love. With the support of my phenomenal editor, Suzanne Power, and through the power of story, I trust and believe that’s what we’ve done together.
Through the darkest moments, I’ve learned that grace isn’t about forgetting or pretending that the pain didn’t happen. It’s about embracing those moments with compassion-for myself, for others and for the journey that shaped me into the woman I’ve become -to somehow find a way to allow healing to alchemize all the pain into something raw and transformative.
Somewhere in the shadows, grace waits patiently.
That was to be our baby’s name, I chose it, while lying strapped to a Stryker frame bed, being drip fed Panadol and limited information, paralyzed not only by a spinal cord injury, but also by fear itself.
Faye and Rob, sometimes the hardest part is letting go.
You see, I’ve learned that real life sometimes can read stranger than fiction.
Much love to you on the path you choose always,
Tracy.
A Message From The Author
A Message From
The Author
I’ve been sitting on this story for way too long, nearly as long as I’ve been sitting in my wheelchair actually. To be honest, it’s been filed away on my laptop for almost five years now, waiting for me to finally release my grip and let it out into the ether for everyone or no one to see. Holding onto it has done my body no favours as I ignored the whispers, even the screams as my body protested noisily. Chronic pain has been a great teacher.
Already an orphan at the age of 15 , paraplegia was a word I’d never stumbled upon until age 18 but it seemed easier to swallow at the time than the words, ‘You probably won’t walk again’. Like so many others, who one day think they’re invincible, I found myself suddenly staring at a hospital ceiling, totally reliant on strangers to wash my ‘private parts’ and to keep my body functioning. There was more to come when the sentence, ‘Oh and of course, you already know that you’re about 8 weeks pregnant’, was delivered nonchalantly. Another body blow that I’d been in denial about until that moment.
That gift was torn from me too though in the weeks that followed. My body was numb, the rest of me then joined it in sympathy. It felt so much easier for me to go than to choose to stay. That’s what happens when your heart is ripped asunder and it seems like everyone you love has been taken away. There’s only so much trauma you can absorb and bury as you grieve for all that you’ve lost and for the person you once thought you’d become.
This story has not only lived in my bones, it’s coagulated in my veins. That’s why ‘So Not Me’ was born. You don’t have the above kind of life without having to dig deep in the hope of stumbling across some form of bigger picture, even if it has taken me more than 35 years to haphazardly piece the jagged shards of the mosaic together.
I hope that I’ve taken the raw material of my life and of my world and shaped it into something truer and more beautiful, not just for me, but for all of you who choose to read this book. The thing is, I believe that trauma doesn’t just go away, it surfaces when the time is right for it to be transmuted into hope and love. With the help of my phenomenal editor, Suzanne Power, I trust and believe that’s what we’ve done.
I really hope you agree and would really appreciate if you’d take the time to leave a review. It would mean a lot. Somewhere in the shadows, grace waits patiently.
Social Proof
It’s never too late to Change The Ending Of Your Story.
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What if the darkest Night of your soul was actually an invitation to truly live?
So Not Me is not just the story of a broken body, it is the story of the making of a greater entirety.
I hope that somehow this book challenges you to rewrite that part of your story you know you’ve outgrown too.
What are you waiting for?
