Keywords
Coming of age, Creative nonfiction, Creative writing, Depression, Mental, Hearing impaired
Abstract
Mild to Moderately Severe is an episodic memoir of a boy coming of age as a latch-key kid, living with a working single mother and partly raising himself, as a hearing impaired and depressed young adult, learning to navigate the culture with a strategy of faking it, as a nomad with seven mailing addresses before turning ten. It is an examination of accidental and cultivated loneliness, a narrative of a boy and later a man who is too adept at adapting to different environments, a reflection on relationships and popularity and a need for attention and love that clashes with a need to walk through unfamiliar neighborhoods alone. "Mild to moderately severe" is a diagnosed level of my hearing impairment. It is also the level of clinical depression I'm supposed to have been suffering since I was a preteen. It is also an answer to the question, "How was your day?"
Notes
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Graduation Date
2011
Semester
Spring
Advisor
Thaxton, Terry
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
English
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0003749
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0003749
Language
English
Release Date
April 2016
Length of Campus-only Access
5 years
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
Subjects
Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic, Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities
STARS Citation
Valencia, J D., "Mild To Moderately Severe" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1985.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1985