A Western New York author’s newest book offers a fictional account of a mental health counselor and several of her patients. It’s raising money to support peer-to-peer opportunities for those in the field, and next year the author is hitting the road to support programs in several states.
Christina Abt has written numerous novels, children’s books, and has contributed stories to the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. Her latest novel, The Secret Sand Circle, portrays characters who have endured various traumas.
“One thing I think is really important for people to understand is that abuse is more than just physical or mental or sexual,” Abt said in a recent conversation with Buffalo Toronto Public Radio. “There is financial abuse. There's taunting abuse. Now with the internet. There's so many things, so many ways that we experience trauma in our lives these days.”
But how could Abt cover a topic that’s been done by so many authors, and stand out? She asked herself what might she able to say about mental health?
“In thinking about it the idea became, I wanted you to meet a counselor who was excellent at what she did,” she replied. “Accomplished, but who also stepped outside the lines, colored outside the boundaries, not in a way that threatened her professional standing, but in a way that focused on her patients first.”
The narrative shifts between “then” and “now,” helping to reveal the individual patients’ stories while unveiling that of the counselor herself.
Without giving away the plot, it hints that even the helpers need to be helped. That is the point of the benefit behind Abt’s planned tour in 2026. Beginning in February, she’ll bring her book to stops in several states, where she’ll discuss mental health and the need for peer-to-peer counseling.
She’s working in partnership with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI. The executive director of NAMI Buffalo and Western New York is Jeffrey Pirrone. He says just as Abt sought to determine what voice she had, all of us have that voice.
“There are so few of us, especially in today's society, that exist isolated from mental illness. All of us know somebody, loves somebody or personally experience mental illness ourselves,” Pirrone said. “There is a stigma around mental illness. We can't talk about it like we talk about physical health. Mental health is something that is sort of pushed under the carpet.”
He suggested that during the COVID lockdown, younger people were starting to talk more about it.
“Really, the only way to reduce that stigma and to see people for their true, authentic selves is by sharing stories. You can share your own story. You can share your story of your recovery. You can share the story of your pain, but share it openly and honestly,” Pirrone said.
Often times, Pirrone and Abt agree, it’s the strongest person in a unit who may be struggling. It could be a parent. It could even be a mental health professional. Abt hopes her book, and the pending tour, help raise awareness and support for those professionals.
“For example, when the Tops shootings happened, some of the county counselors were over in that Jefferson Avenue neighborhood for two months, staying with the community to try to help them. Yet, at the end of that two months, and all that those counselors took on in pain and terror, and tragedy, they went back to their desks and went to work with all that still within them,” Abt said.
Specific dates and locations have not yet been released, but Abt says she will find locations where there are NAMI programs to be supported.
“When I speak, it's not going to be like Bill Gates shows up and there's a million people who are buying the book. But we're not only going to raise money to some extent, we're going to raise awareness,” she said.
