On Some Days, I've Killed Myself At Least Twice Before Breakfast

Sometimes, we must kill our vices, our virtues, too on occasion. We are destroyed, blasted into oblivion, and then somehow, we are reborn anew every day. Sometimes, we look and feel exactly the same as the day before, and the day before that. On other days, we are a little misshapen, a little different, a little better or maybe a little worse. This is for those days; when a little worse seems inevitable

"I tried to see myself from different angles; tried to get comfortable with my face, with the space that I took up. I tried to validate that I deserved taking up that space. In this delicate collection of essays, Shiksha Dheda takes on an inspiring level of vulnerability to tenderly showcase the realities of OCD and the ways in which it fractures the self, splinters the relationships between its host and their families and friends, all set within a reality that is conditionally real, if ever that. The OCD, an ever-constant. These essays teach, at their absolute heart's level, that though we may never be fully comfortable with every ailment we're misfortunate enough to know, that we are always worthy of the willingness to bravely try to obtain that comfortability. Always."
-Exodus Oktavia Brownlow, author of I'm Afraid That I Know Too Much About Myself Now, To Go Back To Who I Knew Before, and Oh Lord, Who Will I Be After I've Known All That I Can?

"These essays of precise repetition, honest storytelling of hands, and a vivid portrayal of OCD during the beginning of the pandemic are essays that deserve to be read. Dheda's voice that speaks to mental illness, a pet's death, and internal snowglobes is a voice that will stay with you."
--Maya Williams, Author of Judas & Suicide and Refused a Second Date

"Shiksha Dheda's On Some Days, I've Killed Myself at Least Twice Before Breakfast is one of the most vulnerable prose collections I've ever read. She pulls us headfirst into her life with OCD. Unblinking, unyielding. This is what I have lost, she tells us. This is what I want and cannot have. Beautiful and sad. Immediate and sensory-rich. Dheda's short essays take the personal and open it to the universe."
- Hannah Grieco, editor of Already Gone and And If That Mockingbird Don't Sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative