Did you miss out on this campaign? No problem! You can still pre-order The Monster Under the Bed: Sex, Depression, and the Conversations We Aren't Having from Amazon, Powells, Indiebound, Indigo, and more!
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Overview
My first bookThe Monster Under the Bed: Sex, Depression, and the Conversations We Aren't Having, is coming out in March. I am planning a book tour to promote the book and help curate stigma-busting conversations on both the impact of depression and its treatments on sexuality and relationships and how to navigate that impact.
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That's me!
I am JoEllen Notte, a writer, speaker, sex educator, and mental health advocate. Since 2012 I have written about sex, mental health, and how none of us are broken on my site The Redhead Bedhead as well as for The BBC, Glamour, Bitch Media, Metro, OC87 Recovery Diaries, PsychCentral, Kinkly and more.
I've spoken at Clark College, University of Chicago, University of Tennessee, Woodhull's Sexual Freedom Summit, the Guelph Sexuality Conference, ConvergeCon, and the Playground Conference. Additionally, I've popped up on a bunch of podcasts and in articles on fun sites like Nylon, Playboy, Vice, Mashable and more,
I am a sex educator certified through Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts Sexuality Education Certification Series and I always say I am happiest and most effective when writing and speaking on behalf of quiet people who have sex.
In 2014 I launched a series of surveys and interviews that have culminated in my book The Monster Under the Bed: Sex, Depression, and the Conversations We Aren't Having
I am not a doctor or a therapist. I am a writer and sex educator and I am committed to challenging stigma, offering resources, and helping folks feel seen, heard, and supported.
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A book about sex and depression? Really? Yup!
Almost everyone has had some interaction with depression. Whether it’s you, a family member, a friend, or a partner who is affected, depression has the potential to touch us all. Even so, many of us don’t know how to handle depression becoming part of our love lives and it can quickly become a monster under our beds.
From “you have to love yourself first,” to “don’t stick it in the crazy,” to dead silence, popular responses to the topic leave much to be desired. But you’re not alone and you can have successful relationships and satisfying sex with depression.
The Monster Under the Bed will help you understand how sexual function is affected by depression and what keeps us from effectively addressing it. Heavily informed by my research, including surveys of over 1,000 people and interviews with close to 200, this is the first book of its kind.
With practical tips and real-life examples, this is both a guidebook for people with depression and the people who love them, and a reference tool for mental health professionals.
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Is this campaign funding book production? No!
My publisher, Thorntree Press, is already covering the costs for creating the book. It will be available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook regardless of the success of this campaign.
So why am I raising funds?
To fund my book tour!
I am based in the Pacific Northwest so obviously I'll be bringing the book to Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. I'm also planning on hitting Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Tucson, and Albuquerque.
Additionally, with my East Coast roots (what's up Jersey?!), I am hoping to make it over to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, the Washington DC area, and possibly (hopefully!) points further south like Asheville and Atlanta. Also, Toronto, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis at some point... it's a lot of traveling.
This fundraising campaign is intended to help cover flights, gas, tolls, room and board, and probably a lot of coffee.
Plus, wherever I go and whatever I do, I also need keep my rent paid, and make sure my dog (check out the link, he's REALLY cute) has both companionship and kibble while I'm on the road.
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So, why me and why this book?
When I became a sex writer in 2012 I imagined that my new career would involve writing about orgasms, feeling sexy, and pretty much keeping the JoEllen who copes with depression carefully tucked away. But depression doesn’t work that way. It does not care what you have decided, and it will come back when it sees fit. That’s what happened to me and then, when I wrote about antidepressants taking away my ability to orgasm, I unexpectedly started down the path that would ultimately lead to The Monster Under the Bed.
The response to that first piece, and all of my subsequent writing about the subject, showed me that there are so many people struggling with the impact of depression on their sex lives and feeling unable to talk about it. People who feel dismissed by doctors, shamed by society, and silenced by the simple fact that neither sex nor mental health are socially acceptable conversation topics.
The common thread in most of the messages I've received over the years is that people feel unheard, unseen, broken, and alone. The Monster Under the Bed was born out of a desire to give those people voices, to help them feel seen and heard, to show them that they—and you—are not alone and that none of us are broken.
Having struggled for years with depression and its impact on my sex life and relationships, The Monster Under the Bed is the book I wanted to read but it didn’t exist. So, I wrote it and now I want to bring it to as many people as I can.
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That's me! 
