Lately, I have been wondering about the experiences that have formed the foundation of who I am today. One string of memories in particular has pushed me towards storytelling, specifically post-apocalyptic fiction novels more than any other.
To understand the significance of this, I will first state that my parents have been divorced for over a decade now. Maybe one day, I will discuss why this happened and how it has impacted me and my storytelling, but because I lived with my mom, I only got to see my dad on Saturdays.
For me these days became holy to me. I loved and idolized my father at that time in my life more than any other person, and getting to play sports with him on the weekends and travel around to different hikes on Long Island was a welcome reprieve from school, which was an environment that I have always found myself feeling isolated in, but especially so in elementary school.
In short, my dad was and is one of the most likeable and loving people I have met. But he from day one has been the chill parent, if you know what I mean.
He introduced me and my brother to urban exploration at the age of 8 years old. And the one place we always found ourselves going back to was the abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center (I will say that my dad didn’t take us inside the abandoned structures at this age, but only a few short years later my brother and I started venturing inside them on our own).
The psychiatric center consisted of dozens of decaying buildings, thousands of graffiti installments, and hundreds of stray cats that roam the grounds. It definitely was not the safest place on Earth (especially because there was asbestos in nearly all the buildings) but it was the one thing that we could all do on a weekend that both my brother and I enjoyed (my brother is 10 months younger than me and has never been a fan of sports).
Quickly, these dark, scary environments became a place that I associated with safety. They were places that I could explore with my dad on weekends, letting my imagination run wild, while me and my brother both enjoyed every second. Places that people would normally associate with drug use and paranormal activity became filled with smiling faces and jokes in my mind.
This had two effects on me. For one, it has given me a passion for urban exploration that I suspect will never leave me, and has led to me exploring abandoned casino boats, naval hospitals, other psychiatric centers, and even an abandoned scientific research lab trying to cure ebola.
But it also infused me with experiences that have inspired my stories more than any other.
My first book ideas came to me at Kings Park, and inside those buildings and while walking around the urban decay, I would excitedly explain to my dad the different horror novels I envisioned. It gave me comfort in dark, dreary environments, which has led to my love for writing and reading dystopian novels (the video game at the core of Deadwave even follows Sam as he ventures through virtual worlds, each of them featuring new abandoned structures inspired by ones I have actually been to).
Looking back roughly ten years ago, when my dad first asked me to go to a psychiatric hospital, I of course said yes because at that age my dad could have asked me to go anywhere, and as long as he was there I would have gone.
But now that nearly a decade of time has passed, the impact that doing something that was certainly out of my comfort zone has had on my life has been more important than I could have ever imagined.
Going to that mental hospital has led to me becoming more confident, has brought me and my brother closer together at a time when we felt more distant from each other than ever, and has infused me with rich experiences that I will be able to share fictional and nonfiction stories from for the rest of my life, specifically dystopian stories.
I will make it clear that I am not recommending you go explore an abandoned mental hospital tomorrow, but I’m always a supporter of people expanding their boundaries and garnering new experiences both big and small.
So now that I have shared a memory that has led me to loving dystopia, what memory have you had that seemed insignificant at the time, but looking back has shaped who you are today?
Email me at mevansinked@gmail.com and I’ll be sure to get back to you :).