Summary

The author reflects on the personal transformation and vulnerability experienced through the process of writing a memoir, revealing the complexities of self-examination and the challenges of sharing one's story.

Abstract

The author delves into the trepidation and self-doubt that accompany the act of writing, particularly when the subject is one's own life. Writing a memoir proves to be an especially daunting task, as it involves not just storytelling but also self-revelation. The author describes the evolution of their writing, from private musings to a more public and professional endeavor, influenced by their work as a psychologist. Through this journey, they recognize the power of narrative in understanding and reshaping one's own story. The memoir-writing process is likened to a confessional, an icy shower, and a therapeutic journey, each metaphor underscoring the raw exposure and catharsis involved. The author grapples with the realization that their life story, with its peaks and valleys, is not a linear narrative but a multifaceted tapestry that defies simple categorization. The vulnerability of sharing personal struggles, such as the author's battle with depression, is juxtaposed with the public's reception and the personal growth that comes from articulating one's experiences. Ultimately, the author acknowledges the discomfort of exposing their innermost self while affirming the truth of their narrative and the ongoing nature of their life story.

Opinions

Writing, especially a memoir, is akin to a high-wire act, fraught with uncertainty and self-doubt.
The author initially considered their writing a private matter, not recognizing it as a formal skill until acknowledged by others.
Memoir writing is a process of self-discovery, requiring both foolishness and wisdom, and the connections made between life events give rise to its layers.
The author is drawn to memoirs that focus on overcoming personal struggles rather than those that glorify triumph without acknowledging the journey.
Sharing one's story publicly invites a level of intimacy and connection from readers that can be overwhelming and feels exposing.
The author feels a sense of fraudulence due to the public perception of having conquered depression, which contrasts with the ongoing personal struggle they experience.
There is an acknowledgment that life stories do not have a definitive end and that the act of writing captures only a snapshot of one's truth.
Writing memoirs necessitates setting boundaries about what to share, and the author accepts that their stories are imperfect representations of their experiences.

I Never Knew the Vulnerability in Writing Until I Wrote a Memoir

The process of writing changed me and my story: A memoir of my memoirs

Just putting words on a piece of paper has an element of a high wire act for me. The same questions haunt me. Does it make any sense? Is it interesting enough? Do I have the words? Will anyone read this crap?

Memoirs are harder than we think

But that’s nothing compared to writing a memoir. Because I’m not writing just anything on a piece of paper. I’m writing ME. And there’s a high likelihood that I know much more about the “subjects” I cover, than I do about myself.

There’s the adage, “Write what you know.” With some personal writing, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it nailed. Other times, I don’t have a clue. It’s an undertaking that demands foolishness or wisdom. I never know which.

Things happen. Interesting things. Cool things. I have thoughts that maybe other people would like to read them. And then awful things happen. I feel the insistent pull to write, but only for myself.

In that way, writing memoirs is like taking a trip to the confessional, an icy shower, or a sleep stocked with reassuring dreams.

For years, that was my style. I didn’t even think of it as “writing,” per se. The closest training I received was in Penmanship, and that never seemed to rub off.

But are they for me?

Unless you were a person “of note,” who did you think you were, wasting words on yourself?

So, it was completely private for me, until college when I was called after class. The professor asked where I’d gotten my writing training.

I looked at him blankly. It was as automatic as flailing about when someone threw you into a pool.

“God,” I told him.

I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, but I figured I’d blame the “source.” I was embarrassed.

I didn't have the words for my words.

College and then graduate school ripped me away from what one nun called, my “self-indulgent” writing.

It was all data, analysis, clinical formulations and theory. There was a correct way and a wrong way to write everything.

Our stories

There was nothing natural about it, until I was entrusted with a few unsuspecting patients and dove into psychotherapy —which is the work of stories — the pains, the joys, the entwining of intense relationships.

My job was to tell the stories back to my patients, prodding deeper for explanations and offering different perspectives. I was hooked. As we worked together, my patients and I enlarged their stories over weeks and months.

It was one-sided.

They didn’t get my stories, even though sometimes they were similar. My job was to lock my own stories away for the hour, to be a “blank screen.”

