1. I Didn't Write a Book. I Wrote So I Would Not Fade.

 There are books written because someone has a story to tell.

There are books written because someone has mastered a craft.

And then there are books written because, for a little while, writing becomes the only place left to survive.

I Wrote So I Would Not Fade belongs to the third kind.

For a long time, I believed silence was the safest way to exist. I lived quietly, carrying experiences that never truly found words. Living with Major Depressive Disorder, severe PTSD, severe panic disorder, and recurring suicidal thoughts often made my own mind feel like the most difficult place to remain.

So I began writing.

Not because I wanted to become an author.

Not because I dreamed of publishing.

I wrote because every sentence carried a little of the weight that my mind could no longer hold alone.

Some of the poems in this collection are written in strict rhyme and classical form. At the time, I didn't fully understand why. Looking back, I realize they were an attempt to create order while everything inside me felt like chaos. They became carefully built walls around feelings I couldn't yet face directly.

Eventually those walls collapsed.

What remained became this book.

It is not a self-help book, and it does not promise healing. It does not offer easy answers or tidy conclusions. Instead, it tries to tell the truth about what it feels like to live inside trauma, to carry memories that refuse to become memories, and to continue searching for reasons to stay.

One line in the book says:

"Because becoming what you needed does not mean you no longer need it."

I think that sentence explains more about my journey than any biography ever could.

Writing never cured me.

I am still in treatment.

I am still learning.

I am still living with the reality of my condition.

But writing gave me somewhere to remain while I learned how to keep going.

Today, this book exists in English and French, both as an eBook and as a paperback. Seeing it published is something I once imagined only through fiction. In the book, a character named John dreams of standing before people with his first published work in his hands. John is me, and that dream was written long before I believed it could become real.

Now it has.

That doesn't mean every struggle has disappeared. Financial hardship, treatment, and uncertainty remain part of my life. If anything, publishing the book has reminded me that survival doesn't always arrive as a dramatic breakthrough. Sometimes it arrives quietly, one page at a time.

If you decide to read I Wrote So I Would Not Fade, I hope you don't read it looking for perfection.

Read it looking for honesty.

Read it knowing it was written by someone who wasn't standing on the other side of suffering, but writing from within it.

And if, somewhere in these pages, you find a sentence that makes you feel a little less alone, then the words have already done more than I ever hoped they could.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for giving these words a place to exist beyond me.

Thank you for giving my silence a place to land.

If these words felt like home, the rest of the map is in the book.

And if you are able to, supporting my journey helps me afford the medication that keeps my own fractured ember burning.

http://linktr.ee/Jean.Hatoum

I’m not finished surviving out loud. 🕊️



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