The layers of lives

The changing “memoirs” they shared with me became intimate and layered. The estrangement from a parent became a history of abuse, became fears of repetition, became redemptive with love.

And I began to read memoirs. Dickens’ beginning of the fictional David Copperfield always stayed with me about narrating a memoir. In real life, “Chapter 1 “I am born…” did not bode well for a personal essay.

The layers in memoirs arise from making connections, in trying different lenses and coming up with different perspectives. I wasn't so interested in the “conquering hero” narrative.

I was drawn to the poor Schmucks who lived under their personal rain clouds, until they finally learned they could use an umbrella.

It’s a lot easier to write memoirs if “stuff” happens to you. In my case, there are small miracles and great relationships, with a generous helping of crap. In the midst of it all, some mad woman pops up occasionally with silly, ridiculous stories she wishes could be withdrawn instantly.

The course of our lives

Our lives aren’t smooth, linear extensions from birth. There are peaks and valleys that make them juicy, or onerous, or satisfying, or confounding. It makes a difference in our writing if look at them from the right, left, or upside down. If we start at the beginning or plop ourselves down in the middle.

What happens to us is the raw material. Maybe some pieces are interesting on their own. But they only become memoirs in the unique perspectives, in wisdom and idiocy, in the undercurrents we feel drawn to share with total strangers.

But when we think about sharing our stories, it’s not always as easy as just telling the tale.

The vulnerability of sharing yourself

My first memoir was the story of a depression so mean it almost killed me. Spoiler alert: The next few sentences are sort of “braggy,” but they are in the service of a greater point.

Someone sent me to an agent, who took the book proposal to auction. Three big houses bid, and it sold for a ton of money.

The reviews were astounding. The media coverage was amazing. (My favorite was from a photographer with PEOPLE magazine who said, “You are the most boring family I have ever had to photograph.”)

My writing idol, Anne Lamott wrote, “one of my favorite books in a long time…” I slept with it under my pillow.

This is more than I bargained for

But then came the book tour. I felt like my cover had been blown. Meeting people, hearing what my book meant to them, having them talk to me with an unexpected intimacy, using my husband and daughter’s first names…

I wanted to run away, back to my own little desk where I feel private and safe.

They identified with me- correctly or incorrectly. They told me sad, sad stories. I was overwhelmed by their connection with me on the basis of our shared suffering on some pieces of paper.

They acted like they knew me.

But they didn't know me. They knew the slice of me that I had put into language.

I felt like a fraud. Exposed. Cheap. For every sentence I had written, I had held another back. In writing about my own mental illness, all the “PR and hype” was that I had “conquered depression.” That inspired people.

But it was a lie. Depression almost vanquished me. I had to crawl to safety, and still had the cuts and bruises to show for it.

And the worst part, the part that kept me up most nights, was that it probably wasn’t over. As a psychologist, I knew that the rate of recurrence within several years was high.

I had conquered nothing. The greatest nightmare of my life would likely return. I would become another 10-car pileup. A cautionary tale.

But it was also true

The experience, the moment-to-moment agony was totally real. I captured the essence of hell, and I could stand by it. The rugged recovery was arduous, but the language couldn’t have been truer.

I had to separate my “self” from my experience. It wasn’t easy, but I get better at it. I had to make peace with the fact that just as I wrote each sentence, it became extinct. It was not my job to color in the lines, or produce something that had a beginning, a middle, and a definitive end.

I’m not over, till I’m over.

My stories are stops and starts. They are imperfect stabs at a “truth” that exists only in my mind. And that’s OK.

I had sworn I would never write about myself again. But that changed quickly.

Writing memoirs

Writing memoirs is about boundaries. What you tell and what you don’t. How your experience could be shining and strong and brilliant. But even your trials can be compelling and magnetic.

And people will seek them out because they are hungry for the connection, for the words that inspire, horrify, celebrate define, and inform the life of one writer, who will live with the question,

“How can I take this experience that is so vivid to me and use the fluidity of language to “connect,” so that a reader will pick up our humble effort a find meaning in it?”